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Refashion Your Short Game

: Drill: Make a connection; Hold a soccer ball between your forearms and grip a club. Make half swings, with your arms and the club forming an L on both sides of the ball. To keep the ball in place, you have to rotate your arms and chest together. Any disconnect will cause the ball to drop and your hands to flip the clubhead upward.

Paula's Tips on Chipping: Create a solid left side; When I chip, I place my left hand on my left thigh before taking my grip. This tells me that my weight is on my left side and that my center of gravity is slightly in front of the ball, two keys to making crisp contact. You can't hit the ball solidly if your weight is behind it at impact; the club will swing up into the ball instead of descending into it on the downswing. If I set up with a strong left side, my contact is much better.

: Low or high?; To alter the trajectory of a shot, I change the position of the ball in my stance. When I want to hit a low, running shot, I move the ball back in my stance -- in line with my right instep -- so my hands are in front of it. When I need to get the ball up in the air, I move it forward so my hands are directly in line with or slightly behind it. If the ball is in thick rough, I'll open the face more, move my hands back and release my right hand under the ball to pop it out softly.

: Six-Ball Drill; Drop six balls on the fringe or in the rough; your goal is to get each ball up and down, holing out with your putter. If you convert five in a row but miss the sixth, you must repeat the whole drill. Keep going until you get all six balls in the hole in two shots. You can do this from a bunker or on short pitches, too, to bring tournamentlike intensity to your practice.