Golf Chipping Drills: 6 That Actually Lower Scores

Most golfers chip the same way they practise everything else — rake a pile of balls to one flag, hit until it feels okay, and go home. Then they wonder why the up-and-down never comes when it counts. The problem isn’t effort. It’s that there’s no target and no score, so nothing sharpens.

These six golf chipping drills fix that. Each one has a specific setup, a clear target, and a way to keep score, so you finish every session knowing whether you got better or just got tired. Work through them in order — foundation first, pressure last — and your greenside game stops being a guess.

Why Random Chipping Doesn’t Transfer

No score means no feedback

Chipping to a flag with ten balls tells you almost nothing. You remember the two that finished stone dead and forget the six that scuttled fifteen feet past. Without a number, your brain edits the session into whatever story it likes. A drill with a score forces you to face the actual result — and that’s where improvement starts.

Contact and roll-out are two different skills

A good chip needs clean, ball-first contact and the right landing spot so the ball rolls out to the hole. Most golfers only ever practise the strike and completely ignore where the ball lands. The drills below train both — separately, then together — so you’re not fixing one while breaking the other.

6 Golf Chipping Drills That Build a Real Short Game

1The Ten Yarder

Chip ten balls from just off the green to a hole ten yards away, using whichever club you’re most comfortable with. Count how many finish inside three feet. That number is your baseline — write it down.

This is the foundation drill because ten yards is the most common greenside distance you’ll face, and finishing inside three feet is what turns a likely bogey into a tap-in par. Target: 6 out of 10 to start, 8 out of 10 once you’re sharp.

2The Landing Spot Ladder

Lay a towel on the green as a landing target about a third of the way to the hole. Chip five balls and try to land each one on the towel — ignore where it finishes, watch only where it lands. Then move the towel closer or further and repeat.

Chipping is landing-spot control, not hole control. Once you can land the ball on a dinner-plate-sized target on demand, distance takes care of itself because you’re controlling the one variable that matters. Score: count clean landings out of five.

3Ladder Up

Place five clubs or alignment sticks on the green, the first at 10 feet and each one 2 feet further apart. Chip four balls to land between each pair of gates, working closest to furthest — then chip four balls back, furthest to closest. Miss a gate and you start the whole ladder again. Record how many attempts it takes to complete it.

This drill trains distance control under a light bit of pressure — the further you get, the more you don’t want to miss and restart. It’s the single best drill for golfers who leave chips short or blow them long.

4Par 2

Set up nine different chip shots around the green — different lies, distances, and angles. Play each one as a par 2: one chip, one putt, done. Even if the chip finishes close, you must putt from at least a putter’s length. No gimmies. Count how many holes you complete in two or less.

Par 2 is the drill that mirrors the course, because you never get the same chip twice out there. It also stitches your chipping and putting together, which is what an up-and-down actually is.

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521 Points

Chip to a hole and score each ball: 5 points for holing out, 3 for inside one foot, 1 for inside three feet. Keep chipping until you reach exactly 21 — go over and you bust, and start again. Record how many chips it took.

This is where the pressure ramps up. As you close in on 21, every chip carries weight, and you learn to deliver a good shot when the number matters. That’s the skill that shows up on the course.

6The 15-Minute Blitz

Pick one club, mark three zones around the hole at 5, 10, and 15 feet, and give yourself fifteen minutes to score as high as you can against the clock. One club, moving targets, a timer running — it’s the closest a practice session gets to the feeling of standing over a chip you can’t afford to waste.

Use this one as your assessment. Run it at the start of a practice block and again a few weeks later. If the score’s gone up, your chipping’s improved. Scoring Zone’s version of the Blitz sits inside its Performance Hub and benchmarks your result against your handicap, so you know exactly where you stand.

Turn These Drills Into Lower Scores

Six drills is more than enough — the mistake is doing all of them badly instead of two of them properly. Pick a foundation drill and a pressure drill each session. Keep the scores. The moment you can see the numbers trending, practice stops feeling like a chore and starts feeling like a game you want to win. That’s the whole idea behind Scoring Zone — every chipping drill has a benchmark for your handicap, so you’re always practising against a number, not a vibe.

Not sure which drill to start with? The Practice Assistant builds a session around your weakest area.

See How It Works →

And track it beyond the practice green. Your up-and-down percentage on the course is the real scorecard for your chipping — if it’s climbing, the drills are working. If it’s flat, you’re grooving the wrong thing. Either way, the number tells you the truth.

See how your up-and-down percentage trends round by round.

Round Stats →