Training Aids to Fix Fat and Thin Shots

Fat shots (hitting the ground before the ball) and thin shots (catching it on the way up) feel like opposite disasters, but they’re usually the same fault pointing two different ways: a low point in the wrong place. In a good iron swing the club bottoms out after the ball, so you strike ball-then-turf. Bottom out behind the ball and you hit it fat; catch the ball as the club is already rising and you thin it. Almost every genuine fix targets one thing: moving your low point forward and learning to feel it. Aids that give you honest feedback on where the club actually bottoms out help; anything that promises to cure chunking without showing you your strike is selling hope.

First, understand the real cause

Before you buy anything, name what’s happening. A fat shot almost always comes from the low point moving behindthe ball — often because weight hangs on the back foot, the upper body tilts back through impact, or the wrists release early and add loft. A thin shot is frequently the same back-behind-it low point, just caught a fraction later as the club climbs, or a body pulling up out of the shot. The through-line is low-point control and forward shaft lean at impact. Fixing that is a feel you have to see to build, which is exactly why feedback tools beat feel-only gadgets for this fault.

The best feedback: a strike board

The single most useful tool for fat and thin shots is a Divot Board. You swing over it and the mark it leaves shows exactly where the club bottomed out and which way it travelled — a mark behind the line is the fat strike you’re fighting, a mark forward of it is the ball-then-turf contact you want. It diagnoses fat, thin and an over-the-top path in a single swing, with no electronics and an instant reset, so you get honest evidence on every rehearsal rather than a vague feel. For a fault that’s all about wherethe club hits the ground, there’s no clearer feedback than the mark you actually leave.

For the impact feel: a smash bag

Once you can see your low point, you need to feel a forward-leaning, ball-first strike, and a SKLZ Smash Bagteaches that as directly as anything. You hit into it at real speed and learn the sensation of the hands leading the clubhead into impact — the opposite of the early, scooping release that bottoms the club out behind the ball. The mark your face leaves on the bag is honest feedback on where you’re delivering the club, and because you can swing it at full speed, the feeling transfers to the ball. It’s about the cheapest way to groove a solid impact position there is.

The free drill: an alignment stick and ball position

You can fix a lot of fat and thin shots without spending a penny. Two alignment stick drills do most of the work. First, check ball position: a ball played too far forward in the stance is a common cause of both misses, and a stick laid perpendicular to your target line shows where the ball actually sits. Second, lay a stick (or a towel) a few inches behindthe ball as a “don’t hit this” gate — it forces you to move the low point forward, because catching the stick means you bottomed out too early. Free, honest, and it targets the exact fault.

What to be skeptical of

Two traps. First, gadgets that promise to cure chunking without any feedback — if it doesn’t show you where your club bottoms out, it can’t fix a low-point problem, whatever the box claims. Second, blaming the club: a wider-soled, more forgiving iron genuinely helps a fat-shot miss travel further, and it’s worth having in a game-improvement set, but it masks the strike rather than teaching you to control your low point. Use the club for forgiveness and the training aids to actually fix the fault.

The honest bottom line

Fat and thin are a low-point problem, so buy the tool that shows you your low point: a Divot Board to see it, a Smash Bag to feel a ball-first strike, and the free alignment-stick ball- position and gate drills to move it forward. That combination costs little and targets the fault at its source. Skip anything that promises to cure chunking in a week without showing you a single strike — and if your misses curve as well as chunk, the slice and hook guides cover the face and path side of things.