How to Practice Hitting the Golf Ball First

The secret to powerfully pure golf shots isn’t hitting the ball harder, it’s hitting the ball first. That crisp, compressed feeling and piercing ball flight you’re searching for comes directly from striking the golf ball before your club head touches the ground. This article will show you exactly how to understand and practice this fundamental motion, providing simple drills you can take straight to the range to transform your ball striking.

What's Really Happening on a Fat or Thin Shot?

Before we can fix a problem, we need to know what’s causing it. In golf, both fat shots (hitting the ground before the ball) and thin shots (hitting the top half of the ball) are usually symptoms of the same root issue: an incorrect swing bottom.

Imagine your golf swing as a large circle, with the club head traveling along its edge. Your job is to control the very bottom point of that circle, what coaches call the "low point."

• For an ideal iron shot, the low point of the swing should happen after the golf ball. The club hits the ball on a slight downward path, compresses it against the clubface, and then takes a divot of turf in front of where the ball was. This is often described as "ball then turf."
• A fat shot happens when the low point of your swing circle occurs behind the ball. Your club hits the ground first, digging up a big chunk of turf, losing a massive amount of energy, and sending the ball a fraction of the distance it should have gone.
• A thin shot is the opposite side of the same coin. The low point is still behind the ball, but as the club head starts rising from that incorrect bottom, it catches the ball on the upswing, typically striking it around the equator. This results in that low, screaming shot that runs forever, and an unpleasant vibration up your arms.

So, the entire goal is to get the low point of your swing consistently ahead of the ball. It sounds simple, but it requires coordinating your setup and your swing motion. Let's break down how to do it.

Building the Foundation: A Setup for Solid Contact

Your chance of hitting the ball first improves dramatically before you even start the swing. Your setup position pre-sets a lot of what will happen in the motion that follows. Think of it as programming your body for success. For a standard mid-iron shot, here’s what to focus on.

Ball Position is Your Starting Point

This is probably the most straightforward setup adjustment you can make. For shorter and mid-irons (wedges through to about a 7-iron), the ball should be positioned in the very center of your stance. As you take your stance, the ball should feel like it’s directly underneath the buttons on your shirt or your breastbone. Playing the ball too far forward encourages your body to hang back to reach it, which moves the swing bottom behind the ball. Getting it centered gives you the best chance to get on top of it at impact.

Weight Distribution and a Stable Base

Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart. This creates a stable base that allows your body to rotate powerfully but under control. Your weight should feel evenly balanced between your left and right foot - a solid 50/50 distribution. You should also feel the pressure balanced between the balls of your feet and your heels. This centered, athletic position prevents you from swaying off the ball, which is a major cause of an inconsistent low point.

Body Pushed Back, Arms Hanging Down

A common mistake amateurs make is not leaning over enough. You want to hinge from your hips, pushing your bottom back as if you were about to sit in a high stool. This lean from the hips allows your arms to hang straight down from your shoulders naturally and completely relaxed. If your arms have to reach out for the ball, you've upset the balance. If they're jammed in close to your body, you're standing too upright. By hinging properly and letting your arms hang, you've set the radius of your swing circle perfectly.

The Downswing Secret: The Weight Shift

If the setup is the foundation, the downswing transition is where the real work happens. This is where most golfers who struggle with contact go wrong. They try to generate power by violently rotating their upper body from the top, often leaving their weight on their back foot.

The correct sequence is much smoother. To move the low point of your swing forward, you must shift your pressure into your front foot before you aggressively turn.

As you finish your backswing, the first move down should be a subtle but clear push toward the target with your lower body. You should feel your weight starting to transfer from your trail foot to your lead foot. This little bump forward is what moves the entire bottom of your swing circle ahead of the ball. Only once that shift has started should you let your body unwind and rotate through the shot. This sequence - shift then turn - is what allows you to descend into the back of the ball, compressing it and taking that professional-looking divot after impact.

Three Simple Drills for Ball-First Contact

Understanding the concept is one thing, feeling it is another. These three drills are designed to stop you from overthinking and just let your body learn the right feeling.

1. The Towel Drill

This is the simplest and one of the most effective drills there is for immediate feedback.

• How to do it: Take a small hand towel and place it on the ground about 6 inches behind your golf ball. Address the ball as you normally would.
• The Goal: Hit the golf ball without hitting the towel.
• Why it works: If your swing bottom is behind the ball (the cause of fat shots), you will unavoidably hit the towel on your downswing. It gives you instant, undeniable feedback that you are not shifting your weight forward. To miss the towel, you're forced to get your weight transferred to your lead side, moving the low point in front of the ball.

2. The Headcover Gate Drill

This drill helps both with path and angle of attack, promoting that downward strike.

• How to do it: Set a golf ball down. Place one headcover about a foot behind the ball and just outside the target line. Place a second headcover about a foot in front of the ball and just inside the target line. This creates a "gate" for your club to swing through.
• The Goal: Swing the club through the gate without hitting either headcover.
• Why it works: Hitting the back headcover means your path is too severe from the inside. More importantly for ball-striking, avoiding BOTH headcovers forces a path that approaches the ball correctly and encourages a descending blow to get under the front headcover. It organically teaches a better swing plane and weight shift.

3. The Step-Through Drill

This drill might feel strange at first, but it is phenomenal for exaggerating the feeling of a proper weight transfer and letting your momentum carry you through the shot.

• How to do it: Set up to the ball with your feet slightly closer together than normal. Make your normal backswing. As you start your downswing, take a full step forward with your trail foot, planting it past your lead foot as you swing through and hit the ball. You should end up in a walking pose facing the target.
• The Goal: To smoothly step and swing through the ball in one fluid motion.
• Why it works: It's physically impossible to do this drill correctly while leaving your weight on your back foot. The act of stepping through forces 100% of your mass and momentum to move toward the target, naturally moving that swing bottom well ahead of the ball's original position. It gets you out of your head and teaches your body what a dynamic, forward-moving release feels like. Start with small, easy swings and build up the speed as you get comfortable.

Final Thoughts

Improving your ball striking is all about controlling the low point of your swing. By focusing on a "ball-then-turf" mentality, building a solid setup, properly shifting your pressure toward the target, and using simple drills to train the correct feeling, you will see a tremendous improvement in the quality and consistency of your shots.

As you work on these drills, understanding what’s really happening in your swing beyond feel is incredibly powerful. Instead of just guessing why you hit a fat shot, our Caddie AI acts as a personal diagnostician. It can pinpoint areas for improvement and give you personalized feedback in seconds based on your specific shot patterns or even your swing video, acting as a spot-check from a coach anytime you’re at the range. That kind of instant insight helps turn practice into real, lasting, on-course improvement.