![\"633291586\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2022\/GettyImages-633291586f.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1761939541007.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIn honour of Gary Player\u2019s 90th birthday, I went back into the Golf Digest archives to find some tips the rest of us can learn from.<\/p>\n
Golf Digest and Gary Player have been a bit of a match made in heaven over the years. He was a frequent guest in the instruction pages of the magazine during his prime in the 1960s and 1970s, and an outspoken voice in his later years. Like this spicy exchange from a 1995 Golf Digest interview:<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say 70 percent of [golf swing information] is rubbish. I\u2019ve spoken to the top players and they all say they can\u2019t believe a lot of the methods that are being taught. For me, the best way to teach yourself is by trial and error. Ben Hogan once said if you hit a million balls you\u2019ll find out. And that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do. You\u2019ve got to go and beat balls. You\u2019ve got to practise like an animal. Learn what suits you and use it to play in a tournament. Then when things are tough you\u2019ve got something to fall back on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps my favourite bit of Player advice, though, was a chipping tip from his tee-to-green game improvement series from 1961. In it, Player reveals the formula he uses for low-stress up and downs. He says that whenever possible, Player attempts to hit the same chip shot:<\/p>\n
Weight forward, ball position back
\nPutting stroke motion with less wrist action
\nLand the ball on the fringe, or one yard onto the green<\/p>\n
(You can learn more about this basic chipping motion right here)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[R&A Championships]<\/p>\n
Player says he doesn\u2019t vary his chipping motion, but rather his club selection using this chart, and the following method:<\/p>\n
Select a spot (or hole) on a flat green 20 yards away
\nHit five balls with four different clubs of your choice to that spot
\nEstimate where the ball landed
\nWalk off the distance to that spot
\nNext, walk off the distance from where the ball landed to where it finished
\nRepeat this process with a spot on a flat green 10 yards away<\/p>\n
Quick note is that Player says he uses a 4-iron through 8-iron for this, but you can use whatever four clubs you want.<\/p>\n
![\"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2022\/Gary.jpg\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2022\/Gary.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1761939534946.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
This process will tell you helpful stuff, for example:<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve got a 20-yard chip shot. You hit your 6-iron and measured that it flew about five yards and rolled about 15 yards. Now you know that your 6-iron chip shot carries about five yards and rolls about 75 percent of the way.<\/p>\n
But if you try that same shot with your 9-iron, you may find it carries 10 yards and rolls the other 10, a 50-50 fly-roll percentage.<\/p>\n
Again, Player\u2019s idea is that you don\u2019t have to change your chipping motion \u2013 that can stay simple \u2013 but you give yourself different options with the different clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople must think I\u2019m a little off pacing from the ball to the hole and then back again, but it does help me,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In honour of Gary Player\u2019s 90th birthday, I went back into the Golf Digest archives to find some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-257276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}