What Is a Thin Shot in Golf?

That unmistakable, stinging vibration that shoots up your arms. The gut-wrenching click of metal on the ball’s equator. You look up just in time to see your golf ball screaming low across the turf, a worm-burner that refuses to get airborne. If that sounds painfully familiar, you’ve come to the right place. That shot is a thin, and it’s one of the most common and frustrating mishits in golf. This guide will break down exactly why you’re hitting it thin and walk you through the simple, actionable steps to start striking your irons with pure, satisfying compression.

What Is a Thin Shot, Really?

Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand what’s actually happening at impact. In the simplest terms, a thin or “bladed” shot occurs when the leading edge of your golf club makes contact with the golf ball at or above its midline, or equator. Instead of hitting down on the ball and compressing it against the clubface for a high, spinning trajectory, the club catches it on the upswing or has bottomed out too early.

Your golf swing moves in an arc. For a quality iron shot, the lowest point of that arc - the “low point” - should happen just after the golf ball. This allows the club head to descend, strike the ball first, and then take a shallow scoop of turf, called a divot, after the ball is already on its way.

When you hit it thin, the low point of your swing has shifted. It’s either happening too far behind the ball, meaning the club is already traveling upward when it makes contact, or the entire arc has been lifted up, preventing you from ever getting down to the ball properly. The result is that low-flying missile with no backspin, which often travels much further than you intended because all the energy is directed forward instead of upward.

The Common Culprits: Top 4 Reasons You’re Hitting it Thin

A thin shot isn’t usually a random event. It’s the result of a specific issue in your swing. Let's look at the four most common culprits and see if one of them sounds like what you're feeling on the course.

1. Standing Up Through the Shot (Early Extension)

This is probably the most frequent cause of thin shots for amateur golfers. When you set up to the ball, you create a certain amount of forward bend from your hips and maintain a specific posture. Early extension is the body’s natural–but incorrect–impulse to stand up and lose that posture during the downswing. Your hips thrust toward the golf ball, your chest and head lift up, and your arms have to pull in to avoid getting stuck.

When you stand up, you instantly raise the low point of your swing arc. The spot where your club was supposed to bottom out is now several inches higher, perfectly positioned to catch the top half of the ball. It’s often a subconscious move to try and create more power or to give yourself more room to swing, but the outcome is almost always a thin or a shank.

The Fix in One Sentence: You need to feel like you maintain your setup posture and turn your hips around your body, not thrust them toward the ball.

2. A Swaying Motion (Instead of Rotating)

A proper golf swing is a rotational action. Think of your body turning around a central point, your spine. A ‘sway’ is when your weight and body shifts laterally - away from the target - during the backswing, instead of turning. When you sway, the center of your swing (and your low point) moves several inches behind the golf ball.

From the top of the backswing, you now have an impossible task: you have to somehow lunge your entire body back toward the target to get to the ball. More often than not, this recovery move is incomplete. Your club bottoms out behind the ball, catching it on the upswing for another classic thin shot. You want to feel like you're rotating within a cylinder, as seen in The Complete Golf Swing Guide, not sliding from side to side.

The Fix in One Sentence: Feel like you are loading weight into your trail leg by turning your hips, not by simply sliding your entire body away from the target.

3. Overly Active Arms and Hands

Great golf swings are powered by the body. The rotation of your torso and hips is the engine that generates speed. A common error, especially for new golfers, is to try and power the swing primarily with the arms and hands.

When the big muscles of the body stop turning through the shot, the smaller muscles in the arms and hands take over. This often leads to the golfer "flipping" the club at the ball, where the wrists break down and scoop upward in an attempt to help the ball get airborne. This flipping motion causes the clubhead to pass the hands too early, making the upswing start right at impact. Your body has given up its job of producing the power, and your arms are making a last-ditch effort that raises the club's an sends the ball flying low and thin.

The Fix in One Sentence: Feel your bigger muscles - your chest and core - rotating all the way through to a full finish, with your arms just along for the ride.

4. Incorrect Ball Position

Sometimes, the fix is much simpler than a swing mechanic. Your ball position might just be wrong for the club you're hitting. For short and mid-irons (wedges through to the 7-iron), the ball should be positioned near the center of your stance. As you saw in our Set Up Guide, this placement puts the ball right at the spot where a good swing naturally bottoms out.

If you play the ball too far forward in your stance - more like where you'd position a driver - you're asking for trouble with your irons. The club is well past the low point and is already traveling upward by the time it reaches the ball. It's almost impossible to hit down on the ball from this position. The result? A thin shot, every time.

The Fix in One Sentence: For your irons, double-check that your ball position is somewhere between the middle of your stance and just inside your lead heel, but never as far forward as a driver.

3 Simple Drills to Eliminate Thin Shots for Good

Knowing why you hit it thin is half the battle. Now, let’s get to work with some simple drills you can do on the range to build the right feelings and habits.

1. Drill: The "Belt Buckle to Target" Drill

This is a fantastic drill for combating early extension and promoting a powerful, body-led rotation. Forget about complex thoughts. Instead, your only swing thought from the top of the swing should be to rotate your belt buckle so that it points at the target in your finish position.

• Step 1: Take your normal setup.
• Step 2: As you start your downswing, initiate the movement with your lower body turning, not lunching forward.
• Step 3: Your main focus in the follow-through is to keep turning your hips and core until your belt buckle is facing the target (or even slightly left of it for a right-handed player).
• Step 4: You'll notice that to do this, your trail heel has to come off the ground and you need to finish balanced over your lead foot. This move forces you to stay in posture and use your body as the engine, completely preventing you from standing up and flipping it.

2. Drill: The "Line on the Ground" Drill

This drill gives you instant, visual feedback on where your swing is bottoming out. It's the best way to train yourself to hit the ball first and the turf second.

• Step 1: On the driving range turf or with some athletic foot spray on the mat, draw a straight line perpendicular to your target line.
• Step 2: Line yourself up so the line is in the middle of your stance. Now, place a golf ball directly on the line.
• Step 3: The goal is simple: hit the ball and have your divot start on the target side of the line. Your club should strike the ball first, then the line, and then the ground in front of it.
• Step 4: If your divot starts behind the line, you know your low point is too far back (usually from a sway). If you barely brush the grass at all, you know your swing arc is too high (usually from standing up). Keep making practice swings until you can consistently take your divot ahead of the line.

3. Drill: Feet Together Drill

If your swing feels out-of-sync and you're swaying all over the place, this drill will bring everything back together. It’s impossible to sway or get aggressive with your arms when your balance is tested like this.

• Step 1: Take a 7 or 8-iron and address the ball with your feet touching each other.
• Step 2: Now, make small, smooth swings - about half speed. Don't try to kill it. The goal is to simply stay in balance. S
• Step 3: You will immediately discover that the only way to hit the ball solidly without falling over is to rotate your body around your center. You can't lunge or sway. This forces your arms and body to work together as a single, connected unit. After hitting a few shots like this, go back to your normal stance and try to recreate that same feeling of quiet, centered rotation.

Final Thoughts

Fixing the thin shot comes down to understanding the one main problem: your swing arc's low point is in the wrong place. By working to stay in your posture, rotating your body correctly, and using drills to dial in your ball-then-turf contact, you can replace that awful stinging feeling with the pure, compressed pleasure of a perfectly struck iron.

It can be tough to diagnose your own swing, especially when what you feel isn’t what’s really happening. That’s why we created Caddie AI. When you're stuck on the range hitting one thin shot after another, you can just ask your AI coach for help. Describe your miss, and we’ll give you simple, personalized drills and swing thoughts to work on right then and there. Our goal is to take the guesswork out of your practice so you can focus on building a more consistent swing and enjoying the game more.