You’ve hit another one fat. The club thuds into the ground behind the ball, sending a divot flying and the ball dribbling forward a few yards. You’ve tried keeping your head down. You’ve tried staying in your posture. You’ve tried swinging easier. You’ve tried a dozen different fixes your buddies have suggested. But you still catch it heavy more often than you’d like. The problem isn’t what you think it is and the fix is probably the opposite of what feels natural.
What everyone gets wrong
Most golfers think fat shots come from lifting up or standing up through impact. So they focus on staying down, keeping their head still, maintaining their spine angle. That’s not wrong but it’s not the real issue.
The real culprit is trying to help the ball into the air. You see the ball sitting on the ground and your brain says you need to get under it. So you hang back on your right foot (if you’re right-handed) and try to scoop it up. You’re trying to lift the ball with the club.
This feels helpful. It feels like you’re doing the club’s job for it. But it’s exactly what causes the fat shot.
When your weight stays back, the low point of your swing moves back, too. The club bottoms out behind the ball. You hit the ground first and then the ball. That’s a fat shot. And the harder you try to help it up, the worse it gets.
Why this matters more than mechanics
I’ve seen players with beautiful swings hit it fat constantly. I’ve seen players with ugly swings make clean contact every time. The difference isn’t swing plane, wrist angles or shoulder turn. It’s where they’re trying to make the club bottom out.
Good contact requires the club to reach its lowest point at or slightly in front of the ball. That only happens when your weight moves forward through impact. When you stay back to help the ball up, physics works against you. The club can’t bottom out ahead of where your weight is.
This is why fat shots feel so inconsistent. Sometimes you get away with hanging back because you catch the ball first by accident. Sometimes you don’t. You never know which one you’re going to get. Your brain learns that contact is unpredictable so you start guiding and steering, which makes everything worse.
The club has loft for a reason: to get the ball airborne. Your job isn’t to lift it. Your job is to hit down on it and let the club do what it’s designed to do.
What actually works
The fix is counterintuitive. To stop hitting it fat, you need to hit down more. You need to move your weight forward and trust the loft to get the ball up.
At impact, your weight should be on your front foot. Not 50-50. Not 60-40. More like 70-30 or 80-20. Your chest should be over or even past the ball. The shaft should be leaning forward, hands ahead of the clubhead.
This creates a descending blow. The club hits the ball first and then takes a divot in front of where the ball was. The ball compresses against the clubface, the loft launches it up and you get that crisp, clean contact that feels effortless.
It feels wrong at first. It feels like you’re driving the ball into the ground. But that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Hit down to make the ball go up. That’s not a cliché. That’s how irons work.
What good players do differently
Watch a pro hit an iron. Their divot is always in front of where the ball was. Always. They’re not trying to sweep it off the turf. They’re not trying to help it up. They’re hitting down with their weight moving forward.
Good players also finish with their weight almost entirely on their front foot. They don’t hang back and admire the shot. They move through the ball. Their belt buckle faces the target. Their back heel is off the ground. All their momentum has shifted forward.
Good players trust the loft so they focus on moving forward and making ball-first contact. The trajectory takes care of itself.
How to fix it
Start with this drill. Take a short iron and make some practice swings where you brush the grass. Pay attention to where the club touches the ground. If it’s touching behind where the ball would be, you’re hanging back.
Now make swings where you deliberately try to brush the grass a few inches forward of where the ball would be. Feel your weight shift onto your front foot. Feel your hands stay ahead of the clubhead. That’s the feeling you want.
Next, hit some shots with 60 percent of your weight already on your front foot at address. This pre-sets the forward weight shift and makes it easier to stay there through impact. You’ll feel like you’re leaning toward the target. That’s fine. Hit some balls from this setup and notice how much crisper the contact feels.
Finally, practice the finish position. After you hit a shot, hold your finish and check your weight distribution. If you can lift your back foot completely off the ground without losing balance, your weight moved forward. If you can’t, you hung back. Do this on every shot until moving forward becomes automatic.
The simple truth
Fat shots don’t come from bad mechanics. They come from trying to help the ball into the air. The fix isn’t complicated. Move your weight forward. Hit down on the ball. Trust the loft. The club is designed to get the ball airborne when you hit down on it. Your job is to let it do its job. Stop trying to lift the ball and start trying to compress it. That’s the difference between fat shots and pure contact.
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