The short game is a unique skill. It calls for touch, feel, and judgment that the full swing doesn’t ask of you. But underneath that touch, chipping and pitching share two of the same fundamentals that shape your full swing: a consistent path and a repeatable low point. Overlook those two things around the greens, and no amount of feel will save you. Get them right, and everything else, distance control, trajectory, spin, gets a whole lot easier to manage.
What do “path” and “low point” actually mean?
Swing path is the direction your club is traveling through impact relative to your target line. Around the greens, path matters because it eliminates the need to make compensations mid-swing. When your path is off, your hands and body have to make last-second adjustments just to get the clubface back to square, and that’s exactly where inconsistent contact comes from. A repeatable path means one less thing your body has to fix on the way down.
Low point is where your club bottoms out in the swing. On full shots you want that low point just after the ball. On chips and pitches, it’s even more critical, because the margin for error is so much smaller. A low point that happens too early means fat contact. Too late, and you blade it thin across the green.
The players who look effortless around the greens aren’t guessing. They’ve simply trained their body to repeat a consistent path and a repeatable low point, shot after shot, so their hands never have to make a last-second adjustment.
Why most short game practice doesn’t build consistency
Hitting a bucket of chip shots on the range will improve your feel, but feel without a framework just reinforces whatever habits you already have, good or bad. If your low point is inconsistent, more reps just make you consistently inconsistent. You need something that gives you real feedback on the two things that matter, not just a result you have to interpret after the fact.
Where TrueGroove fits in
TrueGroove was designed to help with every part of your game, not just the full swing. Because the trainer works with your own clubs and adjusts to your actual swing plane, you can step into it with a wedge in hand and immediately feel where your path and low point need to be.
A few ways this shows up in practice:
It removes the guesswork on path. Standing in the trainer with a wedge, you get instant physical feedback the moment your hands or the clubhead begin to drift off plane. Instead of hoping your chip is on line, you feel exactly when it isn’t, and you can correct it in the same session instead of on the golf course a week later.
It anchors your low point. The Power Bar and posture guidance keep your body in the position it needs to be in to bottom out the swing in the right spot, consistently. That’s the difference between a chip that catches the leading edge and one that clips the grass and rolls out exactly like you pictured it.
It builds the same motion at every speed. Short game shots aren’t smaller versions of a different swing, they’re smaller versions of the same one. Training in the trainer at slow, controlled reps lets you groove that consistent path and low point before you ever have to produce it under pressure, whether that’s a 15-yard pitch over a bunker or a full 7-iron.
The Takeaway
If you’re stuck in a cycle of chunking or skulling chips when it matters, the fix isn’t a new short game “system.” It’s the same consistent path and low point you’re already working on with your full swing, just applied at a smaller scale. TrueGroove was designed to help with all parts of your game, so the work you put in around the practice green actually carries over to your irons, and vice versa.
Consistency isn’t a feel you stumble into. It’s a path and a low point you groove on purpose.
Try this Drill
Push a tee fully into the ground where your ball would be, so it’s flush with the turf. Make a series of pitching motion swings and focus on just clipping the top of the tee and brushing the grass out in front of it. If you’re catching the ground behind the tee, your low point is too far back. If you brush the grass several inches in front of the tee, your low point is too far forward. If you don’t brush the ground at all, you’re likely raising up through impact, which produces a thin, bladed shot. Repeat this until brushing the grass just on the target side of the tee becomes automatic, and you’ll know your path and low point are exactly where they need to be.