Hitting behind the ball means you strike the ground before you hit the golf ball. This causes hitting fat in golf, often called chunking golf shot. It usually leads to a short, high shot or a complete whiff. You need to learn how to stop hitting behind the ball by fixing your ground contact in golf swing.
Deciphering the Problem: Why Golf Shots Go Fat
When you hit fat, your club hits the turf too early. This stops the clubhead dead before it reaches the ball. It is a very common issue for golfers of all skill levels, leading to inconsistent golf contact. Many golf swing flaws can lead to this problem. It all comes down to where you make your lowest point in the swing.
Poor Low Point Control: The Main Culprit
Poor low point control is the single biggest reason for hitting fat. In a perfect iron shot, the lowest point of the swing arc—where the club hits the ground—should happen just after the ball. This ensures you compress the ball first, then take a divot behind the target line.
When you hit behind the ball, your low point moves too far forward of the ball. Your hands are often too far ahead of the clubhead at impact, or your weight is stuck on your back foot.
Common Causes of Hitting Fat in Golf
There are several specific golf fat shots causes. They often work together.
1. Weight Shift Issues
Your weight needs to shift correctly from your back foot to your lead (front) foot through impact.
- Stuck Weight: If your weight stays too much on your trail (back) foot, you cannot get the clubhead to move forward through the hitting area. You are forced to swing upward or backward to save the shot. This keeps the low point too far back.
- Premature Weight Shift: Sometimes, golfers try too hard to shift their weight early. They might sway out toward the target before impact. This throws the swing path off and often results in the club bottoming out too soon.
2. Improper Shaft Lean at Address
Shaft lean refers to the angle of the club shaft at setup relative to your lead arm. With irons, you usually want a slight forward shaft lean (hands ahead of the clubhead).
- Too Little Lean: If your hands are too far behind the clubhead at address, it sets up a tendency to hit fat. You have to try to hold off the release to avoid hitting the ground too soon, which often backfires.
3. The ‘Casting’ or Early Release
This is a major contributor to digging in golf swing. Casting means releasing the wrist angles (the lag) too early in the downswing.
- When you cast, the clubhead gets ‘thrown’ out away from your body too soon.
- This causes the arc to bottom out prematurely, right behind the ball.
- It feels like you are swinging hard, but the power is wasted early, leading to chunking.
4. Steep Angle of Attack
The angle of attack describes how vertical your swing path is when the club meets the ball.
- Too Steep: A very steep downswing means the club is driving sharply down into the ground. If this downward motion continues past the ball, you will hit fat.
- This often happens when trying too hard to hit down on the ball without proper weight transfer.
5. Head Position During the Swing
Keeping your head steady is crucial for consistent ground contact in golf swing.
- Lifting the Head (Standing Up): If your head moves up too soon in the downswing or just before impact, it forces the body to stand up. This upward movement makes the bottom of the arc move backward, causing a fat shot.
Practical Drills for Improving Golf Ball Striking
To fix hitting behind the ball, you must focus on shifting the low point forward. These drills help retrain your body for better compression and cleaner contact.
Drill 1: The Tee Drill for Ground Contact
This drill directly addresses hitting too far behind the ball.
- Place a golf ball on the tee as you normally would for an iron shot.
- Place a second tee in the ground about one inch in front of the golf ball.
- The goal is simple: Hit the ball first, and then hit the second tee on your way down.
If you hit fat, you will either hit the second tee first, or you will miss the ball entirely because you hit the ground behind it. This drill forces you to shift your ground contact in golf swing forward.
Drill 2: Towel Under the Trail Arm
This drill helps manage the dreaded early release or casting. It promotes better lag and keeps the hands ahead.
- Place a small hand towel or headcover under your trail armpit (right armpit for a right-handed golfer).
- Set up to a golf ball.
- Make half swings, focusing on keeping the towel tucked in until after the point where you would normally hit the ground.
- If you cast or release the lag too early, the towel will fall out well before impact. This trains you to maintain connection and ensures your hands lead the clubhead through impact.
Drill 3: The Weight Transfer Focus
This drill isolates the feeling of proper weight shift, which is key to moving the low point forward.
- Take your normal stance.
- Start your backswing, but only go halfway up.
- As you start the downswing, focus entirely on shifting your weight forcefully onto your lead foot. Feel the pressure move from your trail foot to your lead foot.
- Strike the ball while maintaining that pressure on the front foot.
- Stop your follow-through immediately after impact, ensuring your belt buckle is facing the target. This prevents you from swaying backward to save the shot.
Drill 4: Stance Narrowing Drill
When golfers get nervous about hitting fat, they sometimes widen their stance too much for stability. This can prevent necessary rotational movement.
- Set up with your feet much closer together than normal—almost touching.
- Hit short shots (half swings) with a wedge or 9-iron.
- The narrow stance makes it physically difficult to keep your weight on the back foot. You are forced to maintain balance and shift your weight correctly to stay on plane. This promotes better improving golf ball striking.
Correcting Swing Mechanics to Stop Hitting Behind the Ball
Fixing golf swing flaws often requires technical adjustments in your setup and transition.
Adjusting Your Ball Position
For most irons (especially mid-irons), the ball should be played slightly forward of center in your stance.
- Too Far Back: If the ball is too close to your back foot, you must swing backward to reach it. This almost guarantees hitting fat in golf.
- The Fix: Move the ball position so it sits near the middle of your stance, or slightly forward of center for your 7-iron and 6-iron. This allows the club to arrive at the ball while your weight is already moving forward.
Managing the Transition: Avoiding the ‘Hit From the Top’
The transition from the backswing to the downswing is where many golf fat shots causes begin.
The ‘Shallow’ Move
A good downswing requires the club to shallow out slightly. This means the shaft leans slightly away from the target line just as you start down.
- What NOT to Do: Many golfers initiate the downswing by throwing their shoulders or arms out toward the target. This steepens the angle of attack immediately and leads to digging in golf swing.
- What TO Do: Feel like you initiate the downswing with your lower body—a slight squat or shift toward the target before the arms drop down into the slot. This keeps the hands ahead of the clubhead briefly, promoting compression.
Setup Checklist for Forward Contact
A good setup minimizes the chance of poor low point control. Use this checklist before every iron shot:
| Setup Element | Incorrect (Leads to Fat Shots) | Correct (Aids Compression) |
|---|---|---|
| Ball Position | Too far back, near the trail foot. | Center to slightly forward of center. |
| Weight Distribution | 60% or more on the back foot. | 50/50 or slightly favoring the lead side (60/40). |
| Posture | Standing too upright or ‘stiff’. | Hips flexed, spine tilted slightly away from the target. |
| Grip Pressure | Gripping too tightly. | Relaxed grip pressure (4 out of 10). |
The Role of Lag and Releasing the Club
Lag is the angle between your lead arm and the club shaft during the downswing. Holding this lag until impact is essential for improving golf ball striking.
Releasing Too Early (Casting)
When you cast, you lose lag. The clubhead overtakes your hands well before impact. This is why you hit the ground first. The club is “dead” before it ever reaches the ball.
How to Keep the Lag
Focus on the feeling of the club lagging behind your hands as you swing down.
- The Feeling Drill: Try swinging the club in slow motion. In the downswing, focus on keeping your wrists ‘loaded’ or hinged. It should feel like the clubhead is slightly trailing your hands all the way to the moment of impact. Only then do you let the wrists snap through for speed.
- If you can maintain wrist hinge until the ball, the low point of your swing arc will naturally move forward, helping you avoid chunking golf shot.
Diagnosing Inconsistent Golf Contact Through Video
If you are still struggling with inconsistent golf contact, video analysis is your best friend. Filming your swing from two angles is critical:
- Down the Line (D-Plane): Filming from behind the target line, looking down the line of the ball. This angle clearly shows your swing path (over the top or inside) and how steep or shallow your attack angle is.
- Face On: Filming from directly in front of you. This angle best reveals your head movement (lifting) and how your weight shifts laterally during the swing.
Look specifically for these signs that indicate you are setting up a fat shot:
- Head Movement: Does your head rise significantly before impact? (Indicates standing up too soon.)
- Trail Foot Position: Is your trail foot still firmly planted or even pushing up onto the toe? (Indicates weight is stuck behind.)
- Forward Shaft Lean: Are your hands clearly behind the clubhead at impact, or have they ‘flipped’ past the clubhead? (Indicates casting.)
By observing these golf swing flaws, you can match the visual evidence to the feeling of digging in golf swing that you experienced during the shot.
Addressing Steepness and Digging in Golf Swing
Sometimes, the problem isn’t just when you hit the ground, but how hard you hit it. This is often associated with excessive steepness, leading to deep divots (sometimes called heavy divots).
Why Steepness Happens
Steepness usually results from an over-the-top move or trying to pull the hands toward the body too early in the transition.
- The Fix—Out-to-In Path Correction: To shallow the swing, focus on feeling like the club drops down inside the target line in the transition. Imagine dropping the club directly down toward the ground slightly behind your hands, rather than throwing your arms toward the ball. This helps level out the angle of attack.
The Practice Mat Test
If you practice on artificial mats, a fat shot will be painfully obvious because the mat absorbs the impact unevenly.
- If you see a huge scar mark far behind the actual ball mark, you know your ground contact in golf swing is too far back.
- Use this feedback immediately. Take a swing where you focus only on moving that point of contact forward, even if the ball flight is momentarily worse. Better compression now leads to better results later.
Advanced Focus: Improving Golf Ball Striking Through Rhythm
Perfect mechanics mean nothing if your rhythm is erratic. A sudden change in tempo often triggers golf fat shots causes.
The Connection Between Tempo and Weight Shift
When a golfer rushes the transition (the move from backswing to downswing), the lower body often tries to fire too fast. This results in the arms lagging too far behind, forcing an early release to catch up.
- Slow and Steady Wins: Practice making smooth, unhurried transitions. The key to improving golf ball striking is often slowing down the start of the downswing. Allow your weight to shift naturally before the arms start moving down aggressively.
Rhythm Drill: The ‘Whoosh’ Drill
This drill is fantastic for feeling clubhead speed generated through proper release, not just arm strength.
- Take a club without a head (a shaft only) or use a weighted training aid.
- Swing it back and forth over your head.
- Listen for the loudest “whoosh” sound. In a proper swing, the whoosh should occur just after you swing past where the ball would be (i.e., in the follow-through).
- If the loudest whoosh happens when the shaft is parallel to the ground or behind you, you are casting and causing inconsistent golf contact. Adjust your swing until the sound peaks after the impact zone.
Summary of Fixing Hitting Fat
How to stop hitting behind the ball requires discipline in practice and attention to detail at setup. The primary focus must be on moving the point of ground contact in golf swing to occur after the ball.
To summarize the most effective changes:
- Weight Forward: Ensure weight is moving to the lead side early in the downswing.
- Hands Lead: Maintain forward shaft lean so hands arrive before the clubhead.
- Tee Drill: Use the two-tee drill religiously until you feel comfortable hitting the ball first.
- Avoid Standing Up: Maintain your posture and spine angle until after impact.
By systematically addressing these golf swing flaws, you will eliminate hitting fat in golf and start enjoying cleaner, more powerful iron shots.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Can I fix hitting fat shots just by trying to swing harder?
A: No. Trying to swing harder often makes the problem worse. Swinging harder without correct sequence usually leads to more casting and a steeper attack angle, resulting in worse chunking golf shot and more frequent inconsistent golf contact. Focus on sequence and proper weight transfer first; speed will follow naturally.
Q: Why do I hit fat shots only with my short irons but strike my driver fine?
A: This is very common. Drivers are generally hit on an ascending blow (sweeping motion), promoting poor low point control well behind the ball. Short irons require a descending blow. If you apply the sweeping motion used for the driver to your wedges, you will inevitably hit the turf too early, causing digging in golf swing. You must adjust your angle of attack dramatically between clubs.
Q: What is the quickest way to check for casting, one of the major golf fat shots causes?
A: The quickest check is feeling the weight of the clubhead. During the downswing, if you feel the weight shift to the toe of the club early, you are casting. In a correct move, you should feel the weight centered or slightly towards the heel until just after impact.
Q: How does ball position affect ground contact in golf swing?
A: Ball position sets the stage for your low point. If the ball is too far back, your body has to reach for it, often causing the low point to fall behind the ball. A slightly forward position encourages the hands to lead and the low point to move correctly through the ball for better improving golf ball striking.