Padraig Harrington How Choose the Right Club Around the Green (EVERY TIME)

Padraig Harrington explains how to make the right club selection around the green for every type of shot, how to use the slope of the green to your advantage and why it’s not important to try and get every chip or pitch to a tap-in range.

We’re back with Podrick Harrington. When you won the 2007 Open Championship, you were number one in scrambling up and down 76% of the time for the week. Fantastic. Uh that would involve club selection. Uh so we talked about the basic. Let’s talk about club selection now. Where to land the ball, how to see the shot. Yeah. On once you’ve become confident at your basic chip shot, most amateurs will ask me, “Well, what club should I be playing? How do I play a chip and run? And where should I be landing it?” Well, straightforward when it comes to what club you’re going to be playing. Essentially, I know this is a rule of thumb. Basically, I chip a nine iron one third of the way and it runs 2/3. I chip an 8 iron a quarter of the way and it runs 3/4. I chip a pitching wedge two- fifths and it runs 3-5ths. On a basic green, I chip a sand wedge halfway, a lob wedge 2/3 of the way. That gives me a rule of thumb on a flat green normal so that I’m not doing something silly when I’m under pressure. Okay? Obviously, it changes when the greens get firmer and faster, but as a basic rule of thumb, a nine iron one/ird of the way in the air, 2/3 of the way running. Okay. Outside of that, then we’re essentially trying to pick a spot to land it on. I will always say here we are. We’ve got eight yards of fringe and five yards of green. For an amateur, if you can use your putter, always use your putter. So, my first choice, and you’ll see me do this in tournaments under pressure especially, I will take the putter out. But there’s one difference between me and amateurs. I’ll have practiced this in my practice rounds so that I understand how much drag there’s going to be on the fringe. Now, we all realize the first couple of feet, like if you’ve only got, say, six feet of fringe and you’re hitting a long put, the ball’s going to be going too fast through through that. So, it’s not going to make any difference. But here, we’ve got eight yards of fringe. So, I do need to have a feel for this. I already have hit a put, by the way. This is my first effort at this. So, it’s gonna drag a little bit. That would be pretty good. Be safe. To be honest, I’d be disappointed with that. And yet, it’s still within that 5ft radius. And and that’s the beauty of putting. Your margin for error is so much greater with a putter. And it’s true. A bad putt is always better than a bad chip. That’s what I was brought up Roma brought up being taught about. And the fact is if I can get it inside five feet, it’s nearly 100% hit rate once you sort of getting into five four feet. I don’t need to get a chip shot or a putt to within a foot. I just need to make sure I don’t leave it 8 ft away. And essentially, I’m taking the risk of me hitting a bad chip out here and and chipping it to 8 ft, which is only a 50% hit rate on the tour. Well, that’s great and very good advice. Let’s just imagine here though, the grass is just a little bit too long to use the putter. What would you do then? Well, this is an interesting one. I would always try and land the ball on the green that if you can because you’re going to get the most consistent bounce off the green surface. If you have to chip the ball through the rough or through the fringe, you can get a funny bounce. Do do it when you have to, but if you can avoid it, please do. So, again, usually I’m picking a club that lands about two paces on to give me room for error that I’m not going to pitch in the fringe, and then I’m going to let it run to the hole. But I have a very interesting choice on this particular one here. As we can see here, we have a down slope shorter to green. And then the green is quite flat for the 15 ft of green. So I’m going to try and land my ball as close to the end of that slope as I can because if I mis hit it and I land on the down slope, it’s going to kick forward to the exact same place as if I hit a good chip. So basically, I’ve widened my area h of miss here because of the down slope. So the key is here, if you have slopes in the green, always pitch the ball at the bottom of a slope. And in modern greens, you have a lot of hollows. So actually, if you have a hollow, pitch it in the base of the hollow that way. If you hit it too easy, it’s going to hit the down slope and kick forward. If you hit it too hard, you’re going to hit the up slope and it’s going to stop. Would you would you ever open the face a bit to add a bit of loft? I mean, you play it back a bit. Absolutely. It depends more on the lie and the shot I’m trying to play. With a lob wedge, you’re more likely to open up. With a sand wedge and down, you’re just keeping a reasonably square club face. Again, it really is about trying to make sure whatever club you’re hitting, you’re getting a good strike on it. Again, see, I’ve just jumped that a little bit short and it’s kicked forward. So, I’m getting the benefit of that down slope there. Very nicely. So, we’ll hit this a little harder now. I’ve landed on the flat. Yeah, I like that one, by the way. But I know that one went in and that’s lovely. But the beauty of that shot was my bad shots are still going to be close enough that they’re stone dead. All because I chose the right club. Whereas if somebody picked, which most amateurs will do, they’ll pick the lob wedge, they’ll need to throw it two or three yards onto the green, and if they just miss that strike a little bit, it’s going to come up six feet short. If they just get it a little bit heavy, it’s going to go six feet by. Whereas my shot here, because I have the down slope, I’ve got a good margin for error. And the key with chipping is you’re trying to eliminate the big mistake. You’re always I know people think, “Oh, Harrington’s always trying to chip in.” I’m not. I’m trying to take the best option to eliminate big errors because I know if I can get it inside this distance, that’s every bit as good as that really on tour because we’re we’re close to 90% close to 100% from that range. That’s great stuff. That’s certainly going to help a lot of