Most golfers own one shot around the green and hit it from everywhere. Here is how to tell a chip from a pitch, and how to pick the right one before you swing.
How to chip in golf: the low, running shot
A chip in golf is a low shot that spends very little time in the air and covers most of its distance rolling along the ground. You play it from just off the green, with a short stroke and quiet wrists.
The stroke itself looks a lot like a putt. Gary Munro, a Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach, sets up with the feet about one clubhead width apart, the ball just back of center, and roughly 70% of the weight on the lead foot, which is the foot closest to the target.
Your hands sit slightly ahead of the ball. The shaft leans a touch toward the flag and stays that way, arms and chest turn together, and the wrists do nothing.
Dr. Alison Curdt, writing for PGA.com, calls the chip a one-lever move: shoulders only, no wrist hinge. With fewer moving parts, there is less that can go wrong.
Club choice is where the chip gets interesting, because the lower the loft, the more the ball runs. Munro’s rough guide is that an 8-iron carries about 25% of the distance and rolls 75%, a pitching wedge splits it roughly 50-50, and a lob wedge carries about 75% and rolls 25%.
Choosing a club is really choosing how much of the job the air does and how much the ground does.
What a pitch shot is, and why it flies higher
A pitch flies higher than a chip because you add loft and a wrist hinge. It spends most of the shot in the air, lands closer to the flag, and rolls out very little once it gets there.
The swing is bigger, and the wrists come back into play. Curdt describes the pitch as a two-lever move: trunk rotation plus wrist hinge, with a weight shift and a wider arc. That extra lever is what produces the height.
Adam Smith, a GOLF Teacher to Watch, puts it simply: a pitch is a small version of your full swing, with the ball in the middle of the stance, soft grip pressure, and a finish you hold high.
That is why pitches are played with a sand wedge or a lob wedge.
A pitch gets the ball over obstacles a chip would run into, and it asks more of you, because the wrist hinge adds timing you have to get right. The steep landing angle is what stops the ball quickly when you need that.
Sand wedge or lob wedge for a pitch?
Use the sand wedge for most pitches and save the lob wedge for the shot that has to stop almost where it lands. Most sand wedges are 54 to 56 degrees of loft and most lob wedges are 58 to 60, so the lob wedge gives you more height and less margin on the strike.
The sand wedge flies lower and takes a slightly longer swing to cover the same yardage, which is easier to control than a short, steep swing with the most lofted club in the bag. Reach for the lob wedge when you have to carry a bunker, not because the shot looks short.
Chip vs. pitch: the technique, side by side
The difference between a chip and a pitch is flight and roll. A chip flies low and rolls most of the way to the hole, while a pitch flies high, lands steeply, and stops with very little roll. Everything else follows from that, and you set most of it before you swing.
| What to compare | Chip | Pitch |
|---|---|---|
| Flight | Low | High |
| Time in the air | Minimal | Most of the shot |
| Distance rolling | Most of it | Very little |
| Stance width | Narrow, about a clubhead apart | Closer to normal width |
| Ball position | Just back of center | Middle of the stance |
| Hands and shaft | Ahead of the ball, leaning at the target | Neutral, level with the ball |
| Weight | Roughly 70% on the lead foot | Shifts through the swing |
| Swing length | Short, hands stay low | Longer, higher finish |
| Wrists | Quiet, no hinge | Hinge on the way back |
| Typical clubs | 8-iron through pitching wedge | Sand wedge or lob wedge |
On a chip, the ground and the club’s loft handle the distance. On a pitch, your swing handles it, which is why two shots from the same 20 yards ask completely different things of you.
Is there a yardage that makes a shot a chip or a pitch?
No yardage decides it, and two golfers can play the same 15 yards two different ways without either of them being wrong. What decides it is the ground between you and the hole.
Distance only tells you how big the swing has to be. The three checks below tell you which shot it is.
Three things to check before you pick a shot
Check how much green you have to work with, what the lie is doing to your club, and what sits between you and the hole. All three are visible from where you are standing, and between them they make the call.
How much green sits between you and the hole
Count the putting surface you have to work with. Plenty of green means you can land the ball early and let it run, which is the chip. Very little green, because the pin is cut close to your edge, means the ball has to stop fast, which is the pitch.
Curdt gives beginners a memory hook worth stealing. Chip starts with C, and so does close. Close to the green, chip it.
What the lie is doing to your club
Look at how the ball is sitting. On a tight, firm lie there is nothing under the ball for a lofted club to slide through, and a lofted swing invites fat contact. That is a low, running shot every time.
If fat contact is already your regular miss, our guide on how to stop chunking your irons covers the strike itself.
Fluffy rough is the opposite. The grass will grab the hosel and slow the club, so you need loft and a slightly longer swing to get through it, which points at a pitch.
Buried in thick stuff, take your medicine and get the ball back on the surface. Uphill lies add height for free, so you often need less loft than you think.
X-Golf applies a speed and spin multiplier based on where your ball sits: a fairway lie plays at 100%, rough at 90%, a fairway bunker at 80%, and a greenside bunker at 50%. The multiplier shows on screen with the rest of your shot information.
X-Golf’s own reasoning is easy to follow: the fairway is manicured grass with no hazards and the easiest shot to hit, and the rough is taller grass that makes the shot a little harder.
The sand is where the numbers matter most for a short-game decision. Fairway bunkers sit at 80% because X-Golf calls them more shallow and easier to hit out of, and greenside bunkers drop to 50% because they are deeper with softer sand, which X-Golf calls probably the hardest hazard to hit out of other than water.
The gap is the part that counts, because a greenside bunker costs you far more than a fairway bunker does, and your hands already knew that before the screen said so.
What is standing in the way
Scan the ground in front of you. Clean fringe and flat grass means nothing is stopping a chip from running.
A bunker, a slope running back at you, a sprinkler head, or a tier you have to clear all change the math. Smith’s rule is worth memorizing: pitch when you have to, not when you feel like it.
Why the chip is usually the lower-risk choice
Chip whenever you can and pitch only when you have to. That is Smith’s guidance, and the mechanics back him up, because the chip is the more repeatable shot.
A ball rolling on the ground is a predictable thing. A ball in the air has to land on a specific spot, on a specific angle, with a specific amount of spin, and every one of those is another chance to be a few yards off.
The chip also removes the wrists, which removes timing. Munro points out that taking the wrists out of play is what stops the heavy and thin strikes that turn a simple shot around the green into two extra strokes.
A pitch is a specialist shot with a narrow job. Most golfers reach for a lob wedge because it looks like what a shot around the green is supposed to look like, not because the situation asked for it. Learn how to chip in golf, then trust it, and you stop handing back shots you never had to lose.
Two shots, same distance, different answers
Picture yourself 15 yards short of the green, pin in the middle, nothing but flat fringe in front of you. Take an 8-iron, make a putting stroke, land the ball on the front edge, and let it run 10 of those yards. Even a mediocre strike finishes somewhere near the hole.
Now move the ball 15 yards to the left, behind a greenside bunker, pin cut just over the sand. Same yardage, and the chip is gone, because the ball would have to travel through the bunker to get there. This one is a sand wedge, a fuller swing, wrists hinging, and a high finish.
Two shots the same length, and one of them is close to a putt while the other is a small swing you have to commit to. The bunker in front of the second one is the reason.
This is also why picking the right club for your game is a decision you make before you get to the swing rather than during it.
How to build both shots into a practice session
Nobody comes to the bay to hit wedges. The driver goes first, the group cheers, somebody puts one on the wrong fairway, and then the hour is gone.
The fix costs you 20 minutes. Split an hour at X-Golf Rockwall into three blocks: twenty minutes of chips, twenty minutes of pitches, and twenty minutes of playing actual holes and hitting whatever the lie gives you.
For the chip block, pick one target and hit 10 with an 8-iron, then 10 with a pitching wedge, and watch where each one finishes. You are building the carry-and-roll picture in your own head with your own swing, which is worth more than anyone’s ratio chart.
For the pitch block, stay at one distance until the height and the high finish stop feeling strange, then move back.
For the last block, drop the ball around the green on any hole from the more than 50 courses in the system and play what you find, uphill or downhill, fringe or rough. That is where the decision practice happens, because the sim keeps handing you new situations instead of the same one.
The short game is where a lot of simulators quietly fall down, since a chip or a soft pitch never reaches the screen. X-Golf Rockwall’s bays use X-Golf’s multi-sensor system with sensors above and below the ball, so a 12-yard chip gets read as a real shot instead of getting ignored.
If you want eyes on the strike rather than just the number, golf lessons at Rockwall are the shortcut. Toni, the general manager at X-Golf Rockwall, can line you up with a coach who will spend the session on your short game instead of your driver speed. Twenty minutes with a coach on a tight lie beats a season of guessing.
None of it has to feel like homework. Food and drinks come to the bay, your buddies keep score, and the wedge work happens between rounds instead of replacing them. League play at X-Golf Rockwall gives your short game a scorecard to answer to.
Bring your wedges to X-Golf Rockwall
Grab a bay, round up your crew, and give the short game 20 minutes before the driver comes out. Rockwall in August does not make outdoor wedge practice appealing, and an indoor bay takes the heat out of the decision. The drive in from Heath, Rowlett, or Royse City is short enough that a weeknight hour is easy to fit in.
Frequently asked questions
Is a bump and run the same as a chip?
Yes, a bump and run is a chip, usually played with a longer iron for maximum roll. Golfers use the phrase for a low shot that lands on the front of the green and runs from there, often with a 7-iron or 8-iron. Same setup, same quiet wrists, more ground time.
How do I stop leaving chips short of the hole?
Almost always deceleration. You start the stroke thinking about the green, get nervous, and slow the club down through the ball. Pick a landing spot two or three paces onto the green, then let the club keep moving to a full finish. Hit 10 to the same spot and count how many finish past the hole rather than short of it.
