Golf Tip of the Day: What Causes a Fat Shot?

It can be very frustrating to hit fat shot after fat shot. In today’s golf tip, we’ll look at strategies for ending that frustration.

Fat shots can wreak havoc on your score. In today’s golf tip, we’ll examine some strategies for eliminating them.

Fat shots happen when the clubface bottoms out digging behind the ball instead of pinching the back of the ball on the downswing. The timing is off, as the upper body hits before the lower body shifts weight back to your front foot. There can be several causes of this.

Taking a video of your swing will be helpful for this golf tip — it can help you figure out the reason for your bad timing. Look for a sway. A sway is when you move too far away from the target during your backswing.

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You want to establish torque during your backswing. Make sure the lower body is resisting the tension of the upper body. The back slowly turns, putting more weight (70-95%) on the back foot. Try to plant the inside of the back foot as the back turns, as if you are on a pitcher’s mound. The back knee must remain flexed and resist moving further back. The backswing will feel tighter as a result of the lower body resisting the turn of the back. This means you are building torque!

On every swing video I take, I draw a vertical line up my back knee and hip and a circle around my head. If any of these body parts move to the right beyond that line, you must buckle down and hold better with the flexed knee and the inside of the back foot. Also check for excess backward movement of the head as the back turns and loads the back foot. Be sure to press the scale with the inside of the back foot, not the outside. I always try to stop my students from being able to slide even a piece of paper under the inside of the back foot during the backswing.

The nose can also be a good barometer, as we do not want the head to move too far back during the backswing. Watching the nose can keep you from moving too far to the right. Draw a circle around your head and see if it moves out of the circle during the backswing. Your nose should move back slightly, but not by much — certainly not enough to move part or all of the head out of the circle. Excess backward head movement could be another reason you are hitting behind your ball.

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Practicing with your feet together will teach you how to create power without all that excess movement. Imagine that you’re swinging from home plate at the baseball field. Turn so that the pitcher can see the number on your back and then swing out to right field. This can produce a powerful draw if you have the proper grip. If the ball doesn’t draw back to center, try moving your hands more to the right (for right-handed players). Show more knuckles with your left hand especially. Remember to keep the grip pressure light. Make sure the right hand (for right-handed players) stays in proper position in the setup by opening it up and making sure the palm faces the target. If it faces the ground, you have shifted the right hand too far to the left, increasing the likelihood of a bad shot. Getting the grip right will go a long way toward hitting a draw, making this an especially important golf tip.

Follow this golf tip and practice twisting your back into your resisters (back knee and inside of right foot)! Torque it up and swing out to right field!

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