Fixing weight that hangs on the trail foot

What is actually happening

Pressure stays on the trail foot through impact instead of moving toward the target. The low point of the arc sits behind the ball, so the club either bottoms out early and takes turf first, or is travelling upward by the time it arrives. Both misses come from the same cause, which is why fat and thin so often alternate.

The fix

Drills

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

1. 1

   Step-in swings

   Hold a mid-iron and stand with your feet together, the ball opposite your lead foot. As the club swings back, step the lead foot out toward the target to your normal stance width and plant it, then swing down. The foot has to land before the club starts down, which puts the pressure onto the lead side in the order the swing needs. Make ten rehearsals without a ball, then hit ten balls at three-quarter speed. Success is a strike that takes turf after the ball and a finish you can hold on the lead foot. Move to a normal stance once eight of the ten come out that way, keeping the sense of the lead foot landing first.

   Needs nothing but a club

2. 2

   Walk-through finish

   Hit half shots with a mid-iron. As the ball leaves, let the trail foot keep going and take a full step toward the target, walking through the shot. You can only walk through smoothly if the weight had already reached the lead foot; if it was still back, you stall or have to step backwards first. Hit ten in a row. Success is ten walks without a stall and the turf marked after the ball rather than before it. Build up to three-quarter and then full shots, holding the finish instead of walking once the walk feels automatic.

   Needs nothing but a club

3. 3

   Trail foot on its toe

   Take your normal stance, then draw the trail foot back a few inches and rest it up on its toe, so it balances you without carrying any weight. Hit fifteen three-quarter shots with a mid-iron. With nowhere to hang back to, the pressure stays on the lead side and the low point stays forward. Success is a divot or scrape that starts at the ball or just past it on every shot. Then hit five from a normal stance trying to reproduce the same pressure, and alternate sets of five until the normal stance leaves the same marks.

   Needs nothing but a club

4. 4

   Towel behind the ball

   Fold a towel lengthways and lay it across the target line about a hand's width behind the ball, on your side of it. Hit half shots with a short iron. A low point behind the ball catches the towel before the ball, and you will both feel it and see it move. Once you can hit ten in a row without touching it, edge the towel a little closer and go again. Move to full shots when you can make ten clean strikes in a row with the towel at its closest.

   Needs A towel

Browse every drill on the site

Checkpoints

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

• In the finish the trail foot is up on its toe, with the sole of the shoe facing away from the target, and you can hold the pose for a count of three.
• You can lift the trail foot clear of the ground in the finish without toppling backwards.
• On a face-on video frozen at impact, the belt buckle has moved toward the target compared with address, rather than staying level with it or drifting back.
• Divots and scrapes start at the ball or just past it, not behind it.
• Face tape shows iron strikes around the middle of the face rather than on the bottom grooves.

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 lead foot presses into the ground before the arms start down.
• You are walking off toward the target the moment the ball has gone.
• The trail foot is a kickstand in the finish, touching the ground and carrying nothing.

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.

• Hitting it fatThe club hits the ground before the ball and takes turf first, so the shot comes out heavy, weak and well short of the target.The usual cause of this
• Blading chips across the greenThe leading edge catches the middle of the ball on a chip or pitch and it shoots off low and hot, running across the green and well past the hole.The usual cause of this
• Chunking chips and pitchesThe club hits the grass before the ball on a chip or pitch, so the ball pops forward a fraction of the distance you wanted, sometimes only a few feet.The usual cause of this
• Good off mats, bad off real grass, or the reverseContact that looks fine off a range mat, a home mat or a simulator turns fat or thin off real turf, or a golfer who strikes it well off grass cannot hit off mats at all.The usual cause of this
• My shoulders and head tilt the wrong way at addressSeen face-on, your trail shoulder sits level with or higher than your lead shoulder, or your upper body leans a long way back, so the arc is out of place before the club moves.The usual cause of this
• I don't know where my weight should be at addressBefore the club moves your weight is already loaded onto the trail foot, jammed onto the lead foot, or pushed out onto your toes or back onto your heels.The usual cause of this

What this rests on

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

Discussion

Golfers who have worked on this fault, on what helped and what did not. Read it as experience rather than evidence.