The scenario is nerve-wracking in your Saturday morning fourball match let alone in the decisive moments of a major championship: a chip from the rough to a green running away toward water. But that’s exactly the position in which Mao Saigo found herself on the first playoff hole of the Chevron Championship Sunday. After flying her second shot on the par-5 18th into the grandstand over the green, Saigo took free relief and faced the kind of nervy downhill chip that keeps golfers up at night.
Leave it short, and Saigo could easily have found herself penciling a three-putt bogey on her card. Get too aggressive, and her ball could just have easily trundled into the water hazard — along with her major-title hopes. What I love about Saigo’s play was the sound decision-making she made under pressure, and how well she executed her mechanics, too.
One of those decisions was keeping the trajectory of the chip low and into the slight upslope of the green and grain of the hill, which took some pace off the shot and allowed the ball to gently follow the break of the green down to the hole. When you see how far to the right of the hole Saigo aimed (see below), it’s clear that she was intending to remove from the shot any chance of the ball coming up short. She also wanted no part of a high-risk flop shot. The result was brilliant, and it won her the Chevron Championship.
Here’s how Saigo did it:
1. Using wedge, she played the loft neutral (no opening of the face) and kept her alignment square to the starting line for the break on the green. This allowed the path of the shot to be more of a sweeping motion with great odds that she’d make solid ball contact in the rough, which is crucial to the nature of this chip.
2. Saigo took her hands out of the shot by turning more with her upper body than hinging her wrists to start the backswing. Note the clubface in her backswing: the face is pointed toward the ground with the leading edge matching her posture. Another key to this type of chip is the “on top” position of the trail hand (right hand) on the backswing. This keeps the loft neutral and is a perfect match for the follow through.
3. Saigo’s follow-through is the clutch moment and demonstrates an elite trait required for these kind of finesse shots: She never stopped turning toward the target. Nothing hurried in the transition, no wrist flip or unnecessary lower body movements, just a fluid torso turn to the target. This takes out the use of the hands and glides the club to the finish.
Saigo made an exceptionally challenging moment look easy. Believe me, it wasn’t!
