Symptom
Good off mats, bad off real grass, or the reverse
Contact 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.
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.
- 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
- Which way round is it for you?
- On grass, what does the club leave on the ground compared with where the ball sat?
- Off a mat, what do you hear and feel as the club arrives?
- Hold your finish after an iron off grass. Where is your weight?
- Swing to hip height past the ball and stop. Where is the clubhead compared with your hands?
- Off grass, how does the ball fly on the shots you catch reasonably well?
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
Casting, or releasing the club too early
The wrist angle is thrown away at the start of the downswing, so the shaft arrives vertical or leaning backwards. That adds loft, moves the low point behind the ball, and widens the arc early, which is why casting costs distance and drops the strike low on the face at the same time.
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
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
Low point that does not repeat
The bottom of the arc lands in a different place relative to the ball on each swing, so fat and thin alternate instead of one miss repeating. Treating it as two faults and correcting each in turn is what keeps the golfer oscillating between them.
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.
- Hitting it fatThe club hits the ground before the ball and takes turf first, so the shot comes out heavy, weak and well short of the target.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 casting, or releasing the club too early
- 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
- 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 fat, the next one thinContact never settles: one shot is hit behind the ball, the next is caught thin, and only a few come out of the middle.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
- 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
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