How to Fix Toe Shots in Golf

There's hardly a worse feeling in golf than catching one squarely off the toe. You feel that jarring sting in your hands, you hear that dull thud instead of a crisp click, and you watch helplessly as the ball flies weak, low, and usually off to the right. It’s a frustrating shot that can turn a great drive into a guaranteed bogey or worse. The good news is that toe shots happen for specific, mechanical reasons, and they are absolutely fixable. This guide will walk you through exactly why you’re hitting the ball off the toe and provide simple, actionable drills to get you back to striking the sweet spot.

So, Why Are You *Really* Hitting Toe Shots?

In the simplest terms, a toe shot happens when the center of the clubface misses the ball on the heel side, causing the toe of the club to make primary contact. This occurs because at the moment of impact, the clubhead is farther away from your body than it was at address. Your entire swing arc has shifted outwards. While it feels complex in the moment, it all boils down to your body creating more space between you and the ball during the downswing.

This unwanted space is created by a few very common swing faults. Let's look at the main culprits:

• Early Extension: This is the big one, the number one killer of well-struck iron shots for amateur golfers. Early extension is when your hips and pelvis thrust forward, toward the golf ball, during the downswing. As your lower body moves closer to the ball, your body stands up out of your posture. To even make contact, your arms have to throw outwards, away from your body, pushing the clubhead out and leading directly to a toe strike.
• Standing Up Out of Posture: A close relative of early extension, this fault involves losing your spine angle. You start in a nice athletic posture, but as you swing down, your chest lifts, and your spine straightens up. This lifting motion pulls your body away from the ball and forces your arms to reach, again pushing the clubhead outwards.
• An Over-the-Top Swing Path: If your swing starts with a "throwing" motion from your shoulders, causing the club to travel from outside your target line to inside it, you are swinging "over the top." This outside-in path naturally pushes the clubhead farther away from your body early in the downswing, making toe contact highly likely if you don't make other major compensations.
• Starting Too Far from the Ball: Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. You might just be setting up too far from the ball. If you're already reaching at address, any small amount of outward movement in your swing will result in a shot off the toe.

Your First Checkpoint: Nailing the Setup

Before an orchestra plays a single note, they tune their instruments. Before you try to fix your swing, you need to "tune" your setup. A faulty setup all but guarantees a faulty swing. Fixing your distance from the ball is the lowest-hanging fruit and can sometimes solve the problem entirely.

Here’s how to find your perfect athletic setup every time:

1. Stand Up Straight: Hold your club out in front of you with your arms relaxed.
2. Bend from the Hips: Now, keeping your back relatively straight, hinge forward from your hips. Let your bottom go back, like you’re about to sit in a tall barstool.
3. Let Your Arms Hang: As you tilt forward, simply let your arms hang straight down from your shoulders naturally. Don’t reach for the ball. Your hands should be hanging directly below your shoulders.
4. Flex Your Knees: Add a slight, athletic flex in your knees. Not a deep squat, just enough to feel balanced and ready for action.

When you do this, the clubhead will land on the ground in a consistent spot. That’s where the ball should be. This process creates a balanced, repeatable setup that allows your body to rotate freely without having to reach or stand up. If you always return to this foundation, you’ve eliminated one of the biggest variables immediately.

Curing the #1 Culprit: Early Extension

If your setup is solid but you’re still making a beeline for the toe, early extension is almost certainly the issue. We thrust our hips toward the ball for a few reasons, most often as a subconscious effort to generate power or to make room for the club to swing through. To fix it, you need to retrain your body to rotate correctly.

Drill 1: The Chair or Headcover on the Wall Drill

This drill gives you physical feedback, making it impossible to cheat. It's one of the most effective ways to feel the proper lower-body motion.

• Set up without a ball, with your glutes just barely touching a wall, a chair, or your golf bag stood on its end.
• Take a slow, three-quarter backswing. As you rotate back, your right glute (for a right-handed golfer) should feel the pressure against the wall or chair.
• Now for the important part. As you start your downswing, the goal is to have your left glute rotate back to touch the spot where your right glute was.
• If you perform this correctly, your glutes will stay in contact with the object throughout the swing. If you early-extend, you will immediately feel the space as your hips move away from it.

Repeat this feeling in slow motion over and over. You’re teaching your lower body to rotate and clear out of the way, rather than pushing into the hitting area. This maintains your posture and gives your arms the space to swing down on the correct path.

Fixing The Path: From Over-the-Top to Inside-Out

An over-the-top swing path is death by a thousand cuts, and one of those cuts is a nasty toe shot. When your club approaches the ball from steeply outside the target line, your instinct is often to stand up and throw the club outwards to avoid hitting the ground behind the ball. We need to train the club to approach from the "inside."

Drill 2: The Two Ball Gate Drill

This classic drill provides instant, undeniable feedback on your swing path. It might seem intimidating, but start slowly and you'll get the hang of it.

• Place your golf ball on the ground as normal.
• Now, place a second golf ball (or an empty ball sleeve, which is a bit safer to start) about four to five inches on the outside and about two inches ahead of your target ball.
• Your task is simple: hit the target ball without touching the outside "gate" ball.
• To succeed, you MUST swing the club from inside the target line and extend a bit more down the line through impact. If you come over the top, you’ll clatter into the gate ball every time.

This drill helps correct your path, which in turn encourages your body to stay in posture instead of standing up and throwing the club at the ball.

Drill 3: The "Towel Under the Trail Arm" Drill

This drill promotes a more connected swing and stops your trail arm (right arm for righties) from flying away from your body, a common move in an over-the-top swing.

• Tuck a small towel or headcover under your right armpit.
• Take some easy half-swings focusing on one thing: keeping that towel pinned between your arm and your side.
• On the backswing, this forces you to rotate your torso rather than just lifting your arms.
• On the downswing, it keeps your right elbow tucked in closer to your body. This gets the club dropping onto an inside path, preventing you from casting it out towards the toe.

When you do it right, you’ll feel your body leading the swing and your arms simply coming along for the ride in a more compact, powerful motion. This is the opposite of the disconnected, arm-dominant motion that causes so many problems.

Final Thoughts

Fixing toe shots boils down to managing the space between your body and the ball. By ensuring your setup is correct and then grooving the feeling of rotating your body while maintaining your spine angle, you actively prevent the club from moving away from you at impact. These drills aren't glamorous, but consistently working on them will retrain your body and get that sweet spot feeling back in your life.

I know that breaking down a an old habit can be challenging, especially when you're on the course and the pressure is on. When you're standing over a shot and your old fault reappears, it's nice to have a trusted second opinion. When you are looking to get immediate, expert guidance on fixing a swing flaw or how to play out of trouble on the course, we built Caddie AI to be your personal coach in your pocket. You can ask for a quick drill, or even analyze a tricky lie, helping you take the guesswork out of your game and swing with much more confidence.