One of the most difficult hurdles in golf to overcome occurs when something happens in your golf swing that produces a fat or chunky shot. My typical miss is hitting the ball thin, which is probably why hitting a fat shot is so foreign and so frightening. So when I started hitting some fat shots during a round last week, I decided to find some help and share it on GolfAid. Here are a couple quick and easy tips that should help you understand why you’re hitting shots heavy and give you the tools to fix this problem.
A primary contributor to chunky shots is poor posture. Golf instructor Bobby Eldridge suggests raising your chin at address will allow you to swing through the ball more easily without hitting behind the ball. You certainly don’t want to adjust your spine angle during the swing, so adjusting your chin before anything takes place should allow you to rotate and shift your body more freely without altering your point of impact with the golf ball.
Hitting behind the ball is appropriate for an explosion shot, but completely inappropriate for a normal swing. PGA instructor Jay Golden suggests focusing your eyes towards the target side of the ball so that your divot will actually occur after impact. Too many amateurs hit fat shots because they begin their divot before they even hit the ball. By focusing on the point immediately after the ball, it’s more natural to hit the ball first, generating a proper divot and eliminating fat shots from your game.
No one likes the experience of taking a full swing and laying the sod over the ball. I hope these suggestions will help you correct any chunky swings that you’ve been experiencing and avoid fat golf shots in the future.