The fix for Strike toward the heel

Fixing a strike toward the heel

What is actually happening

Contact inside the centre of the face costs ball speed, and on a large head it twists the face closed around its centre of gravity, adding fade-side spin through gear effect. A heel strike and a shank are the same fault at different severities.

Your strike
Face centre
Offset from centre
Centred strike

Out from the heel to centre

The fix

A strike toward the heel means the ball meets the face on the hosel side of centre. Either the ball was sitting opposite the heel before the swing began, or the club arrives at impact a little further from your body than it was at address, so the inside of the face reaches the ball. The error is usually smaller than the width of the ball, and the address can look entirely normal. This page covers contact that drifts toward the heel from a setup that passes inspection.

Strike location sets what the ball does next. Contact away from the centre gives away ball speed, so heel strikes feel clunky and come up short. With a driver or a wood, a heel strike also twists the head closed around its centre of gravity during contact, and through gear effect that twist puts left-to-right spin on the ball. A face and path that would have sent the ball straight produce a fade instead, which is easy to mistake for a slice. With irons the twist is smaller and lost distance is the main cost. Move the same contact further in and the ball finds the hosel: a heel strike and a shank are one fault at two severities. Left-handers mirror every direction on this page.

Confirm it on the face before changing anything. Scribble a dry-erase marker across the face of a mid-iron, hit ten balls, and check after each one. Most marks on the heel side of centre is the evidence, and with the driver a ball that starts on line and drifts right fits the same picture. Then rule out the neighbours on film taken from behind, down the target line. Less than a hand's width between the butt of the grip and your lead thigh at address means you are standing too close. Hips moving toward the ball as you stand taller by impact are early extension. A ball that starts left and bends right, with divots pointing left, is the path. When all three look sound and the marks still sit on the heel, the strike is the fault to fix.

It is also worth knowing what this is not. A strike toward the toe is the mirror image: the club arrives closer to you than it started and the ball bends the other way. A strike low on the face is up and down rather than across, and it changes launch and spin rather than curve. Marks that land somewhere new on every swing are a scattered strike, not a drift in one direction.

The change has two parts, and the first costs nothing. At address, make sure the ball really sits opposite the middle of the face. The middle is hard to judge by eye from above, so check it against a mark on the top edge. The second part happens as the arms start down from the top. The hands need to fall toward the ground rather than move out toward the ball, and your balance needs to stay over the middle of your feet until the ball has gone. The clubhead goes where the hands go, so hands that drift out toward the ball take the strike toward the heel with them, and no care at address will cover that.

The instinctive fixes move the problem rather than removing it. The most common is setting the ball out toward the toe at address. That centres the strike only on swings that push out by the usual amount, and every other swing now comes off the toe, so one miss becomes two. The next is a big step back from the ball, which makes you reach, and reaching tips your weight toward your toes before the swing starts: the direction you were already drifting. With the driver, golfers also aim left to allow for the fade. The path tends to follow the body, so that adds curve and does nothing for the strike. Leave the ball in the middle of the face and change what the hands do on the way down.

Drills

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

A dot above the centre of the face
Put a small dot of dry-erase marker, or a thin strip of tape, on the top edge of a mid-iron directly above the centre of the face. At address the dot should sit over the back of the ball. Build your setup ten times from scratch, walking away between each, and check the dot before every one without nudging the club once you have looked. Success is the dot over the back of the ball on all ten. Hit those ten at three-quarter speed, then mark the crown of your driver the same way and repeat before taking the routine to full swings.
Needs A dry-erase marker or a strip of tape
Two balls, hit the near one
Sole a mid-iron behind a ball with the ball opposite the centre of the face. Set a second ball on the far side of it, a finger's width beyond the toe of the club. Make half swings and hit the near ball without touching the far one. A club that moves out toward the ball on the way down clips the far ball, and there is nothing to interpret. Success is ten in a row with the far ball untouched. Move to three-quarter swings after a clean ten and to full swings after a clean ten there. If the far ball moves, drop back a stage rather than moving it further away.
Needs A second ball
Marker ladder at three speeds
Scribble a dry-erase marker across the face of a mid-iron. Hit five balls at half speed, five at three-quarter speed and five at full speed, wiping and re-marking the face between sets and noting where each set of marks gathers. Success is all three sets centred. If the marks centre at half speed and creep toward the heel as you speed up, the hands are pushing out under effort, so go back to the two-ball drill at the speed where they slipped. Run the ladder at the start of three sessions, and once all three speeds centre in each, repeat it with the driver using foot powder spray.
Needs A dry-erase marker or foot powder spray and a towel to wipe the face

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.

Marks on a marked or sprayed face cluster on the centre of the grooves rather than on the heel side, at half speed and full speed alike.
At address, a dot on the top edge above the centre of the face sits directly over the back of the ball.
In the two-ball drill, the far ball is still untouched when you move up to full swings.
With a driver, a ball that starts on target holds its line instead of drifting right.
You can hold your finish for a count of three without stepping toward the ball or rising onto your toes.

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.

You are trying to hit the ball off the toe.
The hands fall straight down from the top, past your trail pocket, rather than out toward the ball.
Your weight stays in the middle of your feet until the ball has gone, with nothing tipping you toward it.

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

The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001
Experimental study of the gear effect in ball collisionsRod Cross, University of Sydney, and Alan M. Nathan, University of Illinois, 2007
What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026

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