Symptom
Chips and pitches always come up short
Chips and pitches keep finishing in front of the hole, either floating up soft and dropping dead or running out of pace on the fringe, even when the strike does not feel badly wrong.
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 always come up short
Never get the chip to the hole
Chip shots always short
Leaving pitches short
Always 10 feet short chipping
- 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
- On the chips that come up short, what happens at contact?
- On a chip that came up short, which was longer: the backswing or the follow-through?
- Spray the face with foot powder spray, or colour it with a dry-erase marker, and hit five chips. Where do the marks sit?
- Hold your finish after a chip. Where is the clubhead compared with your hands?
- In that same finish, where is your weight?
- As the club comes into the ball, what are you trying to do?
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.
Deceleration into impact
The club slows down before it reaches the ball, almost always after a backswing longer than the shot required. Speed disappears at the only moment it matters, and the bottom of the arc becomes unpredictable, which is why decelerating produces both the chunk and the blade.
Read the fix
Strike high on the face
Contact above the centre of gravity reduces spin and raises launch, which off a tee can be useful. Off the turf it usually means the club has slid under a ball sitting up in the grass. Ball speed drops either way, so the shot climbs higher than it should and still comes up short.
Read the fix
Flipping or scooping through impact
The lead wrist breaks down so the clubhead passes the hands before the ball and the shaft leans backward at contact. Loft is added, the low point moves back, and the shot comes out high, weak and short of what the club should carry.
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Weight hanging on the trail foot
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.
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Trying to lift the ball into the air
An instinct to scoop the ball upward adds loft through impact and moves the low point behind the ball. Height comes from the loft already built into the club and from a descending strike, so the attempt to help the ball up produces the opposite: a thin or topped shot that never climbs.
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.
- Flop shots slide under the ball or get bladedThe high, soft shot either pops straight up and travels a few feet, or catches the ball thin and races low over the green.Shares strike high on the face
- Can't advance it from thick roughFrom deep grass the club feels as if it stops in the lie, and the ball comes out weak and short or squirts out low and left into more trouble.Shares deceleration into impact
- Chipping yipsA sudden jab, flinch or freeze takes over just before impact on short shots, producing chunks and blades that never turn up in a full swing.Shares deceleration into impact
- 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.Shares deceleration into impact
- Chips and pitches won't checkShort shots land and run out instead of grabbing, so the ball finishes well past the hole even when the strike felt fine.Shares strike high on the face
- No distance control on partial swingsAnything less than a full swing finishes well short or well long of the number, so the in-between wedge yardages are the least predictable shots you have.Shares deceleration into impact
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
- What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026
- 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.
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