PA-PLAYA
the 40 -60 yard chip pitch is the hardest short shot for an amateur to hit close outside perhaps the greenside bunker and short side high flop shots, especially when there is a bunker, elevated green , water etc in between. Its a shot that is never or extremely rarely ever practiced so IMO it's the worst option. I'm an 11 and give me full 60/56/52* from 80 - 110 ( even a full pw from 125) any time, any day over the 1/2 - 1/4 flip wedge which will be fatted, left short or thinned more often or not.
The day DC300 and the other FGIers won, we had lots of greenside 10-20 yard chips, those are no issue . Last year played with DC and his wife and we tried several short 30 -60 yard distance shots and blew them all but one or 2 and kinda sucked overall.
in the last one I played up here we shot -14, we had a 4 cap, me a low teen and two high teen low 20's on a tough course we made 4 pars three were on longish ( 165-200 yard) par 3's and the other on a par 5's because we tried to play the 40-60 yarder and to a long green with a back pin instead of hitting the 100 yard shot , we all left the pitch shot on the front of the green and had a 50-60 footer. Guaranteed one of the 4 would have wedged it to within 15. the 4 cap with us has a good short game but even he wants to hit a full shot .....IMO better to have 4 guys hitting routine shots that are comfortable with ( this includes short 10-20 chips which most ams will have to hit many each round due to missed greens ) heck the 2 other guys didnt even carry a 60* wedge in their bag.
just to add one guy might be comfortable with a certain lie or distance shot or angle or shape but you need to choose the shot that gives all 4 players the best chance at getting the ball close. As an example, I would rather play a fairway bunker shot than a second cut of rough shot< the bunker shot I can control the spin while I have no clue how the ball will react out of 2-4 inches of rough.....lots of guys I play with would rather hit the shot from the rough, some prefer to hit from the first cut of rough vs the fairway as the ball sits up usually in the first cut....not me