Symptom
Flop shots slide under the ball or get bladed
The high, soft shot either pops straight up and travels a few feet, or catches the ball thin and races low over the green.
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
Went straight under it
Ball popped straight up two feet
High soft shot over a bunker
Club goes under the ball
Ball rolled up the face
- 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 flop shots that go wrong, what happens to the ball?
- What kind of lie were the failed flop shots played from?
- Set up to a flop shot and look down. Where are your hands compared with the clubhead?
- Where do the failed flop shots start, compared with where you aimed?
- Hold your finish after a flop shot. Where is your weight?
- Make a practice flop beside the ball. Which is longer, the backswing or the follow-through?
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.
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
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
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
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
Clubface aimed off at address
The face is soled pointing somewhere other than the intended start line before the swing begins. It usually happens when the stance is taken first and the face is squared to the body rather than the target, or when the grip is completed after the club is already on the ground. Everything the swing does afterwards is a correction for a starting error.
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.
- Chips and pitches always come up shortChips 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.Shares strike high on the face
- 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
- 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 weight hanging on the trail foot
- 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 weight hanging on the trail foot
- Chips from greenside rough come out dead or fly the greenFrom the rough beside the green the ball either stays in the grass and moves a few feet, or jumps out with no spin and runs off the far side.Shares strike high on the face
- Hitting it high on the faceThe marks sit above the centre of the face, up toward the top grooves rather than on the crown, and the shot climbs higher than it should and still comes up short.Shares strike high on the face
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.
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