Why you hit fat shots, and how to stop
A fat shot is not bad luck and it is not usually a lifted head. It is a low point in the wrong place, and low point is something you can control.
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Low point is the whole story
Every golf swing has a low point: the bottom of the arc the clubhead travels through. With an iron or a wedge off the turf, that low point needs to be a few inches in front of the ball. Ball first, then turf. When the low point sits behind the ball instead, the club hits the ground before it hits the ball, and the shot goes nowhere.
This is why the standard advice to 'keep your head down' rarely helps. You can keep your head perfectly still and still put your low point two inches behind the ball. Head position is a symptom people can see, not the cause.
What actually moves the low point backwards
The most common cause is weight staying on the trail foot through impact. If your pressure hangs back, the centre of your swing hangs back with it, and the arc bottoms out early. Golfers often do this while trying to help the ball into the air, which is the opposite of what a lofted club needs.
The second cause is early release. If the wrists unhinge too soon, the clubhead reaches its lowest point before it reaches the ball. This often happens for the same underlying reason: an instinct to scoop, to lift, to add loft manually rather than trusting the loft already on the club.
The third, less discussed cause is simply standing too close or too far from the ball so that your arms have to compensate mid-swing. If your low point wanders round by round rather than being consistently behind the ball, check your setup distance before you rebuild your swing.
Wedges are the worst offenders for a reason
Short shots feel like they should be easy, so golfers decelerate and steer them. Deceleration encourages the hands to overtake the plan and the club to bottom out early. The fat wedge from forty yards is usually a tempo problem dressed up as a technique problem: a short, committed swing beats a long, hesitant one every time.
How to tell if it is working
Do not judge yourself on the flight. Judge yourself on the mark on the ground. If you are practising on grass, your divot should start at or just in front of where the ball was. On a mat, listen: a ball-first strike sounds crisp and single, a fat one sounds like two impacts. Feedback you can measure beats feedback you have to interpret.
Drills you can do today
The line drill
Draw a line on the turf with a tee, or use the edge of a divot, and set up with the ball on the line. Make swings and check where the ground is disturbed. Your aim is to bruise the grass in front of the line every time, with no ball involved at first. Twenty swings where the contact point is consistently forward is worth more than a hundred balls.
The lead-foot-only drill
Take a wedge, put about eighty per cent of your weight on your lead foot at address and keep it there for the whole swing. Make short, half-length swings. It will feel like you cannot possibly get power, and the strikes will come out surprisingly clean. That feeling of the low point being ahead of the ball is the one you want.
The step-through drill
Make a normal backswing, and as you start down, allow your trail foot to step through toward the target after impact, as though you were throwing a ball. It forces your pressure forward and makes hanging back physically awkward. Use a short iron and half speed. Six or eight repetitions is enough to feel the difference.
If you want the same feeling on every swing
None of the above needs equipment. What equipment can do is shorten the gap between a bad strike and knowing about it. The Wedge Trainer gives you immediate physical feedback when the club arrives early, so you find out on the swing itself rather than after watching the ball. If you would rather work through the line drill on your own, that is a perfectly good plan and this article was written to make that possible.
See the Fat Free Wedge TrainerChoosing a trainer
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