One thing you have to get right to be a consistent chipper

When you go from your full swing to chipping, you probably make a few adjustments. You put more weight on your front foot at address; you lean your sternum ahead of the ball; you narrow your stance and set up slightly open—all chipping basics that you're likely already doing.

But one thing you might not have considered is, what part of the swing wins the race to impact on a chip shot? Meaning, which of these three parts shoud lead the way as the club moves toward the ball: Is it the clubhead, the hands or the body?

The answer is, it should be a dead heat—no part wins. If the clubhead wins (outracing the hands), the result is often a fat or thin shot. If the hands or body win (outracing the clubhead), there's too much digging action from the club's leading edge, and distance control suffers.

Check out these two close-up clips (below). The first is what it looks like when you hit a chip fat. The second shows the club coming into the ball steep and digging. You might think they don't look that bad, but when you're judging distance on carry and roll, neither gets the job done.

Good chipping is all about the sequence of the motion and keeping everything together as you move into and through impact (below). All I'm trying to do is get the different parts moving at the same rhythm and pace, with nothing jumping out in front of anything else. If you get a tie at impact, you win. And if you don't, it's hard to consistently put the club on the ball and produce predictable distance—the two biggies in chipping.

Next time you work on your chipping, put all of your focus on sequencing. Again, you want to set up with your weight favoring your front foot, stance open, ball in the middle of a narrow setup and the big one—your sternum slightly ahead of the ball. This sternum-forward position pre-sets the bottom of your swing arc in front of the ball, at about where I'm indicating below.

From the proper setup, just think of everything moving together—it's important on the backswing but essential on the forward swing. The club will make ball-first contact, imparting loft and spin on the shot to make it easy to land it where you want and get it rolling the right distance. The size of the movements will change for longer or shorter shots, but the relationship between them should stay the same. Here's what impact looks like on a good one.

David Armitage is director of instruction at the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, Fla.