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How To Fix Fat And Thin Shots In Golf With These Easy Drills
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Apr 1, 2025
In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters explains the main cause of fat and thin shots and demonstrates an easy drill that should help elevate your ball striking abilities! He also helps with that particularly destructive and expensive shot, the skied drive using a simple but clever drill that involves a headcover. ► This video was shot on location at Sandiway Golf Club in Cheshire.
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0:00
The fat, the thin and the top, the most destructive shots in golf. Jed, please help us fix these
0:08
They all live in the same house. They all come from the same issue. That issue is not being able
0:14
to control where the lowest point of the golf swing is. Sometimes you might hear the term low
0:20
point. It's the bottom of the arc of the swing. And if that is either in a real variable place
0:27
or it's just way too far back from the golf ball you're always going to struggle and then
0:34
from there that's where we start to sort of cast release scoop all those sort of knock-on effects
0:41
all come from golfers who struggle to control where the low point is so the low point where
0:48
should it be well i mean i've got a six iron in my hands here but even if i had a driver in my hands
0:54
there is still a bottom to the circle and it would be over here it will be forward
1:01
as a reference point you could think about it as being not a million miles away from being in line
1:08
with your front heel yeah because when we're making our downswing we are moving the pressure
1:16
of the body towards our target so that is shifting where the bottom of the circle is going to be so
1:21
that's going to move it over here. So if we think about those golfers who hit fats and thins
1:27
a lot of them keep the pressure on the trail side. So we can career into the ground back here
1:33
or we keep the club moving away from the ground to avoid that And that where the thins and the tops come into it So the bottom of the circle of the golf swing is back here where the club wants to meet the ground we want to shift it and move it more towards the target so it more on this side over here and as you can see as i keep doing that i brushing
1:51
and hitting that part of the ground it is on the target side of the golf club so a little drill
1:57
that you can do to practice it is if you're on a grass range like we are here just get two t-pegs
2:03
to create a gate and put the golf ball right in the middle your task is to hit the golf ball and
2:07
the ground on the left hand side of the gate if you're on a normal driving range where you're on
2:12
a mat get some chalk just chalk a line and then put the golf ball behind it so that if you move
2:18
the golf ball nice strike brush the chalk away then you'll have the chalk dust on the bottom of
2:23
the golf club so you're getting constant feedback on whether or not you are or are not controlling
2:28
where the low point of your swing is uh jed if you mind let's have a look at the uh at this drill in
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action so taking your normal setup and then we just want to focus and you can rather than looking
2:41
at the golf ball keep your focus on the ground that's over here so all you've got to make sure
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you do is when you get to the top of the back swing is you are moving the pressure of the body
2:52
towards the target some people will start to do that and then they'll sort of back themselves up
2:57
some people will just be way over on this side just try and keep that focus on moving towards your target
3:05
and strike your shot and as you can see there the divot starts right where the gate of t's are
3:12
and that where the low point the bottom of my circle is so there we go an easy fix for the top your thin and your fat no excuses now to go out and hit that perfect golf shot And finally we going to be looking at probably the most expensive destructive golf shot
3:29
and that is the sky. Skying your driver. Now, can you tell us why this happens and how we can go about fixing that
3:38
It's painful to watch. It's one of those where you cringe when you see it happen
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you know the dread that the golfer's going to have to look down on forever until he can afford
3:47
to buy a new one um it's a sort of two-pronged attack of what's happening um when we get the
3:55
club traveling down too much um and it can travel down too much from both in to out as well as out
4:04
to in a lot of people think it's just going to travel down steeply and then come down and across
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and we get this sort of contact here but there are golfers who travel too much from the inside
4:16
but they've got too much forward handle so the club head is still traveling down at the point
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of contact and the face is now this way so it's exposing the top of the golf club but yes down
4:29
being the the big key if we're hitting down on it then the club has not reached the bottom of
4:36
of its circle before it's made contact. And with the driver, ideally for most of you
4:41
you need to be hitting. And hitting up on the ball, is there any drills or anything we can do
4:47
that you could take home to your driving range to help fix this guy? There is, I've got a head cover here
4:52
You could use, you know, an empty box of balls. You buy your box of balls, take the sleeves out
4:58
use the empty box that it comes in And really all you want to do depending on how much down and how quickly it pops up into the air you could probably look i mean if i was to put my foot here i would say well if you
5:13
were to put your head cover your driver about there so it's probably about then 18 inches in
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front of the golf ball then you just want both golf ball and club head to avoid hitting the the
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head cover um anyone who's hitting down the ball will go up but the head of the driver will just
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career into whatever you've got there so if it's the empty box it'll just obliterate the box if
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it's the head cover it'll just move the head cover out the way it won't damage the club but you'll
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get your feedback on where about your contact is so what we want to be thinking of is when we're
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making our swing here we want the club head to feel like it passes the hands a little bit more
5:59
and it travels a little bit more on the up as we go through the shot so the whole focus is not so
6:06
much on trying to hit your fairway stop your slice it's about making sure that you avoid the object
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that you've put in front of the golf club. So nice visual representation. Yeah
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So hopefully it should look like this. So, so, ball's been hit on the up
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and as you can see, head cover is still in place, missed by both ball and cliff face. Perfect
6:32
A nice, easy drill for you to take back to your driving range
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