Why Fat and Thin Chips Happen
Every golfer has hit that dreaded chip that either chunks into the turf or skips across the green like a rocket. It’s frustrating — especially because you’re often just a few yards from the hole. But here’s the good news: these mistakes aren’t random. Fat and thin chips almost always come from the same few setup or motion flaws.
When the bottom of your swing arc — the lowest point where the club brushes the grass — shifts even slightly, your contact suffers. If it bottoms out too early, you hit the ground before the ball (that’s the fat shot). If it bottoms out too late, you catch the ball on the upswing (that’s the thin shot).
The solution isn’t to “try harder” to hit the ball clean. It’s to make your setup and motion so stable that the club naturally strikes the turf in the right place every time. That’s what we’re going to fix here.
You’ll learn how to control your low point, how to keep your hands quiet, and how to create that clean, crisp contact that makes the ball hop softly and roll out smoothly — without ever feeling like you had to force it.
Keep Your Weight Forward
The most common cause of fat contact is having your weight too centered or drifting backward through the swing. When your weight moves away from the target, the club bottoms out behind the ball, digging into the turf or sliding under it.
Start with about 70 percent of your weight on your lead foot and keep it there throughout the motion. Don’t shift back on the takeaway or try to “help” the ball into the air. Let your front foot stay firm and your chest stay slightly ahead of the ball.
A good mental cue is to feel like your sternum — the middle of your chest — stays directly over or just ahead of the ball through impact. This guarantees that the low point stays forward, helping the club hit ball first, then turf.
If you tend to lean back subconsciously, place a small object (like a golf ball box) just behind your trail foot at setup. During your swing, make sure your weight never rocks back enough to touch it. That small awareness cue helps train your body to stay forward and balanced.
Once you start keeping your weight stable, you’ll notice your contact improves immediately. The chunks disappear, and the ball starts coming off the face clean — even when your swing feels effortless.
Quiet Your Wrists
When you watch high-handicap golfers chip, you’ll often see their hands flick at the ball. They hinge their wrists in the backswing, then try to “scoop” the ball into the air by flipping them through impact. It feels intuitive — but it’s the exact opposite of what you want.
Flippy hands destroy consistency. They change the club’s loft and strike point from one shot to the next. One chip might come out high and soft, the next thin and skidding. The problem isn’t your wedge — it’s your wrists trying to do the job your shoulders should be doing.
To fix it, focus on keeping your wrists quiet and your hands slightly ahead of the ball through impact. You don’t need to lock your wrists rigidly — just maintain a firm, stable connection between your arms and the club. Think of the club as an extension of your arms rather than something you’re manipulating.
Here’s a feel drill that works wonders: grip the club lightly and hit a few chips with your lead hand only. This forces your shoulder and arm to control the motion while keeping your wrist firm. Then, switch to both hands and replicate that same connected feel.
When your wrists stay quiet, your contact gets consistent, your ball flight predictable, and your confidence skyrockets. You’re no longer trying to “help” the shot — you’re letting your setup and rotation handle everything.
Find the Bottom of Your Swing
If your weight and wrists are under control but you’re still missing the sweet spot, you likely haven’t found where your swing naturally bottoms out. The bottom point is where your club brushes the turf — and it needs to happen just after the ball, not before it.
Here’s a quick drill to discover it: draw a straight line on the grass or lay a piece of tape down parallel to your target line. Set up so the line is where your ball would be, then make small chipping swings trying to brush the turf directly on the line.
If you hit behind it, your weight’s drifting or your hands are releasing too early. If you keep missing the grass entirely, your arms are lifting instead of turning. Keep adjusting until your club consistently brushes the line with that light, crisp sound.
Once you can do this ten times in a row, you’ve built the foundation of solid contact. From that point on, every chip becomes more predictable because you’ve eliminated the biggest variable — where the club meets the ground.
And when that starts feeling automatic, you’re ready to learn the finishing touch that gives great chippers their signature sound and flight: a controlled, accelerating motion through impact.
Accelerate Through Impact
One of the most common causes of poor contact — even when your setup looks perfect — is deceleration. It happens when you slow down the club just before impact, often because you’re afraid of hitting the ball too far. The result? Fat or thin shots that go nowhere near your target.
Deceleration kills your rhythm and destroys the natural momentum of the swing. When you slow down, the club’s bottom point shifts behind the ball, and you lose both precision and feel. The fix is to trust your motion and allow the club to keep moving smoothly through the ball.
A great way to think about it: you’re not “hitting” the ball, you’re swinging through it. The ball just happens to be in the way of the club’s path.
To build this feel, start with shorter chips and focus on a relaxed, rhythmic motion — a small backswing with a matching, slightly longer follow-through. The clubhead should never stop at the ball. You should feel it brush the grass and continue forward naturally.
If you tend to slow down out of fear, try the “one-two” rhythm. Count “one” in your backswing and “two” as the club flows through. This keeps you moving and prevents that last-second hesitation that ruins contact.
When you let the club swing freely with acceleration through the strike, you’ll start to feel the turf brushing perfectly every time. That consistent “click” sound becomes your confirmation that you’re doing it right.
The Brush Drill for Perfect Contact
The brush drill is the simplest, most effective way to train consistent contact. It teaches you to let the club glide through the turf instead of digging or lifting.
Here’s how to do it:
- Find a patch of grass or use a small towel on your hitting mat.
- Take your normal chipping setup, but place a tee or coin about two inches in front of the ball.
- Focus on brushing the grass and clipping that tee or towel spot after the ball.
This drill trains your low point and rhythm at the same time. If you hit the ground before the ball, you’ll feel it immediately. If you miss the grass entirely, you’ll know you lifted the club too early.
Your goal is a shallow, even brush — that soft “thump” sound of the club skimming the ground. When done right, it feels effortless.
Repeat this drill for five minutes a day, and you’ll quickly start making pure, consistent contact on the course. It’s one of those small habits that delivers huge results over time.
Once you’ve learned to accelerate through impact and brush the turf consistently, it’s time to focus on one more powerful skill — learning to use your body rotation to make every chip repeatable and effortless.
Use Body Rotation to Stabilize Your Strike
When your hands and wrists stay quiet, your shoulders control the motion, and your tempo feels smooth — there’s just one final piece that locks it all in: body rotation.
If you stop turning your chest through impact, your arms have to keep moving on their own, and that’s when the wrists flip and contact breaks down. But when your chest and shoulders keep rotating naturally through the shot, everything stays synced — your hands stay ahead, your weight stays forward, and the club brushes the turf right where it should.
To feel this, rehearse your chipping motion while focusing on your shirt buttons. As you swing back, they should turn slightly away from the target. As you swing through, let them rotate until they’re pointing at the target. That’s it. No big hip turn or power move — just a gentle rotation of your chest leading the motion.
Another great feel cue is to imagine your belt buckle following your hands through the shot. If it stays frozen, your upper body stops, and your arms take over. If it turns smoothly toward the target, your swing stays connected and controlled.
When your body rotates properly, you’ll notice two things immediately:
- Your contact sounds solid and crisp — no digging, no blading.
- Your follow-through feels balanced instead of forced.
That’s the hallmark of a confident chipper — they rotate, they don’t stab.
Tying It All Together Under Pressure
All these fundamentals — weight forward, quiet wrists, brushing the turf, smooth tempo, chest rotation — are what make contact repeatable. But under pressure, most golfers forget them. The nerves kick in, tempo rushes, and suddenly even short chips start to feel foreign.
The way to fight that isn’t by trying harder — it’s by trusting your process. When you stand over the ball, go through this simple checklist before every chip:
- Is my weight still favoring my front foot?
- Are my hands just ahead of the ball?
- Can I see my landing spot clearly?
- Am I relaxed enough to swing through it?
Take one deep breath, visualize the brush of the turf, and let the motion happen. You’re not trying to create a perfect shot — you’re letting your fundamentals produce it.
Pressure fades when confidence takes over, and confidence comes from knowing that you’ve practiced the same motion a hundred times with the same result. You don’t need to think — you just need to trust.
And that’s when your chipping starts to feel automatic. You set up, swing through, and watch the ball hop, roll, and settle next to the hole — not by luck, but by design.
New Practice Routines Emailed Every Sunday
We’ve put together a practice plan that shows you what golf drills to practice to quickly improve your swing, chipping, and putting. Every Sunday we send out a new routine for the upcoming week as well as a video lesson of the week, plus you’ll be able to watch golf drill tutorials showing you how to do each drill in the plan.
These practice plans give you structure so you know what to spend time working on to improve. You can choose which days to follow based on your schedule, it’s flexible.
If you become a Pro Plan member, you’ll get 1 swing lesson per month to get feedback and coaching on your golf swing (or putting stroke / chipping stroke if you desire).
Get help understanding why your golf shots aren’t starting as straight as you’d like, plus how to make better contact, consistently, to see more balls flying high toward your target.
Learn More About the Practice Club Here
See you soon,
Coach Mike Foy, PGA
Owner of Mike’s Golf Center
