How we picked these chippers
We own none of these and have measured nothing. Every judgment below comes from comparing what the listings publish — loft, length, sole design, handedness, and whether the club is stated as conforming — against the shot a beginner actually needs to hit. Three criteria did the work.
1. Is it legal?
This is the first filter, and it eliminates some clubs sold as chippers. Under the Rules of Golf a club must have only onestriking face. Double-sided chippers — the ones with a face on each side so a left- and right-hander can both use them — are not conforming, and using one in competition means disqualification.
Every club on this page is a single-face design, and the Square Strike listing states explicitly that it is legal for tournament play. If you only ever play casual golf with friends this matters less, but you should know which you are buying.
2. Sole width, because that is what stops the duff
The mechanism that ruins a chip is the leading edge digging into the turf. A wide, heavy sole skids across the ground instead, so a strike an inch behind the ball still gets it forward. This is the same principle behind the wedges on our beginner wedge page, taken further.
3. Length you can use with a putting stroke
A 35-inch chipper is putter length, which is the point: you stand to it like a putt, take the club back with your shoulders, and there is no wrist hinge to get wrong. The Square Strike is slightly longer and heavier, which suits a golfer who wants a bit more reach; the Intech and Wilson are pure putter-length.
How to actually use a chipper
Set up as if you were putting: feet close together, ball in the middle of your stance, hands slightly ahead of the ball, and your weight a little on your front foot. Grip it where you grip a putter.
Then make a putting stroke. Not a chip, not a pitch — a putting stroke, driven by the shoulders with the wrists staying quiet. The ball will pop up a few feet, land on the green and roll out like a long putt. There is no acceleration to time and no divot to take.
The one adjustment that matters is length of stroke. A chipper carries the ball roughly a quarter to a third of the way and rolls the rest, so aim to land it just onto the putting surface and let the roll do the work. Practice three stroke lengths — short, medium, long — and you will cover almost every greenside shot you face.
When a chipper is the wrong club
We would rather tell you this than sell you five of them. A chipper does one shot well and everything else badly.
It is useless from a bunker, because it has neither the loft nor the bounce to get out of sand. It is poor from thick rough, because the shallow head snags in grass. And it cannot hit anything high, so if you need to carry a bunker or stop the ball quickly on a fast green, it will not do it. For those shots you need a proper sand wedge, which is why we recommend one on the wedges page before you buy a chipper.
There is also the 14-club limit. Adding a chipper means removing something, and for most beginners the club to remove is a long iron they cannot hit anyway. Our how many clubs guide covers how the rule works.
Chipper or seventh iron?
There is a free alternative worth trying before you spend anything: take a 7- or 8-iron, choke down on the grip until your hands are near the metal, stand close to the ball, and make a putting stroke. That is the “bump and run,” and it produces almost exactly the same shot a chipper does.
The honest comparison is this. The bump and run is free and uses a club you own, but the narrow sole still digs if you catch it heavy, and the full-length shaft makes the stroke feel awkward. A chipper removes both problems for the price of a fairly cheap club. If the bump and run works for you, save your money. If you have tried it and still duff chips, a chipper is a real solution rather than a gimmick.
Where the strokes actually are
It is worth understanding why this club matters more than its price suggests. The average beginner takes a large share of their strokes from within fifty yards of the green — short chips, duffed chips, the recovery from the duffed chip, and then two or three putts.
Turning a duffed chip into a twenty-foot putt does not just save one stroke. It saves the stroke, the frustration, and the tentative swing you make on the next hole because you are now afraid of chipping. That compounding effect is why we would put a cheap chipper ahead of an expensive driver for a struggling beginner every time. Our chipping guide covers the technique side for when you want to learn the shot properly.
