The fix for Flipping or scooping through impact

Fixing a flip through impact

What is actually happening

The lead wrist breaks down so the clubhead passes the hands before the ball and the shaft leans backward at contact. Loft is added, the low point moves back, and the shot comes out high, weak and short of what the club should carry.

Backswing, head path
Downswing, head path
Hand path
Impact
The other positions
Address

Hands lead the head to the ball

The fix

As the club reaches the ball your lead wrist bends backward, your hands slow down, and the clubhead swings past them just before contact. At impact the shaft is leaning away from the target instead of toward it. Golfers call it a flip or a scoop, and from outside it looks like an attempt to lift the ball. This page is written for a right-handed golfer, so the lead wrist is the left one, and left-handers should mirror every direction.

Two things change at the ball. A shaft leaning back presents more loft than the club carries, so the ball launches higher and spins more than it should, then climbs steeply and lands short of the distance that club normally flies. And because the clubhead has overtaken the hands, the bottom of the arc has moved behind the ball. If the club is still coming down there, it brushes or catches the turf before the ball. If it has already started to climb, it catches the ball thin. The same club can do both in one bucket, which is why a flipper often cannot say whether the problem is height, fat or thin.

A few checks separate a flip from other faults. Irons and wedges fly higher and shorter than they should even when the strike feels good, and a dry-erase marker on the face often shows the mark in the middle, which rules out a low strike as the explanation. The turf shows barely a mark, or a scrape that begins behind the ball. The most direct check takes a phone. Film a half shot face on, camera at hip height, and pause at impact: if the clubhead is level with or ahead of your hands and the back of your lead wrist is bent back toward the forearm, that is the flip. Without a camera, make half swings and freeze at hip height on the way through. A clubhead that has already passed your hands, with the lead wrist bent back, is the same thing.

Flipping is related to casting, but it is not the same fault. Casting throws the wrist angle away at the very start of the downswing. A flip can happen to a golfer who keeps that angle well past halfway down and loses it only in the last moment. Trying to lift the ball into the air is one common reason for a flip and has a page of its own. This page deals with the wrist action itself. At the other extreme, pressing the handle too far forward strips loft off the club and pushes the low point well ahead of the ball. The target sits between the two: hands slightly ahead of the ball at impact, with the shaft leaning a little toward the target.

The change happens through impact, and it starts with the body rather than the wrists. A flip is what the club does when the hands stop moving. The body stalls as it reaches the ball, the arms slow down, and the clubhead, still travelling fast, swings past them. Keep your chest and hips turning toward the target through the strike and the hands keep moving too, which leaves the clubhead behind them where it belongs. The lead wrist stays flat or slightly bowed until the ball has gone, and the trail wrist still has some bend in it at impact.

The instinctive fixes feed it. A thin or low shot tempts you to help the next one up, and helping it up is a flip. A fat shot tempts you to pull the club up and away from the ground at the last moment, which bends the lead wrist back and adds loft again. And pressing the hands far forward at address, because the hands are meant to be ahead, leaves the flip where it was and makes the swings without one dig and fly low. Height comes from the loft built into the club. Your job is to deliver that loft with the hands leading, not to add to it.

Drills

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

Stick up the grip
Hold an alignment stick against the grip of a mid-iron so it runs up past your lead hip, with both hands wrapped round the stick and the grip together. Make ten slow half swings with no ball, stopping at hip height on the way through. If your lead wrist bends back, the stick hits your lead side. Then hit ten half shots the same way. Success is all ten without the stick touching you. Once you manage that twice in a row, take the stick away for three-quarter shots, and bring it back for five swings whenever the flight starts to climb again.
Needs An alignment stick
Lead hand only
Grip a wedge a little down the handle with your lead hand only and put your trail hand behind your back. Hit twenty short pitches, swinging from hip height back to hip height through. The club only strikes cleanly if the lead wrist stays flat, and the moment it bends back you feel the clubhead overtake your hand. Success is fifteen of the twenty struck cleanly, with a brushed mark starting at or after the ball. Then hit ten with both hands on the club, copying the same flat lead wrist, before moving up to half shots with a mid-iron.
Needs nothing but a club
Towel behind the ball
Lay a towel flat on the ground a hand's width behind the ball, in line with the ball and the target. Hit half shots with a mid-iron without touching it. A flip bottoms out behind the ball and clips the towel, while a strike with the hands leading misses it cleanly. Hit ten balls. Success is eight that miss the towel and fly at a normal height for the club. Once that holds, move the towel a little closer to the ball, then build up to three-quarter and full swings with the towel still in place.
Needs A towel

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.

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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 and paused at impact, your hands are level with or slightly ahead of the ball and the shaft leans toward the target.
Frozen at hip height on the way through, the lead arm and the shaft make roughly a straight line and the clubhead has not passed your hands.
The back of the lead wrist is flat or slightly bowed at impact, not bent back toward the forearm.
The mark on the turf starts at the ball or just after it, rather than as a scrape behind it.
Irons fly at the height you expect for their loft rather than climbing steeply and landing short.

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.

Your hands reach the ball well before the clubhead does, as if every shot were a low punch.
Your chest keeps turning toward the target after the ball has gone and drags the handle with it.
The back of your lead hand faces the target all the way through the ball.

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
Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968

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