Topping 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.

1. 1

   Early extension

   The hips push toward the ball through the downswing and the body stands up out of its address posture. The hands and club are forced up and away with it, which moves the low point of the swing arc backwards and upwards. The result is a club that is still rising when it reaches the ball, which is why the strike catches the ball above its equator.

   Read the fix

2. 2

   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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3. 3

   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.

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4. 4

   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.

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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 thinThe leading edge catches the ball near its middle instead of the face meeting the back of it, so the shot comes out low and hot and stings your hands.Shares early extension
• Lifting your head, or being told to keep it downSomeone tells you that you looked up or lifted your head, almost always after a topped or thin shot, and the advice that follows is to keep your head down.Shares early extension
• Missing the ball completelyThe swing goes past the ball without touching it, and the ball is left sitting where it was or topples off the tee.Shares early extension
• Fine off a tee, hopeless off the turfThe same club is playable when teed up but gets topped, thinned or chunked from a fairway lie, and the longer the club, the worse it gets.Shares weight hanging on the trail foot
• Losing posture: standing up or dipping in the swingYour body does not finish the swing at the height it started it: you rise up out of your address posture, or sink down toward the ball, and the strike moves between thin, topped, heeled and fat as the bottom of the arc moves with you.Shares early extension
• 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

• The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013