Symptom
Ball above or below your feet
On a sidehill lie the ball starts left when it sits above your feet and right when it sits below them, and the strike slides toward the toe, the heel or the hosel as your balance goes.
Where a shot starts is governed almost entirely by where the clubface is pointing when it meets the ball. That is the relationship this symptom sits on, so the questions work back from the start line rather than from anything about your swing.
Common ways golfers describe this
Ball above my feet goes left
Sidehill lie goes left
Side hill lie ball above feet
Ball above feet snap hook
Ball above feet aim right
- Target line
- Start line
- Your flight
Narrow it to one cause
Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.
A few questions · no account needed
What you will be asked
- On the sidehill lies that go wrong, where is the ball against your feet?
- Where does the ball start, and which way does it bend?
- How does the strike feel on these shots?
- Where on the face is the strike?
- Where does your balance go as you swing on a sidehill lie?
- Before the shot, what did you change for the slope?
Where this can come from
These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.
Slope changes effective loft and face aim
Tilted ground changes where the face points once the club is soled, and where the turf sits relative to the bottom of the arc. Ball above the feet aims the face left, ball below the feet aims it right, and up or downslopes add or remove loft before the swing has started.
Read the fix
Strike toward the toe
Contact out toward the end of the face produces the dead, hollow feel golfers describe, and twists the head open around its centre of gravity, adding draw-side spin. Distance loss is larger than the miss looks.
Read the fix
Strike toward the heel
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.
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Early extension
The hips push toward the ball through the downswing and the body stands up out of its address posture. The hands and club are forced up and away with it, which moves the low point of the swing arc backwards and upwards. The result is a club that is still rising when it reaches the ball, which is why the strike catches the ball above its equator.
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Contact on the hosel
The ball meets the rounded hosel instead of the face, so it leaves at an extreme angle with almost none of the speed the swing produced. Whatever move caused it, the fault itself is purely a question of where the club met the ball.
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No repeatable setup or routine
Aim, ball position, stance width and grip get rebuilt slightly differently on every shot, so face angle, low point and strike location all vary with them. Address is the reference the whole swing is measured from, and a reference that moves explains misses that seem to have no pattern.
Read the fix
Related symptoms
These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.
- Uphill and downhill liesWhen the ground rises or falls toward the target, the club digs into the slope or catches the ball thin, and even the clean strikes fly the wrong height and distance.Shares slope changes effective loft and face aim
- Sloping lies in a bunkerThe ball sits on an upslope, a downslope, or above or below your feet in the sand, and the shot that works from a flat bunker lie comes out fat, thin or well off line.Shares slope changes effective loft and face aim
- Chips off greenside slopes go wrongChipping from a slope beside the green, the leading edge sticks into the upslope and the ball pops up short, or the club skids off the downslope and the shot races past the hole.Shares slope changes effective loft and face aim
- Hitting it off the toeThe ball comes off the end of the face with a dead, hollow feel, flies shorter than it should, and off a driver or wood it often curves left.Shares strike toward the toe
- Toe shanksThe ball comes off the very end of the face and shoots low and sharply right, or simply squirts away weak and short, and the mark is out on the toe rather than on the neck of the club.Shares strike toward the toe
- Hitting it off the heelThe ball comes off the inside of the face near the hosel with a clunky feel and less distance, and off a driver it tends to curve right.Shares strike toward the heel
What this rests on
- 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
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
- The Influence of Face Angle and Club Path on the Resultant Launch Angle of a Golf BallPaul Wood, Erik Henrikson, Chris Broadie, 2018
- What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026
If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
Discussion
Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.
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