Hitting Fat Shots On The Golf Course Can Ruin Your Game (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hitting Fat Shots On The Golf Course Can Ruin Your Game (Video) - by Pete Styles

I’m sure as a golfie you become pretty au fait with the different types of bad shot that are available to a golfer. I know in the past I’ve hit every different type of bad shot on the golf course and only have a one type of good shot, but I can do all the bad ones quite naturally.

So probably the most frustrating of all of the bad shots is the fat shot. Now, a fat shot – let me explain that a bit more detail, some people call it a heavy shot or a duff, but I would class it as a fat shot is any time the club makes contact with the ground before the golf ball particularly if it wasn’t intended to do so. So in a golf bunker we might say, “Well, that’s an intentional fat shot.” We bring the club down, we hit the sand before and we intentionally fat the ball out on a cushion of sand and that’s okay in a bunker. But on the golf course, on the grass, on the fairway or even on a tee peg, if we – or if we would intentionally fat the golf ball, the consequences can be devastating depending on how much of a fat shot we take. So if the club touches the ground before the golf ball by any degree we would class that as fat or slightly fat. So if I’ve got the an eight iron and I’m looking down the camera line here and I bring the club down, if the club was to hit back here, so the nine inches behind the golf ball, the ball is barely going to move, that club is going to come and it’s going to take a big gauge of divot, the divot is going to slop into the side of the ball, the ball might only go 20 or 30 paces and that would be quite an extreme sort of duff and heavy and fat shot. If I was to bring the club down and hit a couple of inches behind the golf ball, chances are the ball will rise up into the air this time. It might fly into the air and then it will fall out of the sky fairly quickly. That ball might fly quite straight as well but it wills definitely fallout of the sky a little bit early and again that’s a marginal fat shot. If I was to play this ball and just catch barely half an inch behind the golf ball just a couple of millimeters of soil between the club face and the ball, the ball will fly relatively straight, the ball will rise up into the air and it might look like a good shot. But then it will land short, no question. It won’t go its full distance because the club will have to some degree slowed down before you struck the ball. So it will fly high straight but come down maybe at the front edge of the green, maybe on the fringe of the green and that can leave some golfers questioning whether they used the right club or whether the wind got up, but actually you need to be very careful to understand and diagnose the slight fat shot because for some golfers they almost hit every shot fat. They think they should take a divot before the ball and they hit every shot fat to some degree and they’re not unlocking the true potential of how far that irons could go and actually when we change that ball striking and we get good strike ball and then the turf certainly they’ve got 20 yards per club further and it looks like a whole different game for them, and it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable and they’re not wasting this effort by dunging the club into the ground before the golf ball. So next time you go and play just be very conscious if you’re fatting the golf ball and by how much and if that is the case maybe these next few videos in these miniseries are really going to help improve your ball striking. 2016-04-18

I’m sure as a golfie you become pretty au fait with the different types of bad shot that are available to a golfer. I know in the past I’ve hit every different type of bad shot on the golf course and only have a one type of good shot, but I can do all the bad ones quite naturally.

So probably the most frustrating of all of the bad shots is the fat shot. Now, a fat shot – let me explain that a bit more detail, some people call it a heavy shot or a duff, but I would class it as a fat shot is any time the club makes contact with the ground before the golf ball particularly if it wasn’t intended to do so. So in a golf bunker we might say, “Well, that’s an intentional fat shot.” We bring the club down, we hit the sand before and we intentionally fat the ball out on a cushion of sand and that’s okay in a bunker. But on the golf course, on the grass, on the fairway or even on a tee peg, if we – or if we would intentionally fat the golf ball, the consequences can be devastating depending on how much of a fat shot we take.

So if the club touches the ground before the golf ball by any degree we would class that as fat or slightly fat. So if I’ve got the an eight iron and I’m looking down the camera line here and I bring the club down, if the club was to hit back here, so the nine inches behind the golf ball, the ball is barely going to move, that club is going to come and it’s going to take a big gauge of divot, the divot is going to slop into the side of the ball, the ball might only go 20 or 30 paces and that would be quite an extreme sort of duff and heavy and fat shot. If I was to bring the club down and hit a couple of inches behind the golf ball, chances are the ball will rise up into the air this time. It might fly into the air and then it will fall out of the sky fairly quickly. That ball might fly quite straight as well but it wills definitely fallout of the sky a little bit early and again that’s a marginal fat shot.

If I was to play this ball and just catch barely half an inch behind the golf ball just a couple of millimeters of soil between the club face and the ball, the ball will fly relatively straight, the ball will rise up into the air and it might look like a good shot. But then it will land short, no question. It won’t go its full distance because the club will have to some degree slowed down before you struck the ball. So it will fly high straight but come down maybe at the front edge of the green, maybe on the fringe of the green and that can leave some golfers questioning whether they used the right club or whether the wind got up, but actually you need to be very careful to understand and diagnose the slight fat shot because for some golfers they almost hit every shot fat.

They think they should take a divot before the ball and they hit every shot fat to some degree and they’re not unlocking the true potential of how far that irons could go and actually when we change that ball striking and we get good strike ball and then the turf certainly they’ve got 20 yards per club further and it looks like a whole different game for them, and it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable and they’re not wasting this effort by dunging the club into the ground before the golf ball.

So next time you go and play just be very conscious if you’re fatting the golf ball and by how much and if that is the case maybe these next few videos in these miniseries are really going to help improve your ball striking.