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Understanding Loft, Carry, and Roll In Part I of the Chipping Series, we established a simple way to think about every chip shot: CARRY → LAND → ROLL We also introduced a decision-making process that happens before we ever swing the club: READ → PLAN → CHOOSE → EXECUTE Now it is time to focus on that third step: CHOOSE. One of the most common habits I see around the green is a golfer automatically reaching for the same club every time. For many players, that means grabbing a

Understanding the Shot Before Learning the Technique We have looked at the numbers. We have seen how often golfers at different handicap levels get up and down, how proximity changes as skill level improves, and just how difficult the short game can be, even for very good players. Now it is time to start building our chipping game. Before we talk about ball position, stance, shaft lean, bounce, low point, club selection, or technique, I want to begin with a much simpler quest

Your Only Connection with the Golf Club Before we continue with the Chipping Series, I want to take a brief detour and discuss one of the most fundamental parts of the golf swing: how to hold the golf club. We have already talked about reading the shot, choosing a landing spot, selecting a club, and beginning to build our chipping setup. But before we go much further, there is an important question we need to answer: How should we actually hold the golf club? The grip is our

Chipping by the Numbers Before moving into The Chipping Series, Part I, I would like to take a closer look at some PGA TOUR and amateur short-game statistics. Just as we discovered in the Putting Series, our expectations are not always consistent with reality. We watch PGA TOUR players hit delicate chips that stop beside the hole, see highlights of incredible hole-outs, and sometimes walk onto the golf course expecting ourselves to do something similar. The statistics tell a

Turning Missed Greens Into Opportunities After spending the Putting Series looking closely at what happens on the green, it seems only natural to move a few yards away from it. Welcome to The Chipping Series. I chose chipping as the next series because it is one of the most important scoring skills in golf, but it is also one of the areas where I see golfers make the game much more difficult than it needs to be. A missed green does not have to mean a big number. In many situa

Putting It All Together: From the Putter in Your Hands to the Ball in the Hole Over the course of the Lambert Golf Academy Putting Series, we have spent a lot of time talking about one club: the putter. There is a reason for that. Putting may appear to be one of the simplest motions in golf, but becoming a good putter requires much more than simply swinging the putter back and forth. Equipment, setup, stroke, contact, distance control, green reading, practice, confidence, and

When to Use Your Putter From Off the Green Sometimes Your Best Chip Is Not a Chip One of the first decisions golfers face around the green is not how to hit the shot. It is which shot gives me the greatest chance of getting the ball close to the hole? For many amateur golfers, the automatic answer is to reach for a wedge. I do not think it always should be. If there is nothing between the golf ball and the hole that requires you to put the ball into the air, the putter should

Make Practice Fun, Competitive, and Meaningful Have you ever imagined putting to win the Masters, The Open, the U.S. Open, THE PLAYERS, and/or the PGA Championship? Maybe it is a six foot putt on the 18th green at Augusta National, or a ten footer to win the U.S. Open. We have all stood over a putt and imagined that moment. That is part of what makes putting games so much fun. They give us an opportunity to turn ordinary practice into competition, create a little pressure, an

Putting Drills That Work How to improve start direction, center contact, distance control, green reading, and putting performance You walk onto the practice putting green with six golf balls. You find a hole. You drop all six balls in roughly the same spot and start putting. You miss the first one. The second one gets a little closer. You make the third. Then you make the fourth because, by now, you know exactly what the putt does. After 20 or 30 minutes, you feel like you pu

Reading Greens With Your Feet: What Amateur Golfers Can Learn From Tour Players Why golfers straddle the putting line, what those fingers mean, and how learning to feel slope can help you become a better green reader. If you watch professional golf, you have probably seen it. A player walks onto the green, studies the putt, and then does something that may look a little unusual. They stand with one foot on each side of the putting line. They pause. They move to another locati

We greatly appreciate your continued support and your willingness to help tell the story of this incredible program. Every time PGA HOPE is shared with the community, we have another opportunity to reach an active-duty service member or Veteran who may not know that this program is available to them. PGA HOPE is about so much more than golf. It is about bringing Veterans together, building relationships, creating community, and introducing the game in a welcoming and supporti

We greatly appreciate your continued support and your willingness to help tell the story of this incredible program. Every time PGA HOPE is shared with the community, we have another opportunity to reach an active-duty service member or Veteran who may not know that this program is available to them. PGA HOPE is about so much more than golf. It is about bringing Veterans together, building relationships, creating community, and introducing the game in a welcoming and supporti

See the Slope, Control the Speed, and Trust the Line Reading greens is not simply about determining how much a putt will break. Good green reading combines slope, speed, starting line, and confidence. We have spent a lot of time talking about putting. We have built the setup. We have fit the putter to the golfer. We have discussed different putting grips. We have trained the stroke. We have worked on distance control. Now we have to answer one of the most important questions

Which Grip Is Right for You? Understanding the conventional grip, lead hand low, the Claw, Pencil, Prayer, and Arm Lock grips and how to determine which one works for your putting stroke. If you spend enough time around a practice putting green, you are going to see golfers holding the putter in all kinds of different ways. Some golfers use a traditional grip. Some putt with their left hand low. Others use the Claw, Pencil, Prayer, or Arm Lock style. Watch professional golf o

FALL REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN I am excited to announce two upcoming PGA HOPE programs for Veterans and Active Duty Military in Southeast Louisiana this fall. PGA HOPE at TPC Louisiana - Begins Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at 9:00 AM. Please register at https://www.pga.com/things-to-do/events/pga-hope-session-581978. PGA HOPE at Bayou Oaks at City Park - Begins Saturday, September 19, 2026. Please register at https://www.pga.com/things-to-do/events/pga-hope-session-497014.

Fit the putter. Build the setup. Train the stroke. Control the distance. Make more putts. In our previous discussion about putter fitting, we established an important principle: The golfer should not have to fit the putter. The putter should fit the golfer. We started with posture, natural arm hang, eye position, ball position, distance from the ball, and the relationship between the forearms and putter shaft. Once we establish a comfortable and repeatable setup, we can deter

Move Better, Swing Better, Play Better When golfers think about improving their game, we usually think about the golf swing. We work on our grip. We change our setup. We practice our takeaway, improve our impact position, work on our short game, and spend time trying to hit the ball farther and straighter. All of those things are important. But there is another part of golf improvement that I think we sometimes overlook: How well can your body actually move? You can understan

One of the questions my students ask me all the time is: “How tight should I hold the golf club?” It sounds like a simple question. But I do not think there is one simple answer. We can talk about grip pressure on a scale from 1 to 10. We can say that 1 is barely holding onto the club and 10 is squeezing it as hard as possible. You will hear instructors recommend different numbers on that scale, and those numbers can certainly provide a useful starting point. But there is a p

Putting Statistics When golfers think about practicing, the driving range often gets most of the attention. We want to hit the driver farther, strike our irons better, and improve the golf swing. In my experience teaching amateur golfers, putting often receives far less deliberate practice. A golfer may spend an hour hitting balls on the range and then roll a few putts before heading to the first tee. Yet putting is one of the areas of the game where an amateur golfer has a r

Why I Chose to Start With the Putter When golfers talk about improving their game, the conversation often begins with the golf swing. How do I hit my driver farther? How do I hit my irons more consistently? How do I stop slicing the golf ball? How do I create more clubhead speed? Those are important questions, and they are certainly areas of the game worth improving. But when I thought about creating an instructional series for Lambert Golf Academy, I wanted to begin somewher