Short Game
7 Golf Chipping Games That Actually Score
From the Ten Yarder to Par 2 — Games With a Number at the End
September 2, 2026 · 9 min read · Stephen Pickering
From the Ten Yarder to Par 2 — Games With a Number at the End
September 2, 2026 · 9 min read · Stephen Pickering
Key takeaway: A 15-handicapper gets up and down 15–20% of the time from around the green; a scratch player is over 50%. That gap is a practice problem, not a swing problem. Seven chipping games — each with a defined setup and a score you can write down — rebuild the one-shot-one-result pressure that a bucket of balls can never create.
Most golfers practise chipping the same way: drop a bag of balls in one spot, chip them all at the same flag, pick them up, go home. It feels productive. It changes nothing, because there is no target you can miss and no score you can lose.
Golf chipping games fix that. Every one of these seven has a defined setup, a scoring system, and a number you can write down and try to beat next week. Some are solo, some are better with a mate and a fiver on it. All of them do the one thing a bucket of balls cannot: put something at stake on every shot.
Here is the uncomfortable number. A 15-handicapper gets up and down around 15 to 20 per cent of the time from around the green. A scratch player is over 50 per cent from the same spots. That gap is four or five shots a round, and it is not a swing problem — it is a practice problem.
Repetition without consequence trains you for a situation that never happens on the course. You never get five attempts at the same chip with the fourth one counting. You get one, with your card in your pocket, from a lie you did not choose. Scored games rebuild that: one shot, one result, a number at the end.
The second reason is simpler. Games are more fun, so you actually do them. An hour of scored practice you look forward to beats a planned hour you skip.
Chip ten balls from just off the green to a hole ten yards away. Count how many finish inside three feet. Use whichever club you prefer.
That is the whole game, and it is the one to start with because it gives you a repeatable benchmark. Ten yards is the distance you face most often and the one most golfers are worst at — long enough to need real distance control, short enough that there is no excuse.
Score: out of ten. Write it down. A mid-handicapper who gets to six out of ten consistently is a different golfer around the green.
Set up nine different chip shots around the green. From each, try to hole out in two or fewer: one chip, one putt. Crucially, no gimmies — even if your chip finishes close, you must putt it from at least a putter length.
That no-gimmies rule is the entire game. It is the difference between “that’s good” on the practice green and the three-footer you actually have to hole on the course.
Score: count your pars out of nine. Brilliant with a group — everyone plays the same nine, low score wins.
Chip until you reach exactly 21 points. Five points for holing out, three for inside one foot, one for inside three feet. Go past 21 and you go bust, back to zero.
The bust rule is what makes it. Sitting on 19, a chip to two feet is worth one point and gets you to 20; holing it is worth five and busts you. Suddenly you are picking targets and playing to a number rather than just hitting nice chips.
Score: attempts needed to reach exactly 21. Fewer is better.
Lay five clubs or alignment sticks across the green, the first at ten feet and each two feet apart. Chip four balls to land in the gap between the first pair, then the next, working from closest to furthest — then chip your way back from furthest to closest.
Miss a gate and you start the whole ladder again from the beginning.
Score: total attempts to complete the full ladder both ways. This is the hardest game here and the best one for landing-spot control.
Put a towel or a headcover on the ground five feet in front of you. Chip over it to a target fifteen feet away. Count the clean clears that finish within five feet of the target.
You need height and a committed strike, which is exactly what most amateurs bail out of. The towel gives instant, undeniable feedback — you either got it up or you did not.
Score: clean clears out of ten.
Pick one club — a 56-degree wedge is the usual choice — and play nine shots from nine completely different lies and angles around the green. Uphill, downhill, tight lie, thick rough, over a bunker, one you have to run out.
The point is adaptation. You cannot change club, so you have to change the shot: ball position, face angle, length of swing. This is the game that turns a one-shot chipper into someone with options.
Score: count how many finish inside six feet, out of nine.
Chip two balls from the same spot. Play the worse of the two. Then chip two more from wherever that one finished, and again play the worse. Continue until holed.
It is punishing, and it is the closest thing to genuine pressure you can create alone, because a single loose one wipes out a good shot immediately. Save it for when you are playing well and want a reality check.
Score: total shots to hole out from three different positions.
Do not play all seven. Pick three and give yourself half an hour:
Ten minutes — warm up with the Ten Yarder. It gets your strike in and gives you the benchmark number for the day.
Fifteen minutes — one skill game. Ladder Up if your distance control is the issue, Flop Around if you bail out on height, One Club Around the World if you only ever play one shot.
Five minutes — one pressure game. 21 Points or Worst Ball, to finish on something that actually matters.
Then write the scores down. That last bit is the one everyone skips, and it is the one that makes the difference — a score you did not record is a session you cannot learn from.
For the technique underneath the games, if your strike is the thing letting you down:
Golf Chipping Drills That Fix Your Contact →Keeping a notebook works, and if you are consistent with it you are already ahead of most golfers. The trouble is comparison: was six out of ten on the Ten Yarder last Tuesday good, or good for you, or good for a 14 handicap?
That is what Scoring Zone is built to answer. These games run in the app as scored challenges with benchmarks for your level, so the number means something — and the Performance Hub assessment turns your whole short game into a Short Game Handicap that falls as you improve. Practice scored, not logged.
For the up-and-down percentage these games are ultimately trying to move:
How to Get Up and Down in Golf →The Ten Yarder. Chip ten balls from just off the green to a hole ten yards away and count how many finish inside three feet. Ten minutes, a score out of ten, and directly comparable session to session — which is what turns hitting chips into practice.
Par 2 is the best group format. Nine different chips around the green, hole out in two or fewer from each, no gimmies — every putt must be at least a putter length. Count your pars out of nine. The no-gimmies rule is what stops it drifting into a social hit-about.
Twenty to thirty minutes of scored games beats an hour of aimless chipping. Volume is not most golfers’ problem — consequence is. Two or three games with a recorded score do more than a bucket of balls dropped in the same spot.
Yes, with adjustments. Flop Around works anywhere you can put a towel down, and landing-spot games only need something to land on rather than a hole to finish near. What a garden cannot give you is a real green to run the ball out on, so keep garden work for strike and trajectory, and save the up-and-down games for the short game area.
Stephen Pickering
3-handicap golfer with 25 years on the course. Built Scoring Zone to bring structure and pressure to short game practice. Writes about what actually works from the practice green, not the press box.
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