How to Improve Your Short Game with Training Aids

I skulled a chip over the green last August and into a parking lot. The ball bounced off the hood of a white Honda Civic and I just stood there with my lob wedge like I was waiting for a bus.

That was the moment I decided my short game was no longer allowed to be a joke. I was shooting in the mid-90s and losing at least six strokes a round to bad chipping. You can putt decent and still shoot 95 when you blade every wedge 30 yards past the hole.

I spent the next six weeks drilling with four training aids in my backyard. Total cost was about $120. My up-and-down percentage from inside 40 yards went from roughly 1 in 10 to about 1 in 3. Not great, but it saved me five or six shots per round. Here is what worked.

Why Your Short Game Is Bad

You probably have all of these problems.

You flip your wrists. The universal short game killer. Instead of maintaining your wrist angle and letting the club’s loft do the work, you scoop at the ball. Sometimes you catch it thin and skull it 40 yards long. Sometimes you catch the ground first and chunk it two feet. Same root cause, different results.

Your weight is on your back foot. Weight hanging back at impact means your low point is behind the ball. You hit the ground first or you flip to compensate and blade it.

You decelerate. You take the club back too far for the shot, then slow down through impact. The ball comes up 10 feet short. You get frustrated. You swing harder next time. You skull it. The cycle continues.

Your setup is wrong. Ball too far forward, weight too far back, hands behind the ball. That setup produces a scooping motion by design. You cannot chip well from there no matter how good your hands are.

You cannot fix any of this by reading about it. You need feedback under pressure.

The Four Aids That Fixed My Short Game

1. Tour Striker Smart Ball — $40 to $45

The Smart Ball is a small inflatable ball on a lanyard that clips around your neck and sits between your forearms or under your lead arm. When your arms disconnect from your torso during the swing, the ball drops and you feel a tug. Instant feedback.

For short game specifically, the Smart Ball fixes wrist flipping. When the ball is between your forearms, you cannot independently flip your wrists through impact. Your hands stay quiet and the club bottoms out in a predictable spot.

The drill: Start with the ball deflated under your lead armpit. Hit 10 half-swing pitches with a 56-degree wedge from 20 yards. If the ball drops on the follow-through, you flipped. Then inflate the ball and place it between your forearms. Hit 10 chip shots from 10 yards. Same rule.

Time commitment: 10 minutes, four times a week for two weeks. Half the session under the arm, half between the forearms.

What it fixed: The flipping. I was scooping every chip like I was trying to lift the ball with my hands. The Smart Ball made it physically impossible, and after two weeks the feeling of connected arms carried over to when I was not wearing it.

2. Chipping Net — $40 to $60

A chipping net is the most underused training aid in golf. Everyone buys a putting mat. Almost nobody buys a chipping net. That is backwards, because most golfers lose more strokes chipping than putting.

I bought the Wedge Game Tic-Tac-Toe Net for $45. It is a small net with target zones. You chip balls into it and the targets give you something to aim at instead of chipping into a void.

The value is not the net itself. It forces you to chip with a purpose. Every chip has a target and a landing spot. You cannot just dump balls in the grass and half-swing at them, which is what I had been doing for years.

The drill: Set the net 10 to 15 yards away. Hit 20 chips into a target zone, then move to 20 yards, then 30. Track your makes out of 20 at each distance. If you do not track, you are just hitting balls and hoping.

Time commitment: 15 minutes, three times a week. Hit 60 chips per session across three distances. Do this for three weeks.

What it fixed: Distance control. My chips landed all over the place because I never practiced landing the ball in a specific spot. The net gave me a target, and chasing a score made me try.

3. Alignment Sticks — $15 to $25

Alignment sticks fix two short game problems. Setup and swing path.

For setup, lay a stick on the ground parallel to your target line and set your feet to it. Now check where the ball is. If it is off your front foot, move it back to center or slightly behind center for a chip. Most high-handicap golfers play chips way too far forward without realizing it, which promotes a scooping motion.

For swing path, lay a stick about a foot behind the ball, angled to guide a slightly inside-to-out path. Take practice swings without touching the stick. If your path is too outside-in, you clip the stick. Cutting across the ball instead of swinging down the target line produces inconsistent contact.

The drill: Set up with one stick on your foot line and one behind the ball at an angle. Hit 15 chips with your 56-degree. Check your setup against the foot-line stick before every chip. If you clip the path stick, stop and reset.

Time commitment: 10 minutes, twice a week. Do this for three weeks.

What it fixed: My ball position. I had been playing every chip off my front foot for years. The stick showed me, and moving the ball back to center instantly improved my contact. Tour Sticks two-pack at $15 is all you need.

4. Impact Tape — $8 to $15

Impact tape is not a training aid. It is tape. But for short game work, it is the cheapest feedback tool you can buy, and it pairs with everything above.

Stick a strip on your wedge face, hit chips, and look at the marks. Chunking? Marks will be low on the face and toward the heel. Skulling? High on the face or on the leading edge. Catching it clean? Center-face.

The tape does not fix anything on its own. But combined with the Smart Ball and the chipping net, you get the full picture. The Smart Ball tells you if your arms are connected. The net tells you if your distance is right. The tape tells you where you are making contact.

The drill: Put tape on your 56-degree. Hit 10 chips into your chipping net. After every shot, note where the mark is on the face. Low-heel means you are flipping and your weight is back. Focus on keeping your weight forward and your hands quiet. Watch the marks move toward center as you adjust.

Time commitment: 5 minutes per session. Slap tape on at the start of any chipping session. One roll lasts months.

What it fixed: It showed me I was making contact all over the face. I thought I had a consistent strike. The tape proved I was hitting the ball in six different spots across 10 chips. That made me focus on a quiet lower body and steady hands until the marks clustered around center.

The Six-Week Plan

Weeks one and two: Smart Ball for 10 minutes, four times a week. Start with half-swing pitches under the lead arm, then between the forearms. Put impact tape on every session. Learn what a connected chip feels like.

Weeks three and four: Add the chipping net. 15 minutes, three times a week. Hit chips at three distances. Track your scores out of 20 at each distance. Keep the Smart Ball in the rotation twice a week. Keep using tape.

Weeks five and six: Add alignment sticks. 10 minutes, twice a week. One stick for foot line, one for path. Keep the net and the tape. By week six, your chips should be landing closer to your target with more predictable contact.

What I Would Skip

The WhyGolf Chipping Plate at $40 to $60 is a decent setup tool, but alignment sticks cover setup for $15. If you own the Smart Ball and a chipping net already, you do not need the plate.

How long until I see results?

If you commit to 20 minutes, three times a week, you should see noticeable improvement in contact within two weeks. Distance control takes longer because it is feel-based. Give it four to six weeks. And track your up-and-down percentage on the course. That is the number that matters, not how many balls you hit in your yard.