What Causes Fat Shots in Golf?

Nothing brings a promising hole to a grinding halt quiet like the dull, heavy thud of a fat shot. You swing with power and good intention, only to watch a huge patch of turf fly farther than your ball. It’s one of the most frustrating mishits in golf because it often feels like you did everything right, but the result was a disaster. This article will break down exactly what causes fat shots, showing you that the root cause is much simpler than you think. We will walk through the common mechanical errors and provide you with actionable drills to finally stop hitting the ground before the ball.

What is a Fat Shot, Really? Understanding the Low Point

Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand it in the simplest terms. A fat shot, sometimes called a "heavy" or "chunked" shot, happens when the bottom of your golf swing occurs behind the golf ball. Your club strikes the ground first, digging into the turf and losing a massive amount of speed and energy before it ever makes contact with the ball. The result is a shot that comes up dramatically short of your target.

The key concept here is the “low point” of your swing. Imagine your clubhead swinging on a giant hula hoop or circle around your body. The low point is the very bottom of that circle, the point closest to the ground. For a crisp, professional-quality iron shot, you want this low point to be slightly in front of the golf ball. This allows the club to strike the ball first, then the ground, creating that clean compression and satisfying divot that you see from good players.

When you hit a shot fat, your entire swing circle has shifted backward, placing that low point behind the ball. Our entire goal is to understand what causes this backward shift and how to get that low point back where it belongs - after the ball.

The Main Culprits: 4 Reasons You’re Hitting it Fat

A faulty low point doesn't just happen randomly. It’s the result of one or more specific physical errors in the swing. Most golfers who struggle with fat shots are making one of these four common mistakes. Let's look at each one and how it messes with your impact.

1. Poor Weight Shift (Hanging Back)

This is, without a doubt, the number one cause of fat shots for amateur golfers. Many players instinctively feel they need to "help" or "lift" the ball into the air. To do this, they keep their weight on their back foot (the right foot for a right-handed golfer) through the downswing. This backward lean forces the entire swing circle to bottom out early, causing the club to smash into the ground behind the ball.

A proper golf swing is a dynamic transfer of energy. As you complete your backswing, your first move down should be a subtle but deliberate shift of pressure into your front foot. This move - getting your weight forward - is what pulls the low point of your swing forward. Picture a Major League pitcher throwing a baseball, they don't stay flat-footed, they step aggressively toward the plate. That same forward motion is what creates power and clean contact in your golf swing.

How to feel it: Stand at address without a club. Swing your arms back, and as you swing them forward, physically step toward the target with your front foot. This forces you to transfer your weight and is the exact feeling you want in your downswing.

2. Early Release (Casting or Scooping)

The term "casting" is named after the motion of casting a fishing line. It’s when a golfer unhinges their wrists far too early in the downswing, essentially throwing the clubhead away from their body. When you cast the club, you release all of that stored power and clubhead speed long before the ball. Your swing "arc" becomes incredibly wide, too soon, guaranteeing that the club will hit the ground first.

This is often linked to the first problem - hanging back. Players who stay on their back foot feel like they need to use their hands and wrists to "scoop" the ball into the air to salvage the shot. They forget a critical fact: your irons are designed with loft to get the ball airborne for you! Your job isn't to lift the ball. Your job is to deliver the clubhead to the back of the ball with a descending blow. When you try to help the ball up, you are almost certain to hit it fat or thin.

How to fix it: The feeling you want is to lead the downswing with the butt-end of the club handle, not the clubhead. Focus on pulling the handle down toward the ball, which will keep your wrists hinged for longer, storing power and ensuring the clubhead gets to the ball before the ground.

3. Stalled Body Rotation

A powerful golf swing is a chain reaction. The downswing starts with a lower body shift and is followed by the aggressive unwinding, or rotation, of your hips and torso through the impact zone. Golfers who hit the ball fat often "stall" this body rotation. Their hips stop turning as they approach the ball.

When the big muscles in your body stop working, the small muscles in your arms and hands are forced to take over. Without the body clearing out of the way, the arms have nowhere to go but down. They are forced to drop the club vertically into the ground behind the ball. A continuous, Cear rotation powers the club around your body and makes space for your arms to swing through to a full, balanced finish. If you look at good players, their hips are wide open to the target at impact, while many amateurs who hit fat shots have their hips still facing the ball.

How to fix it: Your goal should be to finish your swing with your belt buckle pointing at the target. This simple swing thought encourages you to keep your body turning all the way through the shot, pulling the club with it rather than letting it get stuck behind you.

4. A Faulty Setup

Sometimes the fat shot is doomed before you even start your backswing. Your setup position can preset a tendency to hit the ground first. Here are two common setup flaws:

• Ball Position Too Far Forward: With irons, the ball should be positioned near the center of your stance. A common mistake golfers make is playing the ball too far forward, near their lead foot (like a driver setup). Placing the ball this far forward moves it ahead of where your swing naturally bottoms out, making a fat shot almost unavoidable unless you make some other unnatural compensation. For your mid-irons (7, 8, 9-iron), think of placing the ball directly under the logo on your shirt.
• Too Much Weight on the Back Foot at Address: Some golfers set up with their spine tilting away from the target, putting 60% or 70% of their weight on their back foot at address. While a slight tilt is good for a driver, for an iron shot it puts your center of gravity too far behind the ball from the very start, predisposing you to hitting it heavy. Aim for a 50/50 weight distribution at setup to give yourself the best chance of shifting forward properly.

Two Drills to Eliminate Fat Shots Forever

Reading about the causes is one thing, but ingraining the correct feelings is what brings real progress. Here are two of the best drills you can do on the driving range to train your body to achieve that "ball-first" contact.

1. The Towel Drill

This drill provides immediate, undeniable feedback. It’s simple but incredibly effective.

1. Take a small hand towel and place it on the ground about 6 inches directly behind your golf ball.
2. Set up to the ball as you normally would.
3. Now, hit the shot.

If your low point is too far back, you will hit the towel before the ball, sending it flying. Your goal is to swing down into the ball, cleanly missing the towel on every swing. This forces you to shift your weight forward and controls your low point, making it almost impossible to "cast" the club.

2. The Line Drill

This drill trains your eyes and muscles to understand exactly where the divot should be.

1. Take a can of foot spray powder or an alignment stick and draw a straight line on the range grass perpendicular to your target line.
2. Place a ball directly on that line.
3. The goal is to hit the ball, and then make your divot appear entirely on the target side of the line.

When you start, you may see your divot starting right on the line or even behind it. Keep making swings, focusing on that forward weight shift, and work on moving that divot more and more in front of the line. When you can consistently take your divot "past the line," you have effectively cured your fat shot.

Final Thoughts

In the end, fixing the fat shot comes down to controlling the low point of your swing by getting your weight moving toward the target. Whether it's practicing a proper setup, learning to get pressure to your front foot, or keeping your body turning through impact, the goal remains the same: strike the little ball before the big ball.

Applying these mechanical fixes on the range is one thing, but knowing how to adjust for real-world situations is just as important. For those tricky lies on the course - like hitting out of deep rough or trying to finesse a shot from a downhill lie - it's not always clear how to best avoid a fat shot. Our tool, Caddie AI, is designed to help with exactly that. You can take a photo of your ball's lie, and the AI will analyze the situation and give you simple, clear advice on how to adjust your setup and technique to produce a clean strike. It acts as your personal coach, helping you turn practice into better play, right when you need it most.