Short Game Development Plan for Junior Golfers

Short game shots, chips, pitches, bunker shots, and putts, happen more often in a round than full swings, and they are also the most trainable in a limited space. A small practice green, a backyard chipping area, or even a patch of grass with a target towel is enough to get meaningful reps. A driver swing change, by contrast, needs a range, real feedback, and time for the whole motion to resettle.

That combination, high stroke count plus low barrier to practice, is why short game improvement compounds faster than almost anything else a junior can work on. For how much of total practice time short game deserves relative to full swing, see our practice time allocation guide.

It is also the part of the game least dependent on strength or growth. A junior going through a growth spurt might see their full swing temporarily fall apart as their body changes, but a good chipping or putting stroke, being a smaller, more controlled motion, tends to hold up through those stretches far better. That makes short game a stable place to keep building confidence even during a season when the driver feels unpredictable.

Chipping is a low, running shot played from just off the green, and it should be the first short-game skill a junior masters because the motion is short and repeatable.

• Beginner. One club, one basic technique, and one goal: solid contact and a consistent, low trajectory that lands quickly and rolls to the hole. Distance control comes from where the ball lands, not from swing speed.
• Developing. Introduce multiple clubs to produce different trajectories and roll-out from the same basic motion, and start practicing from varied lies, rough, tight fairway grass, and slightly uneven ground.
• Advanced. Add creative shots: controlling spin, playing from tight or bare lies, and adjusting for fast or slow greens. At this stage the player is matching shot shape to the contour of the specific green in front of them, not relying on one stock chip for every situation.

Pitching covers the higher, shorter-carry shots played from roughly 20 to 70 yards, where distance control matters as much as direction.

• Beginner. A clock-system approach works well: varying the length of the backswing to three set positions to produce three repeatable distances with one club. The goal is landing the ball on a spot, not swinging at the pin.
• Developing. Add trajectory and spin control, higher and softer versus lower and running, and start practicing the awkward in-between yardages that do not fit a full swing or a simple chip.
• Advanced. Practice from variable lies and in wind, and work toward pin-high precision under simulated pressure, since these are the exact conditions that separate scores in real tournament rounds.

Bunker play often gets the least practice time simply because fewer courses have an easily accessible practice bunker, but it deserves a real progression of its own.

• Beginner. Focus entirely on technique and consistently getting the ball out of the sand and onto the green. Distance control comes later; reliability comes first.
• Developing. Once the ball is coming out reliably, work on distance control from the sand and practice from different lies, an uphill lie, a downhill lie, and a ball plugged or sitting up.
• Advanced. Add fairway bunker shots, which require a different technique than greenside sand, and refine spin and trajectory to match specific pin positions the way a tour-level short game does.

Scores alone are a noisy way to track short-game progress. These qualitative markers are a more direct read on whether the work is paying off:

Short game does not exist in isolation from the full swing. Better approach shots leave shorter, easier short-game shots to begin with, so the two skills reinforce each other rather than compete for attention. Early in development, that relationship usually runs the other direction: a strong short game buys real forgiveness for a full swing that is still inconsistent, especially through the early-to-mid teen years when swings are changing fast alongside growth.

For how total practice hours should scale with age and level while this balance shifts, see how many hours a junior golfer should practice, and for a full week-by-week plan at a specific age, see our practice plan for ages 9 to 11.

Watch this relationship over a full season rather than a single round. A junior whose full swing has just taken a step forward will often see their scrambling numbers dip slightly at first, simply because they are hitting more greens and facing fewer of the routine up-and-downs they had grooved for months. That is a sign of progress in one area temporarily changing the demands on another, not a short game that has regressed.

This plan covers chipping, pitching, and bunker play. Putting deserves its own dedicated practice block and progression, which is covered in our putting drills and games guide. Together, the two cover the full short game.

Track progress against the benchmarks above every few months rather than judging short game purely by tournament scores, which are affected by course setup, weather, and full-swing performance too. If a specific technical fault is holding a skill back, for example inconsistent contact in the sand or a chipping motion that steers rather than releases, a short lesson with a coach found through the coach directory can fix it far faster than grooving the same flaw through unsupervised reps.