We talked about the thin miss when hitting a golf ball last week, where the club is traveling on the upward side of the swing arc and the leading edge catches the ball, sends it bouncing and rolling out of control along the ground. It’s a really agonizing shot.
In this piece, we’ll talk about the evil twin to the thin miss, the fat shot. It’s an emotionally damaging error, because we’re psyched up to hit the ball far and, instead, we hit the ground before the ball and the ball just sits there. Not only does taking too much turf hurt physically, but the ball sitting there laughing at us hurts upstairs, too.
There are several common ways to hit a fat shot. The first, and possibly most common, is when you don’t shift pressure to your lead foot before the club reaches impact and the club bottoms out and hits the ground before the ball.
Another variation of this poor movement pattern is when you shift pressure away from your target on the downswing. Both of these movements are when you are trying to lift the ball in air, which leaves the bottom of your swing arc behind the ball, resulting in the club hitting the turf before the ball.
Another common way to hit a fat shot is, while moving pressure correctly to your lead side on the downswing, you are still trying to hit the ball too much with your hands, causing your wrists to cast and arms to extend early. When your arms are fully extended before reaching the ball, there is no place for the club to go except into the ground. This is usually caused by the golfer’s right hand taking over the downswing and releasing the club early.
Finally, a very simple mistake — but a very common one — is when your ball position is too far forward for the bottom of your swing arc. When the ball position is too far forward, it leaves the bottom of the arc too far behind the ball and makes fat shots too easy to achieve. Golfers typically have their ball position too far forward with the long irons and fairways.
If you struggle with fat shots, where you hit the big ball called Earth before the little ball, and you’re tired of the ball still sitting there laughing at you after you tried to hit it, determine which of the above characteristics apply to you and improve your ball striking.
Peter Harris is the director of Golf at the Fore-U Golf Center in West Lebanon. His column appears weekly in the Recreation page during the golf season.