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A thin golf shot is a mis-struck golf shot where the lower part of the club face strikes the upper part of the golf ball. This produces a golf shot that flies extremely low and therefore does not achieve its full potential distance as it lands very quickly. The ball will always fall short of the target with a thin and you will feel a great deal of vibration in your hands and forearms as well. On cold mornings, a thin golf shot can be very painful!

Thin golf shots can happen for several reasons. Initially, you can produce a thin golf shot if your down swing is too steep and the club head swings down towards the golf ball from a very high position, creating a very steep angle of attack. When the club head swings down so steeply, it strikes the upper part of the golf ball and a thin is produced.

If your swing is too steep, the club head is swinging around you on too high an angle and this produces too vertical a descent down towards the golf ball. However, a thin golf shot can also occur from a flat golf swing. With a flat swing, the club head is travelling around your body at too low an angle and it approaches the golf ball from a very low angle of attack which does not strike down enough toward the turf. If it did, the club head would strike the ground before the golf ball producing a fat golf shot. Instead of this happening though, with a thin golf shot the club head does not strike the ground but it does reach the bottom of the swing before it reaches the golf ball.

From here, the club head now swings upwards and it connects on its up swing with the upper part of the golf ball and produces a thin golf shot. A thin golf shot will also occur if you lift your spine angle into a higher position than it started in as the club swings through impact. If you set your posture and spine angle so that the club head addresses the golf ball and you then swing and lift your spine into a more vertical position then obviously the distance between your shoulders and the golf ball increases. The distance between your shoulders and the club head cannot increase as your arms are a set length, as is the shaft of the golf club and the club head swings back down in a higher position than it began and it connects with the upper part of the golf ball, producing a thin.

However, there is an extremely common reason for producing a thin golf shot that is frequently overlooked by golfers. If you are gripping the golf club too tightly, this will produce a thin golf shot as when you squeeze your hands, the muscles on your arms contract and shorten, so effectively you have pulled the club up higher than its starting position.

Thin golf shots are produced when a golfer is holding the golf club too tightly. Squeeze the handle as tightly as you can and call this a 10. Halve the pressure in your hands to a 5 and then drop the pressure 1 more to a 4. This is the correct pressure to swing with to play great golf shots. A thin golf shot happens with a high grip pressure.

Hitting the ground before the golf ball does produce a low and short golf shot. However, striking the ground first produces a fat golf shot not a thin one. A thin occurs where the club head strikes the upper part of the golf ball, not the ground.

Golfers that swing on plane swing the club head around them on the optimum angle to deliver the club head back to the golf ball to produce a centred club face strike. Swinging the club head on plane does not produce mis-hit golf shots.