The fix for Deceleration into impact

Fixing deceleration into impact

What is actually happening

The club slows down before it reaches the ball, almost always after a backswing longer than the shot required. Speed disappears at the only moment it matters, and the bottom of the arc becomes unpredictable, which is why decelerating produces both the chunk and the blade.

Swing arc
Lowest point

Arc bottoms out after the ball

The fix

The club is slowing down in the last part of the downswing, so it reaches the ball with less speed than it had a moment earlier. It happens most on short shots, such as chips, pitches, bunker shots and putts, where the swing is small and the job is controlling distance. Nearly always the backswing was longer than the shot needed. Somewhere on the way down you sense the ball is about to go too far and ease off, and the easing off lands at the ball, the one place the speed was needed.

Lost distance is the obvious cost. The bigger one is what slowing down does to the bottom of the arc. When the hands and body stall, the clubhead carries on and swings past them, which adds loft and moves the lowest point of the arc back toward the ball or behind it. Exactly where it lands changes from swing to swing, because how much you ease off changes too. Bottom out behind the ball and the club meets turf first, and with so little speed left it cannot cut through, so the chip goes a few feet. Reach the ball with the club already climbing and the leading edge catches it around the middle, sending it low and fast across the green. The same fault produces both misses, which is why a golfer who decelerates can chunk one and blade the next without feeling any difference.

Film a chip from face-on, phone at hip height, and compare how far your hands travel back with how far they travel through. A follow-through clearly shorter than the backswing, or a club that stops at the ball, is deceleration on camera. The misses back it up: short shots that alternate between heavy and thin, finishing well short or running well past, with no consistent pattern left or right. The finish gives it away too. A chip that ends in a jab, with the club stopped almost as soon as it touched the ball, was slowing down even when it went the right way. On the green, the same pattern is a long take-back and a short stab through, with the ball leaving the face at a different pace each time.

Two neighbours look similar. A steep delivery also produces heavy shots, but it happens on full swings at full speed and leaves deep, narrow divots. Flipping also sends the clubhead past the hands, but it can happen at any speed. If your hands keep moving briskly through the ball and the lead wrist still breaks down, work on flipping instead. If the hands slow down first, this is the page to work from.

The change is made in the backswing, not the downswing. Shorten the backswing until it is only as long as the shot needs, then make the through swing at least as long as the backswing and hold the finish. Distance comes from the length of the swing while the rhythm stays the same for every shot, so a longer chip is a longer swing at the same pace rather than the same swing hit harder. For a basic chip, hands back to the trail thigh and through to the lead thigh or beyond is a sound pattern to start from. Keep your chest turning through the shot so the hands keep moving toward the target as the club meets the ball. With the backswing sized to the shot there is nothing to rescue on the way down, and the club can gather speed into the ball.

The instinctive fix after a chip that runs well past the hole is to swing more gently, and gentleness is the fault itself. The same long backswing with a softer hit decelerates even more, and the heavy and thin shots get worse. After a chunk, the instinct is a bigger backswing to give the club more room, which only makes the next easing off more likely. Trying to scoop the ball into the air adds to the problem, because the hands have to stop for the clubhead to flick past them. Make the swing smaller and let it finish.

Drills

Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.

Tee markers for swing length
Drop a ball on a flat lie just off the green. Push one tee into the ground about a shoe's length behind the ball and another about two shoe lengths in front of it, both a hand's width outside the target line on the far side from your feet, so the club passes beside them. Chip with a wedge, taking the clubhead back no further than the rear tee and through past the front tee, then hold the finish for a count of two. Hit ten. Success is at least eight chips with the clubhead finishing past the front tee, the ball struck first, and the balls finishing in a tight group. Then move both tees out by the same amount for a longer chip, and apply the same rule to pitches before full shots.
Needs Tees
Three-distance ladder
Mark three landing spots on or beside the practice green: short, middle and long for a chip. Hit three balls to each, changing only the length of the backswing and keeping the same unhurried rhythm for all nine, with the through swing always at least as long as the backswing. Success is every ball landing nearer its own spot than either of the others, with no heavy or thin contact. Do three rounds of the ladder. When the groups separate cleanly, repeat it with a pitching swing, then play one ball to each spot in a random order, which is what the course asks for.
Needs Three coins or tees to mark the landing spots
Clip the tee after the ball
Push a tee into the ground so its head is level with the turf, about a ball's width in front of the ball on the target line. Chip with a wedge and knock the tee out after striking the ball. A decelerating club tends to bottom out too early and pass over it. Hit ten. Success is at least eight tees knocked out, with the ball struck first and flying at a normal height for the club. Once that holds, take the tee away and keep the same finish on ten more chips, then repeat the drill with a slightly longer pitching swing.
Needs Tees
Short back, longer through
On a flat putt of four or five paces, push a tee into the green a putter head's length behind the ball and another twice that distance in front, both just outside the line so the putter passes beside them. Stroke back no further than the rear tee and through at least as far as the front tee, and hold the finish until the ball stops. Roll ten. Success is at least eight balls finishing past the hole by no more than a putter's length. Then take the rear tee away and keep the same longer through stroke from three different distances.
Needs Tees

Browse every drill on the site

Practice plan and log

Practise this fix, day by day

Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.

Free, and there is no password: you sign in with a link sent to your email, and you come straight back here.

Or turn this fix into a practice plan

With a free account, the drills above become a 14-day plan: the setup checks and the first drill for three days, then the next drill, a rest day every fourth day, and a re-test on the last day that sends you back through the questions. Each day is a short list to tick off at the range, with reminders by email or in your calendar if you want them.

How the 14 days run

Day 1Ten balls as a baseline, then the setup checks and the first drill
Days 2 to 3The first drill again, one checkpoint and one feel a day
Day 4Rest, as are days 8 and 12
Days 5 to 11The next drills in turn, each warmed up by the one before
Day 13Every drill once, then every checkpoint
Day 14Re-test: the baseline again and the questions for your symptom

Checkpoints

What to look for to know whether the change has taken.

Filmed face-on, the hands travel at least as far through the ball as they went back.
The finish is held with the club still reaching toward the target, rather than stopping at the ball.
Any turf taken on a chip starts after the ball, never behind it.
Chips of the same length finish in a tight group, without alternating between heavy and thin.
A longer shot is played with a longer backswing on camera, not a harder hit from the same one.

Feels

A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.

The backswing feels a little too short for the shot, and the through swing does the work.
The club is gathering speed as it reaches the ball, like tossing a ball underarm to a spot rather than setting it down.
Your chest keeps turning toward the target after the ball has gone.

Symptoms that lead here

Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.

If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots

What this rests on

40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013

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