Hitting it fat

[skates]

Hey guys need some help
I have been hitting my irons fat recently
I usually imagine i am trying to hit the front of the ball which works out pretty well but recently its not working and im hitting the ground about 2-3 inches before the ball. Any drills to help deal with this.

Also i notice that if i just turn my shoulders and not lower body i make very good contact but of course i pull the crap out of the ball. I believe when i turn my hips my legs get lower which causes me to hit before the ball. Any tips on how to maintain posture as i turn?

thanks for any and all help

[sdped1]

Spine angle, when you address the ball try lower your right shoulder and tilting your head a little. Now your spine angle is allowing you to swing a little more on the upward path. If your spine gets tilted to the left you have to swing down and into the ground=fat.- Steve

[Cooker]

I used to also hit fat, Instructor got me to keep lower body more steady, less footwork, fat shots gone

[imtomtomim]

you may be trying to "cast" the club with your hands

your tempo may be too quick and you're firing from the top

that's what I usually check first

you may also be taking the club back with your wrists and coming up sharply.

[shortstop20]

Make sure you're not swaying on the backswing.

[golfinpro]

A common reason why golfers hit fat golf shots is that they are shifting their weight wrong or their posture is slightly off. The key to curing them is to keep your lower body out of the swing movement.

Here is an article that is helpful when it comes to fat golf shots: stop hitting fat golf shots

[alisdair]

There are lots of reasons for hitting fat, as you can see from all the different suggestions above

You mentioned pulls. What are your other misses? Slices? If so, you may be swinging on too steep a plane.

If you can take video of your swing down the line, do so and watch for your right elbow leaving your hip on the downswing, or the clubhead outside the line just before impact. You might notice your divots are going left as well.

Try swinging a little more from the inside, on a flatter plane. You should feel your elbow is a little closer to your hip after your start your downswing.

[jones]

Much of the time after an iron shot I have a grass indentation on my iron face in the shape of a ball.

Does this mean I have hit it fat?

[Zeph]

  jones said:

Much of the time after an iron shot I have a grass indentation on my iron face in the shape of a ball.

If you hit it fat, you'll know. The distance will shorten drastically and you'll have litt consistency and bad shots. Grass on the clubface shaped like a ball may indicate fat shots, but it really depends where you are hitting the ball from. On the fairway you should not see this. In the rough you have grass between the clubface and ball, so it would make this indentation. If you have a shallow swing you'll also swing through more grass before hitting the ball.

Could also be you are sweeping the ground and picking up the more, not so much hitting down on it. You can try by putting a tee down right behind the ball, but a bit forward so you don't hit it. Then hit your shot and see where the divot begins. From my own personal experience, there are two major things that cause fat shots. 1. Lack of or poor weight shift. Not getting the weight on to the left foot before swinging down will make you hit the ground behind the ball. 2. Rushing with the arms. If you really rush the arms from the top of the backswing, everything will be out of order and the body won't have time to shift forward and turn before the hands have come down and you'll hit the ground. This will also cause you to cast the club, which, if you hit the ball, will send it very high, or you'll hit the ground first. Casting is more an effect of rushing the arms than a direct cause. With proper weight shift and less rushing you can cast the club and hit the ball first, but probably not consistently. So, without having seen a swing or anything, here are two things you should try: 1: Don't rush the arms. Take a short backswing, left arm 45º toward the skies, on the downswing, don't rush them. Let them fall at the beginning and let the hips turn and pull them through the ball when they reach your pockets. 2: Weight shift. Get some weight on the right foot at the top of the backswing, but not too much, that'll make it harder. From the top, shift weight to the left side and let the arms drop. Once the weight is over and your hands have reached the pockets, you can fully turn through the ball, in good balance. I'll use a term TMO uses, Late acceleration . It's a good way to describe this and easy thing to remember and work on. Casting is, as I've said already, a result of the arms rushing down. If the arms are not trying to speed up and get to the ball, the wrists aren't either. By letting them fall and turn as a result of being attached to the torso which is attached to the hips, the arms don't get any signal telling them to "GET THE BALL", and the wrists won't either. Also, imagining or looking in front of the ball is not the way to fix this. It may work sometimes, but consistently it will not. Hitting it fat is not a result of wrong focus, it's a result of wrong swing technique.

[mcfc_nick]

for a short term fix you could try putting the ball back a bit in your stance mate!

[Zeph]

  mcfc_nick said:

for a short term fix you could try putting the ball back a bit in your stance mate!

Fix? That won't fix anything. It may let him hit some better shots now and then, but if he want to fix this problem, moving the ball back will only cause more trouble. If you try to fix the weight shift and arms, having the ball back in the stance will ruin everything.

At a hcp of +/- 20, fixing a swing where you hit it fat is really necessary in order to progress further down the scale.

[shortstop20]

When I was casting moving the ball back didn't help anything, I just subconsciously casted earlier and/or faster and still hit it in the same spot.

I'm not saying it won't work for you but don't think it will definitely work.

[jones]

Hitting the ball fat is one of things that I tend to do quite often and really kills my rounds. I will hit it fat with all clubs, and part of the reason is concentration issues.

One way I overcome hitting it fat is by slowing down my backswing. When I am excited and doing well in a round, my tempo starts getting faster which then begins to break down my mechanics. By slowing down the backswing, your tempo is slowed and for many higher handicappers this is a good thing because it will allow for your body to be in a better position at the top of the swing because you will be more controlled.

So my advice for cleaner iron shots is to slow down your backswing to a reallllly slow pace when you are hitting the ball fat.

One issue I have found with this is that when I slow down the backswing I tend to hit the ball much further with my irons than I normally do, which just complicates things...however this does mean I am hitting the ball cleaner.