Symptom
Chips come out too low
Every chip leaves the face on a low, flat line and runs out, so you have no shot that stops quickly when you are short-sided or have something to carry.
Fat, thin and topped shots are one problem seen from different sides: the lowest point of the swing arc is not where the ball is. Where it sits instead, and why, is what separates the causes below.
Common ways golfers describe this
My chips come out too low
Can't get chips in the air?
Can't hit a high soft chip?
All my chips run
Low running chip when I need it high
- Swing arc
- Lowest point
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
- Set up to a normal chip and look down. Where is the ball in your stance?
- In that same setup, where is the grip compared with the clubhead?
- Take a chip that came out low. Where did it start compared with where you aimed?
- Where on the face are the low chips struck?
- What does the club do to the grass on a low chip?
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.
Handle pressed too far forward at impact
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.
Read the fix
Ball too far back in the stance
The ball sits well before the low point, so the club is still descending steeply when it arrives and delivers less loft than the club actually carries. Flight is low and the ball meets the face while the path is still travelling right, which is why a back ball position so often adds a push or a hook.
Read the fix
Strike low on the face
Contact below the centre of gravity loses ball speed and, through vertical gear effect, raises spin while lowering launch. That is the least efficient combination there is for distance, and it is why a low strike feels solid and still goes nowhere.
Read the fix
Face closed at impact
The face points left of where the club is travelling. The ball starts left of the path and keeps turning left, and because a closed face also removes loft, the flight is usually lower and more diving than the golfer expected. The same closed face that produces a playable draw produces a hook once it outruns the path by enough.
Read the fix
Delivery too steep
The club descends sharply into the hitting area, so the margin between fat and thin narrows and any low point error produces a bigger miss. Divots are deep and narrow, and the same steepness usually travels with a path working left.
Read the fix
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.
- Ball flight is too lowShots leave on a flat line, never climb to a proper height, and land short of what the club should carry, even when the strike feels acceptable.Shares handle pressed too far forward at impact
- I can't judge how far a chip will carry and rollThe strike is acceptable, but chips land somewhere other than planned and finish a different distance every time, often running well past the hole.Shares handle pressed too far forward at impact
- Chips grabbed by grainy, sticky grassOn Bermuda or another grainy grass around the green the club drags in the turf and the chip comes out dead short, or it skids off down-grain grass and runs through the green.Shares handle pressed too far forward at impact
- Flyers from the rough that fly the greenFrom light rough the ball comes out hot, carries past the flag or keeps running after it lands, and finishes over the back of the green off a swing that felt normal.Shares handle pressed too far forward at impact
- My hands are too far ahead of or behind the ball at addressBefore the swing starts the handle sits well ahead of the clubhead, or level with it, or behind it, which changes the loft and the face aim you are starting from.Shares handle pressed too far forward at impact
- I don't know how to set up for a chipBall position, stance width, weight and hand position change from one chip to the next because nothing about the address position is settled, and contact and trajectory change with them.Shares ball too far back in the stance
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
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.
Loading the discussion