How to Chip a Golf Ball from the Rough

Nothing saps your confidence faster than seeing your golf ball settle down into thick, grabby rough just a few yards from the green. That simple little chip shot you were hoping for suddenly feels like a hole-wrecker. But learning to handle these tricky lies is a huge step in shooting lower scores. This guide will walk you through reading the lie, setting up correctly, and making a confident swing to get your ball out of the rough and back in play.

Reading the Lie: Your First Step to Success

Before you even think about pulling a club, you need to become a bit of a detective. How the ball is sitting in the grass dictates everything about the shot you’re about to play. Simply grabbing your trusty 56-degree wedge for every greenside pitch from the rough is a recipe for inconsistency. Take a moment to analyze the situation.

What type of lie are you dealing with?

• The Fluffy Lie: This is the best-case scenario. The ball is sitting up nicely on top of the grass, almost like it's on a little tee. For this shot, you can often play something closer to a standard chip, but you still need to be careful not to swing right underneath it.
• The Buried Lie: This is the one we all fear. The ball has settled deep down into the grass, with only the top half visible. Getting the club onto the back of the ball is going to be difficult. Your primary goal here isn’t finesse, it’s extraction.
• The "Against the Grain" Lie: Look at the direction the grass is growing. Is it growing back towards you (against the grain) or away from you towards the target (with the grain)? Grass growing against you will grab the clubhead much more aggressively and slow it down, requiring a more forceful swing. Grass growing with the target will offer less resistance.
• Wet vs. Dry Rough: Wet rough is heavier and stickier. The grass will wrap around the hosel of your club and twist the face closed, often causing you to pull the shot left (for a righty). You’ll need even more commitment to power through it.

Just by taking a few extra seconds to assess the lie, you're gathering information that will help you choose the right club and the right technique. You're moving from panicked guessing to making an educated decision.

Choosing the Right Club for the Job

Now that you’ve read the lie, you can select your weapon. Club selection is not just about distance, it's about matching the tool to the specific task required by the lie.

• The Sand Wedge (SW) or Lob Wedge (LW): Your most-lofted wedges (typically 54-60 degrees) are your best friends for most bad lies in the rough. Why? These clubs have more bounce - the rounded sole on the bottom of the club. The bounce helps the club glide through the thick grass and sand without digging in too steeply. For buried or very thick lies, a high-lofted wedge is almost always the correct play. The goal is to pop the ball up and onto the green.
• The Pitching Wedge (PW) or Gap Wedge (GW): If the ball is sitting up a bit (a fluffy lie) and you have some green to work with, a less-lofted wedge might be a better option. The lower loft will produce a shot that comes out with less backspin, runs out a bit more, and is sometimes easier to control than a high, floating shot. It’s a more reliable choice when the lie isn't a total disaster.
• The "Bellied" a 7, 8, or 9-iron: For lies where the ball is sitting up but surrounded by very clumpy, unpredictable rough, sometimes hitting a true "chip" is too risky. An alternative is to take a mid-iron, set up almost like you’re putting, and make a firm putting stoke. This hits the ball around its "equator" (bellying it), getting it to jump out and run toward the hole like a putt. It takes a little practice, but it's an incredibly useful shot for avoiding the potential disaster of a chunked wedge.

The general rule is: the worse the lie, the more loft you need. Don't try to be a hero. Prioritize getting the ball onto the putting surface first.

Your Setup: Building a Foundation for a Clean Strike

This is where most golfers go wrong with chips from the rough. They use their standard chipping setup, which is too shallow for this kind of shot. To get through thick grass effectively, you need to create a steeper, more descending angle of attack. Here’s how you adjust your setup to make that happen.

Step-by-Step Setup Adjustments:

1. Build a Narrower Stance
2. Bring your feet closer together than you would for a regular pitch shot. This should be about hip-width or a little less. A narrower stance makes it easier to keep your weight planted on your front foot and encourages your body to rotate through the shot, rather than swaying.
4. Place the Ball Back
5. Position the golf ball in the middle or even slightly back of your stance. Putting it in line with your back foot is a good starting point for really bad lies. This position automatically helps you hit down on the ball, which is absolutely necessary to make clean contact before the club gets tangled in the grass.
7. Lean Your Weight Forward
8. Set about 60-70% of your weight on your front foot (your left foot for right-handed golfers). Your chest and buttons on your shirt should feel slightly ahead of the golf ball. Keep it there throughout the swing. This is one of the most important parts. Any tendency to hang back on your trail foot will cause you to hit the grass behind the ball and chunk the shot.
10. Press Your Hands Forward
11. With your weight and ball position set, allow your hands to be slightly ahead of the clubhead, creating a little bit of "shaft lean." This removes some of the effective loft from the club, but more importantly, it promotes that downward strike we're looking for. It ensures your hands lead the clubhead into the ball.
13. Firm Up Your Grip
14. While a delicate grip is great for finesse shots from the fairway, the rough requires a bit more authority. Grip the club a little firmer than you normally would for a chip. This will prevent the thick grass from grabbing the club's hosel at impact and twisting the clubface open or closed.

The Swing Itself: A Simple, Descending Motion

With your setup locked in, the swing motion becomes much simpler. You've already pre-set your body to deliver the club correctly. Focus on these simple thoughts.

1. Use Your Shoulders, Not Your Hands

The chipping motion from the rough should feel more like a "body" motion than a "handsy" one. It starts by rocking your shoulders and turning your chest away from the target in a one-piece takeaway. Avoid breaking your wrists too early or getting "flippy." Think of your arms, hands, and the club as a single triangle that you rotate back and through with your torso.

2. Hinge the Wrists Up, Not Around

As you take the club back, you will naturally create some wrist hinge, but because the shot requires a steep angle, think of that hinge going more "up" than "around." This creates a V-shaped swing, rather than the wider, U-shaped swing you’d use for a standard chip. A steeper backswing promotes a steeper downswing.

3. Accelerate Through the Ball

This is the moment of truth. Every instinct might be telling you to slow down to avoid hitting it too hard, but you must fight that urge. Decelerating into the ball is the #1 cause of topped or chunked shots from the rough. The grass will grab a slow-moving club every time. Commit to your shot and accelerate the clubhead through the impact zone. Have the feeling that the club is still speeding up as it goes through the ball.

4. Keep the Follow-Through Short and Sweet

You don't need a long, elegant finish here. Because you’re hitting down so steeply, your club will likely dig into the turf a bit after the ball. A powerful, accelerating strike that finishes with a shorter, more abrupt follow-through is perfectly fine. Think "hit down and stop." The main focus is delivering a confident strike into the back of the ball and letting the club's loft do the work of getting it airborne.

Final Thoughts

Escaping thick greenside rough is less about perfect technique and more about making a plan and committing to it. By understanding how to read the lie, choosing the appropriate club, and using a steeper angle of attack with an accelerating swing, you turn a potential double-bogey into a simple up-and-down opportunity.

Getting this right often comes down to diagnosing the shot correctly before you even swing. I know that canbe tough when you’re standing over a a rough lie and fee a little unsure. That’s precisely why we designed a feature in Caddie AI where you can snap a photo of your ball's lie. We immediately analyze the situation - the grass, how the ball is sitting, everything - and give you a simple, clear strategy for the best way to play it. It's like having your own tour-level caddie give you a second opinion on those tricky shots, taking the guesswork out so you can swing with confidence.