Is a Chipper cheating?

I am really struggling with my short game and although I intend to keep practicing - I have been wondering about buying a chipper, however I was wondering if this was a waste of money? Has anyone ever tried one - any pearls of wisdom would be appreciated!!!!

Certainly not cheating Dave, I've seen them used to great effect by a few people.  However, do you really want to have a single, dedicated club in your bag for just a bit of chipping?  Better off just keep practicing with your irons as Ian said.  Personally I prefer to use my 7 iron for low runners, but have used just about every club for that purpose except my driver.  As an experiment you could try using a wood or a hybrid to achieve the same result.  I've also found that using my putter with the ball well back in your stance makes the ball pop up slightly to get over a couple of inches of fringe.  The main thing is is to commit to the shot, don't chicken out.  It is just a matter of practice and spending 20 minutes on the practice green before a game will soon pay dividends.

Its a gimmick that is no more efficient than using a putting stroke with your 9 iron imho

I once carried a chipper and used it mostly for hitting the ball out of trees to avoid damaging my irons.

As using a chipper as a chipper, the success was'nt as good for me as a wedge or iron.

I would try a putting stroke with any iron 6 to pw and you may be surprised at how close you get....http://www.golfshake.com/scripts/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.gif" title="smiley" width="20" />

I played with a chipper for 20 years (played with but not any more - explanation later)

I was pretty accurate with it and always found it better than I could achieve with irons as well as being used around the greens it was used for getting out of trouble and for othe reasons (keeping under the wind on a breezy into your face par 3 for instance off the tee).

I once hit it 210yds as a second shot onto a green, (why that club from that distance? Well there was a tree just behind the ball, my chipper was the length of a putter and was the only club I could get a full swing on the ball hit it as hard as  I could (this was in the winter also so no big roll factor involved).

Since I have stopped using it I have been using my 6 iron for chipping around the green (the chipper had a fairly upright face probably more so than a 6 iron), and have faired ok with this but nothing like what I used to achieve with the chipper.

So I guess it was part my judgement of how to hit the ball but maybe the confidence the club gave me was what made it special, plus the verstility in normal (right handed) situations to get out of trouble.

I liked the club so much that I bought a spare 12-15 years ago when the first one was stolen and I replaced it, so I have 2 of them.

So why is it no longer in my bag? Well after lots of digs from fellow players that the club should be illegal (because of my results with it) my 15 year old son took it upon himself to prove that it was!

He managed to find out that it fell foul of the rules on two counts:

1) it was dual faced so on the very infrequent occasions you needed to you could play a left handed shot with the club

2) It had a putter style grip on it, where as only putters are allowed "shaped" grips, this would have been easy to fix - 1) is less so.

I am still trying to find out if there is anything I can do to my club to adapt the "second Face" so it is not deemed a second face any more and then if this would make the club legal again, any suggestions warmly welcome.

The Club in question came from America, was a Cougar "Dual Chipper"

Some golfers can be very sniffy about chippers, suggesting that using one is not "real" golf. If they work for you, that's fine in my book. Beware, however of the 2-faced chipper - that is illegal.

I use a 52 degree wedge for these shots and like the fact that i can check the ball second bounce, my old man has always used a 9 iron and rolls his out instead, its just a matter of preference. 

The 2 faced chipper is actually illegal though rather than being a belly putter or a hybrid iron.

I think where the 'illegal' comment comes from is that some chippers have 2 sides to them so they can be used left OR right handed.

I'm not quite sure of this but would this class the club as 2 clubs or is it illegal because you can use it both hands!?!?

If the chippers work for you then carry on, it's like when people first went to the 460cc drivers because they were easier to hit & people said they were cheating.

The rule is quite clear on clubheads - they can only have one striking face. The 2-face chipper is illegal and cannot be counted as 2 clubs to try to get round the rule.

I was talking about this to a friend & he says there is 1 club which has 2 striking sides BUT is legal. The club is the bullseye putter.

Yes - the rule for putters is that they may have 2 faces provided they have the same characteristics and are opposite each other.