Symptom
Chunking chips and pitches
The 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.
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
I keep chunking my chips
Why do I chunk chip shots?
Fat chip shot
Hitting my chips fat
Hitting behind the ball on chips
- 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
- After a chunked chip, what did the club do to the grass?
- For a normal chip, where does the ball sit in your stance?
- Hold your finish after a chip. Where is your weight?
- Stop at the end of a chip without moving your hands. Where is the clubhead compared with your hands?
- On a chip that came out fat, how did the backswing compare with the follow-through?
- As the club comes down to 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.
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.
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.
Read the fix
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
Ball too far forward in the stance
The ball sits ahead of where the swing arc reaches its lowest point. With an iron off turf this means the club is already climbing at contact. It also encourages the shoulders to aim left at address, which pulls the path further left and adds curve to the miss.
Read the fix
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
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
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.
- 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.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
- Tight lies, bare ground and hardpanOff firm, bare or closely mown ground the club bounces into the ball or catches it around the middle, and the fear of chunking it makes the next one thinner still.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
- One chip fat, the next one thinAround the green one chip digs into the turf and dribbles a few feet, the next catches the ball thin and runs across the green, and almost nothing comes off the middle of the face.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
- Can't make clean contact from a fairway bunkerFrom a decent lie in a fairway bunker the club finds sand before the ball and the shot dies well short, or it catches the ball thin and sends it low into the lip.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
- Can't compress the ballContact feels soft and glancing instead of crisp, the club sweeps the ball off the turf without leaving a divot after it, and the flight is high, floaty and short for the club in your hands.Shares flipping or scooping through impact
- 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.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
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
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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