You hit fat golf shots because your club bottoms out behind the ball. It meets the ground first, loses speed in the turf, and the ball comes up short. To stop hitting fat shots, move your low point forward: shift your hips toward the target by impact, keep your forward bend, and bring your hands into the ball ahead of the clubhead.
Four body moves drag your low point back: hanging back, a sway, early extension and a flip of the hands. Each one shows on a phone video, and three of them come with a clear number to check. Find your move, then drill that one.
Lead means your target side in this guide: your left side if you swing right-handed.
Picture your low point
Your club swings on an arc, and the low point is the bottom of that arc. TrackMan measures low point as the distance from the club head at impact to the lowest spot of its arc, before or after the ball, and links it straight to attack angle: when your club still travels down at impact, your low point lands after the ball.
That order is what you want with an iron. In TrackMan's attack angle averages, PGA Tour players hit down 3.7 degrees with a 6-iron, and LPGA players hit down 2.3 degrees. They catch the ball while the club still descends, then take turf on the target side of it.
A fat shot flips that order. Your club hits bottom behind the ball, so it digs in before it gets there. The same early low point gives you thin shots too: the club bottoms out, starts to climb, and catches the ball's equator. If you hit fat and thin in the same round, you have one problem with two results.
Your low point moves with your body. Get your weight onto your lead side through impact and the bottom of the arc moves forward with it. Stay back, and it stays behind the ball. Your divots show you where it landed. A divot that starts at the ball or past it means a forward low point. A divot that starts behind the ball means you bottomed out early.
Check your setup first
Two setup habits put your low point behind the ball before you even swing. Play a mid iron off your lead heel and the ball sits past the spot where you bottom out, so even a decent swing catches turf first. Set up leaning away from the target with most of your weight on your trail foot, and you start the swing from behind the ball.
Face on, at address, you see both habits. In a Scratchmaxx swing read, you see your posture and ball position at address too, so you fix the setup before you chase a swing fault.
Spot the move that drags it back
Record one swing face on and one down the line, then check these moves in order. To place the phone, follow the steps in Film your golf swing.
You hang back
Face on, at impact, check how far your hips moved toward the target since address. On our bench of 21 test clips, tour pros and a skilled amateur shifted their hips 3.8 to 8.2 inches. TPI's page on hanging back puts a normal weight shift at about four inches toward the target by impact. Under 1.5 inches, you hang back: your weight stays on your trail foot and your low point stays behind the ball. TPI also notes that golfers who hang back often take heavy divots that start behind the ball.
The shift has an upper limit too. Past 11 inches, your hips slide past the ball. At the finish, hips more than 7 inches behind your lead foot mean you fell back and never completed the shift.
You sway off the ball
Face on, at the top, check how far your head moved away from the target. A little drift is normal: on our bench, tour pros moved the head back 0.7 to 3.5 inches. Past 4 inches, you sway. Check your trail hip as well: more than 1 inch outside your trail foot means a hip slide.
Both moves carry the center of your swing away from the target. You then need a full trip back on the way down to bottom out past the ball, and any shortfall puts the club into the ground first.
You stand up through impact
Down the line, compare your forward bend at impact with your bend at address. On our bench, tour pros kept it within 5 degrees. An 18 handicap lost 9 degrees through impact, and an amateur on a night range lost 16.5. Lose more than 7 degrees, or push your seat more than 2.5 inches toward the ball while you lose 3 degrees or more, and you have early extension. Lose more than 8 degrees by the top and you stood up before the downswing began.
TPI defines early extension as your lower body thrusting toward the ball in the downswing, and it ties the fault to blocks and hooks. You hit it fat through your hands: your hips take the room your arms need, you throw the clubhead at the ball to reach it, and your low point jumps back.
You flip your hands
Face on, at impact, look at the shaft. On a solid iron strike, your hands lead the clubhead into the ball and the shaft leans toward the target. In a flip, the clubhead passes your hands before the ball and your lead wrist bends back. The club reaches its low point early, often behind the ball.
A flip tends to follow one of the moves above. You stay back or stand up, and your hands try to rescue the strike.
Your head gets ahead: a different miss
Face on, at impact, check your head against its address spot. More than 5 inches toward the target means your head got ahead of the ball, and that sends your low point the other way. The club comes in steep, you dig deep divots that start right at the ball, and you see low shots and pulls more than fat ones.
If you cured your fat shots by lunging at the ball, you may have landed here. Let your hips carry the shift and keep your head behind the ball.
Find your cause in one table
| What you see on video | What it means | First fix |
|---|---|---|
| Face on, impact: hips less than 1.5 in toward the target | Hanging back | Load your lead side (drill below) |
| Face on, top: head more than 4 in away from the target, or trail hip more than 1 in outside the trail foot | Sway or hip slide | Turn around a flexed trail knee |
| Down the line, impact: more than 7° of forward bend lost, or seat more than 2.5 in toward the ball with 3° or more lost | Early extension | Keep your seat back through the strike |
| Face on, impact: clubhead ahead of your hands | Flip | Clip the tee (drill below) |
| Face on, finish: hips more than 7 in behind the lead foot | Falling back | Hold your finish on your lead foot |
| Face on, impact: head more than 5 in toward the target | Head ahead, a different miss | Keep your head behind the ball |
Hanging back, a flip and early extension weigh the most in a Scratchmaxx swing read. When your swing shows one of them, you start there, with a drill for it.
Measure your swing with Scratchmaxx.
Drill your low point forward
Clip the tee
You get this iron strike drill in Scratchmaxx.
- Push a tee into the turf a hand past the ball, on the target side.
- Hit the ball, then clip the tee.
- Finish with your weight on your lead foot.
- Hit 10 balls with a 7-iron and count the tees you clip. Move to longer irons once you clip 8.
Draw a line on the range
- Scratch a line in the turf with a tee, at a right angle to your target line.
- Make five practice swings along the line without a ball. Start each divot on the line or just past it.
- Set a ball on the line and hit it. A divot that starts on the target side of the line counts as a pass.
- On a mat, lay a folded towel a hand's length behind the ball. Miss the towel and hit the ball.
Load your lead side
- Set up with a 7-iron and slide your trail foot back until only its toes touch the ground.
- Make three-quarter swings. With your trail foot on its toes, you can't park your weight on it.
- Hold your finish for a count of three, belt buckle facing the target, weight on your lead foot.
- Hit 10 balls this way, then 5 from your normal stance with the same feeling.
Fix fat shots mid-round
You can't rebuild your swing between holes. Run this routine before each iron shot until your strike comes back:
- Make a practice swing beside the ball and watch where the club brushes the grass.
- If the brush lands behind the spot where the ball sits in your stance, set a little more weight on your lead foot and swing again until the brush lands ahead of that spot.
- Grip down an inch, take one more club, and make a smoother swing.
- Look at the front edge of the ball and hold your finish on your lead foot.
Keep any ball position change small. A ball shoved far back in your stance hides the shift you miss, and TPI lists that ball position as a way golfers cover up hanging back. After the round, record your swing and find the move behind the misses.
