The fix for Handle pressed too far forward at impact

Fixing a handle pressed too far forward at impact

What is actually happening

Driving the grip end well ahead of the clubhead strips loft off the club and pushes the low point forward, presenting the leading edge to the ball. It is the opposite error to flipping and it is what turns a delicate chip into a skulled one.

Swing arc
Lowest point

Brush the turf just past it

The fix

At impact the grip end of the club is a long way ahead of the clubhead, much further than the shot needs. Some forward lean is normal with an iron struck from the turf. Pressed too far, the shaft leans so hard toward the target that the face loses a good deal of its loft, and the leading edge, rather than the sole, becomes the part of the club that meets the ground. This page is written for a right-handed golfer, and left-handers should mirror every direction.

Loft removed at impact means a lower launch, so irons leave on a flatter line than their loft suggests and struggle to hold a green. The handle leading that far also pushes the bottom of the arc well past the ball, so the club is still travelling down, and more steeply, when it reaches the ball. Divots start in front of where the ball sat and run long and deep. Around the green the same delivery leaves no margin at all. With the leading edge now the lowest part of the club, a strike a fraction too low digs it into the turf, and one a fraction too high catches the ball near its equator and sends it low and hot across the green. That is the skulled chip.

Judge a bucket of shots, not one. Iron divots start well in front of the ball and dig a long trench. The flight is straight enough but lower than that club should fly. Chips come off low and running, with the occasional one thinned across the green or stuck in the turf. Check address first. Stand face on to a mirror or a phone with a mid-iron and look at the grip. Slightly ahead of the ball, roughly in line with your lead thigh, is normal. Outside the lead thigh, with the shaft leaning hard at the target, is this fault. Then film a swing and pause at impact. The hands should be only a little further forward than they were at address.

This is the opposite error to flipping. A flip adds loft and moves the low point behind the ball, while a pressed handle removes loft and moves the low point too far ahead of it. The two often turn up in the same golfer, because the standard cure for a flip is to get the hands ahead, and pressing them forward is the quickest way to feel that. Casting sits on the same side as flipping. If your divots start behind the ball rather than in front of it, those two pages fit better than this one. If your deep divots point well left of the target, look at your swing path first. If the ball sits well back in your stance, check ball position before anything else, because the lean may simply follow from it.

The change starts at address and carries through impact. With a full iron, set the grip no further forward than your lead thigh, with the ball where it belongs for that club. For a chip, stand with the shaft close to upright and the grip end pointing at the middle of your body rather than at your lead hip, so the sole of the club rests on the turf instead of the leading edge. Through the strike, let the clubhead travel with your hands instead of dragging the handle ahead of it. The body keeps turning, but the hands no longer outrun the head. On a chip, the grip end keeps pointing at your middle from start to finish.

The instinctive fixes push the handle further forward. A low shot or a skulled chip feels like a failure to hit down, so the golfer presses the hands further ahead and exposes the leading edge even more. Heavy digging tempts you to pull up through the strike, which saves the turf and thins the ball without moving the handle back at all. Height and a soft landing come from loft delivered to the ball, and the club already has plenty of it. The fix is to stop taking it away.

Drills

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

Grip end at your middle
On the chipping green, take a wedge, stand with your feet close together and the ball in the middle of your stance, and set the shaft close to upright so the grip end points at your belt buckle. Mark a landing spot with a coin and hit chips of ten to fifteen paces, keeping the grip end pointing at your middle as your chest turns back and through. Hit twenty. Success is a soft brushing sound, a shallow mark on the grass rather than a cut, and fifteen of the twenty landing within a stride of the coin. Once that holds, repeat the twenty from a tighter lie before taking it onto the course.
Needs A coin or a tee to mark a landing spot
Thud, not cut
On grass, with a wedge and no ball, make small swings that brush the turf. Listen for the sole meeting the ground rather than the leading edge cutting into it: the sole makes a dull thud, and the leading edge takes a sharp sliver of turf. Make ten brushes in a row that thud. Then put a ball down and hit ten chips trying to make the same sound. Success is eight of the ten with no dig mark from the leading edge. Go back to ten brushes whenever a chip comes off low or thin, and move on to longer pitches once three rounds of ten in a row pass.
Needs nothing but a club
Grip to the lead thigh
Stand face on to a mirror or a propped-up phone with a mid-iron and your normal ball position. Take address and check where the grip sits. If it is outside your lead thigh, move it back until it is in line with the thigh and no further forward. Hit ten half shots from that setup, checking again before each one, then ten full shots. Success is seven of the full shots taking a shallow divot that starts at or just past the ball, with a higher flight than your usual iron shot. After two sessions like that, check your address once every five balls instead of every ball.
Needs A mirror or a phone camera

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.

Face on at address with a mid-iron, the grip sits in line with your lead thigh, not outside it.
On a chip, the grip end points at the middle of your body at address and is still pointing there at the finish.
Frozen at hip height on the way through, the lead arm and the shaft make roughly a straight line, with the clubhead neither trailing far behind the hands nor past them.
Iron divots start at or just past the ball and stay shallow rather than digging a long trench in front of it.
Irons reach the height their loft suggests, and chips land softly instead of shooting low across the green.

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 handle and the clubhead swing through the ball together, like a pendulum hanging from your chest.
At address the club feels as though it has far more loft on it than you are used to.
On a chip, the back of the club brushes the grass under 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

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