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How to Cure Fat Chip Shots
Hitting fat chip shots will not only cause you 1 stroke but also damages your confidence.
Next time you are in the same kind of situation, you start to think you might hit it fat again. When you start doubting like that, you tend to decelerate through impact causing you to hit it fat.
So golfers who hit fat chip shots will repeat the same mistake over and over.
How to stop it
Like I said on the article, How to Hit a Chip Shot, the secret to good chip shots are in your set up. If you set up correctly, you reduce your chances of hitting it fat.
If you look at good short game players, they hit their chip shots before the clubhead reaches the lowest point of its arc.
In other words, they are hitting it with a slight descending blow.
If you hit it on the descending blow, you can hit it well with any types of lies.
If the ball is teed up, you can hit it on the lowest point of your swing. But if the ball is sitting down even a little bit, the grass will come between the ball and the clubface. That's why you need to hit it on a descending blow to hit the crisp chip shots constantly.
To hit it on a descending blow with your chip shots, you need to make sure that the shaft is leaning toward the target at address.
Your hands should be ahead of the ball, also. Put more weight on your front foot and keep it there throughout the swing.
Rick Smith who is a famous teacher said that you should put 70% of your weight on your front foot during the swing.
This should help you stop hitting fat chip shots.
Ball Position
Also, you need to check your ball position. Playing the ball forward of center on regular chip shot will cause fat shots.
Try to play the ball in the center or slightly back of center of stance for chipping.
Simple Drills
To fix fat shots, you have to make sure you accelerate through the shot. The tendency is to decelerate.
Here are simple drills to fix that problem.
Set up to hit a chip shot like we talked about in How to Hit a Chip Shot.
Next, look at the hole and keep your eyes on the hole throughout the swing.
You don't have to look at the ball with this drill. This is a good drill for controlling distance as well.
So when you take practice swings, you might want to keep looking at the hole while you take practice swings.
Another drill that's helpful is to hit chip shot from a bunker.
Put the ball in the sand and press down just a little bit. To hit it clean from this lie, you need to hit it on a descending blow.
The clubhead won't slide through the sand so that you will know instantly if you hit behind the ball.
When you practice from a good lie, the clubhead will slide through the grass even if you hit it behind the ball. So you won't know if you are hitting it clean or not from a good lie.