Victor Hovland’s (Joe Mayo) Simple Chipping Method Explained

Learn the simple method that transformed Victor Hovland’s short game. It is wonderfully simple and could do the same for your game. No more use of the bounce and judging the low point with changeable loft. This is reliable and predictable.

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Time Stamp

00:00 Shallow method
00:25 Joe Mayo story
02:00 Ball first method
04:15 Stable loft
06:20 More loft
08:00 Low and spin
08:25 Student demo
08:55 Round up

Thank you to https://www.youtube.com/@UCSwdmDQhAi_-ICkAvNBLEBw
Thank you to https://www.youtube.com/@PING for the footage of Victor Hovland

low and kind of spinny. Move my whole upper body pretty far forward. Gonna get some shaftling. Gonna get really steep into the ball. In recent times, we’ve all been encouraged to use the bounce when we chip. So, that is to get the club kind of rotating this way through the ball. So, we’re we’re using our wrist to to some degree. Well, we’re certainly slowing the handle down and getting the back of the club to to land first and slide under the ball. And that way, of course, the club just just gently bruises the ground and the ball pops up really softly, giving us more control when it lands. And and the thinking behind that, of course, is that if we do happen to land the club a little bit early, then the bounce saves us and just slides under the ball. So, effectively, there’s a larger margin for error. But aren’t we just over complicating things? Isn’t there an easier way to chip? Well, I’m starting to think so, and certainly so does Joe Mayo. So Joe Mayo is a is a famous American coach most notable for um his work with Victor Hovland around his short game and and in that process I mean Joe Mayo if you follow any of his any of his feeds he is absolutely all about not using the bounce um being quite quite steep and on top of it and Victor Havlin has gone from using the bounce to absolutely not and it’s really made a big difference to his game. Now, I kind of reconnected with this model through one of Danny Mor’s videos. So, many many of you may know Danny Mor, really successful YouTube um coach um and I saw him do a video around this topic and he mentioned his time he spent with Joe Mayo and Danny and I have since had um had some some lovely conversations around it and he explains it really well. Danny says it’s essentially whether you are using ground first mechanics or ball first mechanics. Let me show you the method then. So, so this is how it works. I’m I’m I’m going to call this the Joe Mayo methods, but I I’m sure people will be screaming at the screen. This method was around long before social media and you know, and I’m sure long before Joe Mayo as well. Um, but he’s really kind of championed this and and called um BS on that idea of releasing under and giving us a larger margin for error. So, this is most definitely ball first mechanics. We want we want some steepness. So, we want the ball in the back of our stance. I’ve got um about a couple of club heads between my heels. I’m standing close like I would do or typically do on a chip and I’m leaning significantly left. I’ve got I don’t know 80% of my weight left and you can see the ball is there inside my back heel and that kind of inherently gives me a bit of a bit of shaft lane. Now, as I take it back, you will see that it’s a really simple move, but there’s a there’s a key part of this which is important to understand, and that is the motion of the body. So my body is not going to be rotating like so in a transverse plane which is so horizontal. It’s going to be rocking and rolling. So frontal plane rotation. So as I as I swing back my left shoulder, my lead shoulder goes down and then I’m going to get the opposite as I as I come through. And that sense of weight left and rocking the shoulders here really gives us the very best chance of getting ball first then then divot. So we’re going to be steep. We’re going to have a pinchy divot. Okay. ball back, leaning left. You can see that tilting of the shoulders. And from down the line, another key feature of this this model is my mole, the motion of the club. You’ll see the club head stays outside my hands. But that’s that’s quite simple really. I’m not really thinking about that. My focus is on the right hand just staying on top of the club. So, as the right hand’s going back, it’s just doing this. And of course, as the as the trail hand there stays on top of the club, it does keep the club head outside the hands. Okay, let’s um let’s go ahead and play a couple then. So, leaning left, getting that tilt, and hitting down on it a little bit. And you might hear a slightly different strike to the one that I did in the intro. This will be a little bit more pinchy. Okay, then change of camera angle because I really want you to see the angle that these balls are are taking off because I think that’s the one of the real benefits of this uh of this system and that is this stable loft um through impact. So, you know, when when we’re releasing it in the in the ground first mechanics, we have the club tilting this way. The wrists are changing angles, hence the release. But in this method, you know, we set shaft lean initially and I like to think of it as the the angle that I set in my in my trail wrist. So the wrist is slightly in extension there. And that that angle is now going to stay the same all the way all the way through. So I’m just setting that angle and I’m just rocking my shoulders. And you can see that that my hand there is staying the same. So there’s a real predictability in the way the ball’s going to launch. So I I think I I would have some confidence in be being able to hit these four or five balls and launch it the same each time. Let’s see. Oh, this is a sandy one. Bit more friction. But they’re all coming out exactly the same. And that that’s when you can start to control distance low and kind of spinny. Move my whole upper body pretty far forward. Going to get some shaft. Going to get really steep into the ball. And you’re going to see me hit a divot here. But it it’s not going to matter because I hit the ball first and the ball’s going to come out pretty low, bounce a couple of times, and then hopefully check right next to the hole. So, we’ll see how he goes. [Music] Pretty nice. But you might be thinking, isn’t that going to hit it really low? Well, yes. This is definitely a low shot um a low shot technique. So, you know, all these balls are coming out quite low and running. So, I would just use more loft. So, instead of instead of a, you know, a shot where with my release method, I might use a 52, I’ll just move up to a to about a 58 or or a 60. But, frankly, I think most people hit it too high anyway. So, keeping it low and chasing or or even with a little bit of spin is is probably what you’d want most of the time anyway. So, here we go. Just off the green, I’ve got to fly it sort of 50% of the way. I’ve got my gap wedge. That’ll work. same flight. And of course, if I want to hit it higher, I’ve got more loft. So, here’s my 60D. But, you know, I’m not going to be throwing the club underneath and trying to slide it. I’m just going to play it in the same way back of the stance and trap it. Bigger swing. And that has obviously more flight. It’s not going to be a high shot, but it’s probably high enough for most of the scenarios you’re going to find yourself in. And those lines when the ball’s sitting down in the rough, well, I mean, they need some some steepness. Well, this method has inherently quite a lot of steepness in it. So, I don’t need to do anything different here. I’m going to use the my more lofted option. So, I’m going to use my 60, but that same technique will have enough steepness just to be able to deal with this. I might give it a little bit more speed. And that is incredibly predictable given the given the lie, etc. I think I’ve got some amount of control even from a lie like that. and a bear lie. Well, um, same thing again. Because we’re pinching the the ball first, this shouldn’t really create um much um issue at all. So, I’m I’m going to be confident even going with the with the lob wedge again here. Ball back. See if I can get low point past the ball. Shouldn’t be an issue. And sure enough, I’ve kind of had a bit of a rippy divot, but the ball came out in a really predictable way. Happy days. Sitting really nice and tight to the ground. So, all I’m going to do is basically open up the face and still feel like I’m I’m hitting the ground uh to grab some spin. So, we’ll see how it goes. Okay, then. So, where do I stand with all this? Um I think if you want a one standard stock shot that you can rely on, this could be it. Um and I’ve tried it with a number of students, most of which not all, most of which have have taken to it um very well. This is uh this is my friend Aid who um has used the ground first mechanics, so releasing it um and done quite well with it, but he immediately um took to this method. This is him just half an hour in and he’s striking it the same every time. And of course with that comes distance control and confidence. Um if you really want, you know, skill mastery, then I suspect you probably need a mixture of of of all techniques and different releases. But this is a great place to start. Now, um if you want to understand more about the ground first mechanics and and the releases, of course, that is very much in the ballpark of Dan Greavves three release model. I’ll link a video all around that um down here. But before I see you see you next time, please give this a go. I think it’s a great option and good luck. Play well.