‘Only 2 moves you have to make’: Lee Trevino dishes on clever chipping tip

What is the butt doing?

Answer that, Lee Trevino says, and you’ve unlocked a key part of chipping. 

To start here, some introduction is in order, but we’ll keep it short, as by now, you likely know what to do when the six-time major winner talks golf: You listen. Trevino, after all, is one of golf’s greatest-ever shotmakers. And a wordsmith. When they mix, it’s good. And a good watch. To that point, the Mentality Golf Instagram account recently unearthed a Trevino gem, which was originally posted by Golfweek. 

As noted above, it features chipping. And how the club works on the shot.

“There’s only two moves that you have to make if you want to hit this ball low, or you want to hit this ball high,” Trevino said on the video. “It’s a very simple thing. Watch, I’ll show you something.”

On the video, Trevino waggled the club back and forth with his left hand.  

“It’s all about the left hand and the butt of the club. What is the butt doing? Well, if it’s going this way, if you notice when it’s swinging back and forth, look at the butt. Look how the butt’s working backwards and the club is working forward. What this enables you to do is this enables you to put more loft on the club. Whatever loft you start with here, if you’re flipping, you’re going to have more when you hit it.”

At this point, you should watch the video. We’ll wait. 

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OK, more Trevino. Here, he talked about hitting chips low.  

“If you want to hit it low, instead of doing this [waggling the club back and forth], you do this now [holding off the follow-through waggle],” he said on the video. “Now you notice how the butt of the club is in front of the club. All the time, it’s in front of the club head. Now, if you start 56 [degree wedge], and you do this now, you’ve got 50 [degree wedge]. So the ball is going to go lower.”

At this point, you should watch the video again. We’ll wait. 

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OK, a little more from Trevino. 

Here, he conveniently wrapped things up.  

“So the flip shot, see the left hand almost stops at the ball when you come down, and then it flips,” he said on the video. “See it? And that’s where you get this little bitty lob. Now if you’re going to hit this ball low, it’s just the opposite. When you hold this handle in front, it will deloft the club. See. 

“That’s all there is to chipping.” 

Editor’s note: To watch the complete video from Mentality Golf, please click here. 

To watch the complete video from Golfweek, please click here. 

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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