Symptom
Hitting it high on the face
The 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.
Where the ball meets the face changes both how it launches and how it curves, so two shots that look alike from behind can come from different strikes. The questions work back from what the face and the flight show you.
Common ways golfers describe this
Hitting high on the face
Iron impact high on face
Strike marks near the top line
Ball marks above the centre of the face
High face strike loses distance
- Target 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
- Mark the face and hit ten shots with the club that does it most. Where do the marks sit?
- Where does it happen?
- From a fairway lie, what does the ground look like after one of these?
- With your driver soled behind a teed ball, how much of the ball sits above the top edge of the face?
- Through impact with an iron, does the clubhead pass your hands before it reaches the ball?
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
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
Hitting down on a teed ball
The low point falls before a ball that is sitting above the ground, so the club is still descending at contact. Spin rises, launch drops, and the strike climbs the face toward the crown. It is the single most common reason a driver goes shorter than a three wood.
Read the fix
Tee height wrong for the delivery
Teed too high for the way the club is being delivered, contact creeps toward the crown. Teed too low, it drops to the bottom grooves. Either way the strike leaves the middle of the face, and with a driver that is worth more distance than most swing changes.
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
Grass or moisture between face and ball
Anything trapped between face and ball at impact reduces the friction that creates spin. The shot launches higher, carries further than expected and runs on landing. This is a lie problem rather than a swing problem, and no swing change fixes it.
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.
- Skying it off the teeThe top edge or crown of the club catches the ball, it pops almost straight up, lands a fraction of its normal distance away, and leaves a scuff mark on top of the head.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
- I strike it well off the ground but badly off a teeShots off the turf behave, but once the ball is teed up the strike, the height and the direction all fall apart, because nothing in the setup or the delivery changed for a ball sitting above the ground.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
- 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
- I never know how high to tee the ballYou guess the tee height, or it changes from hole to hole, so teed shots come off the crown, the top edge or the bottom grooves, and the miss changes with the height.Shares strike high on the face
- 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
- 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
What this rests on
- The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001
- Experimental study of the gear effect in ball collisionsRod Cross, University of Sydney, and Alan M. Nathan, University of Illinois, 2007
- What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, 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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