What Causes a Topped Golf Shot?

There is arguably no more frustrating shot in golf than the topped shot - that soul-crushing scuttler that dribbles just a few feet in front of you. Topping the ball consistently can make you want to snap a club over your knee, but the good news is that it’s an entirely fixable problem. This article breaks down the most common reasons golfers top the ball and gives you simple, actionable drills to eliminate it from your game for good.

What is a Topped Shot, Really?

Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand what’s actually happening. A topped shot occurs when the leading edge of your golf club makes contact with the golf ball at or above its equator (the middle line). A clean, powerful golf shot happens when the club strikes the ball on a slightly descending path, making contact with the ball first, and then brushing the turf just after. This proper "ball-then-turf" contact compresses the ball against the clubface, sending it soaring into the air with spin and control.

When you top the ball, the bottom of your swing arc is simply in the wrong place. Either your swing bottoms out before the ball, meaning the club is already traveling upward when it makes contact, or the entire arc has been lifted too high, preventing the club from ever getting down to the turf. Forget about complex theories, every topped shot boils down to this fundamental error in your swing's low point. The following are the most common culprits that cause this to happen, along with drills to help you correct them.

Cause #1: You’re Standing Up Through the Shot (Early Extension)

This is overwhelmingly the biggest cause of topped shots for amateur golfers. At address, you create a specific spine angle by hinging at your hips and tilting your upper body over the ball. "Standing up," or early extension, is when you lose that angle during your downswing. Your hips thrust forward toward the ball, your chest lifts up, and your spine straightens just before impact.

When your torso lifts, your arms and the club come up with it. The carefully created low point of your swing is suddenly several inches higher than it was at address, and the only part of the club that can reach the ball is the leading edge, hitting it thin or right on the top. This often happens because your body is instinctively trying to create power or make room for the club, but learns an improper sequence.

How to Fix It: The Chair-Behind-You Drill

To feel what it’s like to maintain your posture, you need immediate feedback. This drill removes any guesswork.

• Step 1: Place an empty golf bag, a chair, or even an alignment stick in the ground just behind your trail hip.
• Step 2: Take your normal address position so that your glutes are just lightly touching the object behind you. You shouldn't be leaning on it, just know it's there.
• Step 3: Begin making slow, easy practice swings. Your goal is simple: keep your glutes in contact with the chair or bag throughout the entire swing - backswing and through to impact.
• Step 4: If you perform early extension, you will immediately feel your hips move forward and away from the object. This is your cue that you're standing up. Concentrate on keeping that contact by feeling like your hips are rotating back and away from the ball on the downswing, not towards it.

This drill trains your body to rotate correctly while staying in posture, which keeps the low point of your swing consistent and down where it needs to be to strike the ball cleanly.

Cause #2: You’re Trying to "Lift" the Ball

It's a natural instinct. The golf ball is sitting on the ground, and you want it to go up into the air. Our brain tells us to get under the ball and scoop it skyward. However, in golf, this is the exact opposite of what you need to do. The loft built into every golf club is designed to launch the ball for you. Your job isn't to help it up, your job is to strike down on it.

When golfers try to lift the ball, they typically hang back on their trail foot, keep their weight away from the target, and flip their wrists at the ball in a scooping motion. When all your weight stays back, the low point of your swing arc moves too far behind the ball. By the time the clubhead actually arrives at impact, it has already passed its lowest point and is now traveling up. This upward trajectory catches the top half of the ball, producing either a thin shot or a classic top.

How to Fix It: The Low-Point Towel Drill

This drill is exceptional for forcing a downward angle of attack and proper weight shift.

• Step 1: On the driving range, place a small hand towel on the ground about 6 inches behind your golf ball. If you don't have a towel, a headcover or a line of spray paint works just as well.
• Step 2: Set up to the golf ball as you normally would. Your only goal for the swing is to hit the ball a solid shot without touching the towel on your backswing or downswing.
• Step 3: To avoid the towel, you will be physically forced to shift your weight forward onto your lead side and hit down on the ball with your hands ahead of the clubhead. If you hang back or try to scoop, you'll hit the towel every single time.

Focus on hitting the ball and then bruising the grass in front of where the ball was. Success means the ball is gone, the towel is untouched, and your divot starts at or just past the ball's location.

Cause #3: The Reverse Pivot

Closely related to keeping weight back is the dreaded reverse pivot. A proper golf swing involves loading your weight onto your trail leg in the backswing and then transferring it to your lead leg in the downswing. A reverse pivot is when you do this in reverse order.

Here’s what it looks like: in the backswing, the golfer's weight shifts to the *lead* foot (the left foot for a right-handed player), causing the upper body to tilt toward the target. Then, in the downswing, they compensate by pushing all their weight back onto their trail foot and leaning away from the target. From this off-balance position, with their weight stuck on their back foot, the low point of the swing again moves far behind the ball, making a topped or fat shot almost inevitable.

How to Fix It: The Step-Through Swing Drill

To fix a reverse pivot, you have to ingrain the feeling of a proper weight transfer. This drill makes it almost impossible to get wrong.

• Step 1: Set up to a ball with a mid-iron, like a 7 or 8-iron. Take a normal backswing, focusing on feeling the pressure load into your trail leg.
• Step 2: As you start your downswing sequence, smoothly transfer your weight forward onto your lead leg.
• Step 3: Immediately after making contact with the ball, let your body's momentum continue and take a step with your trail foot, walking forward toward the target.
• Step 4: Finish balanced on your lead foot with your trail foot now ahead of where you started.

You cannot step toward the target if your weight is hanging back. This drill forces the proper dynamic weight shift through impact and encourages you to rotate fully towards the target, breaking the reverse-pivot habit in the process.

Cause #4: Simple Setup and Ball Position Errors

Sometimes, the cause of a topped shot is less about your swing motion and more about your starting position. A poor setup can doom you before you even take the club back.

One of the most common setup faults is incorrect ball position. For mid-iron shots, the ball should generally be positioned in the center of your stance. If you play the ball too far forward in your stance (closer to your lead foot) with an iron, your swing will naturally bottom out before it can reach the ball. The club will have already started its ascent by the time it gets there, leading to a topped strike. Similarly, standing too far away from the ball can cause you to reach, altering your posture mid-swing and pulling the clubhead up off its intended path.

How to Fix It: The Two-Stick Alignment Setup

Consistency starts at address. Use alignment sticks to remove any doubt about your setup.

• Step 1: Lay one alignment stick on the ground pointing straight at your target. This is your target line.
• Step 2: Lay another alignment stick perpendicular to the first one, forming a "T" shape. This second stick represents your ball position.
• Step 3: For short to mid-irons, position the second stick so it’s exactly in the middle of your stance, pointing at your sternum.
• Step 4: Hit balls using these guides. Look down frequently to confirm that the ball remains where the sticks tell you it should be. This trains your eyes and body to recognize a consistent and correct setup, building a reliable foundation for every swing.

Final Thoughts

In the end, fixing a topped shot is all about managing the low point of your golf swing. By maintaining your posture, striking down on the ball, shifting your weight correctly, and creating a consistent setup, you ensure that your club makes clean contact with the ball first, then the turf. Focus on these fundamentals and you’ll replace those frustrating scuttlers with the pure, compressed feel of a perfectly struck iron.

Mastering these fundamentals requires practice, and you sometimes need an expert opinion right when a problem surfaces. That's why we built Caddie AI to be your 24/7 golf coach. If you're out on the range and old habits creep back in, you can describe your shot, like a persistent top, and get instant, easy-to-understand feedback and drills. It’s a judgment-free way to find the right fix for your swing, right when you need it, so you can stop guessing and start hitting pure shots.