How to Stop Hitting Fat Shots with Training Aids

I chunked a pitching wedge from 80 yards into a pond last summer. Eighty yards. The ball traveled approximately four feet forward and two feet into the ground. My playing partner just stared. I could not even be mad because it was so bad it crossed into comedy.

That was the round that made me deal with my fat shots. I had been hitting heavy irons for years. Not every swing, but enough that I would step over every approach with a little voice whispering “please don’t chunk it.” That voice is exhausting.

I spent the next six weeks drilling with four training aids. Total cost: about $120. My fat shots did not vanish overnight, but by week six I was catching the ball clean on 8 out of 10 swings instead of 4 out of 10. Here is what worked.

Why You Hit Fat (Quick, Then We Move On)

Fat shots happen for three reasons. You almost certainly have at least two of them.

Your weight stays on your back foot. The big one. If your weight does not transfer to your lead side before impact, your low point moves behind the ball. The club bottoms out too early. You hit the ground first. The ball goes nowhere. Most high-handicap golfers live here.

You early-extend. Your hips and spine thrust upward and toward the ball on the downswing. You lose your posture, stand up, and the club crashes into the ground behind the ball. Early extension is a posture problem, not a swing-speed problem.

Your angle of attack is too steep. You come down too vertically, like you are chopping wood. The steeper the descent, the smaller the margin for error. One inch too steep and you are hitting a crater. Tour pros have shallow, controlled angles of attack. You can train toward one.

You cannot fix any of these by thinking about them. You need feedback. That is what training aids give you.

The Four Aids That Fixed My Fat Shots

1. Divot Board — $40 to $60

This is the single best tool for fixing fat shots, and I am annoyed it took me three years to buy one.

The Divot Board is a flat plastic pad with a textured surface that shows you exactly where your club contacts the ground. You set a ball on it, swing, and look at the mark. The mark tells you everything. If it is behind the ball, you hit fat. If it is ahead, you hit thin. If it is right under the ball, you got it right.

The beauty is that you cannot lie to yourself. You cannot convince yourself you almost got it when there is a big divot mark two inches behind the ball on the pad.

The drill: Place the board on the ground with a ball on top. Hit 10 shots with a 7-iron. After each shot, look at the mark before you reload. If the mark is behind the ball, your weight is back. Shift more weight forward on the next swing and check the mark again. Alternate between checking and not checking so you build feel, not dependency.

Time commitment: 10 minutes, three times a week. Hit 30 balls per session. Do this for three weeks.

What it fixed: Low-point control. Once I could see where I was hitting the ground, I started shifting my weight forward without thinking about it. The feedback was so immediate that my body started self-correcting. By week two, I was hitting the board ahead of the ball on 7 out of 10 swings.

2. Tour Striker Smart Ball — $40 to $45

This one fixes fat shots caused by early extension.

When your arms disconnect from your body on the downswing, you stand up. Standing up moves your low point. The Smart Ball sits between your forearms and keeps your arms connected to your torso through impact. If you stand up, the ball drops. Instant feedback.

The drill: Start with the ball deflated under your lead arm, hitting half-swing pitches with a wedge. Ten pitches. Then inflate the ball, place it between your forearms, and hit 10 three-quarter 7-irons. The ball forces you to stay in your posture and rotate through instead of lunging.

Time commitment: 10 minutes, four times a week for two weeks. Half the session under the arm, half between the forearms.

What it fixed: Early extension. I was standing up on every iron shot and did not know it. The Smart Ball made it obvious. When the ball dropped, I knew I had stood up. Within two weeks, I was staying in my posture through impact and the fat shots from standing up were gone.

3. Impact Tape — $8 to $15

Tape is not a “training aid.” But impact tape is the cheapest feedback tool in golf, and it pairs perfectly with the Divot Board.

You stick a strip on your clubface, hit balls, and look at the mark. If you are hitting fat, marks will be low on the face and toward the heel. If thin, high and toward the toe.

The tape does not fix anything alone. But combined with the Divot Board, you get the full picture. The board shows where your club hits the ground. The tape shows where the ball hits the face.

The drill: Put tape on a 7-iron. Hit 10 shots off the Divot Board. After each shot, note where the ground mark is and where the face mark is. If your ground mark is behind the ball and your face mark is low-heel, you know your weight is back and you are flipping at impact. Fix the weight first. Watch the marks change as you adjust.

Time commitment: 5 minutes per session. You can do this as a warm-up before any range session. One roll of impact tape lasts months.

What it fixed: It made the feedback permanent. The Divot Board mark disappears when you pick up the ball. The tape mark stays. I could see patterns across 10 swings that I never would have noticed otherwise.

4. Alignment Sticks — $15 to $25

Alignment sticks are on every list I write, but they have a specific fat-shot fix: steep angle of attack.

If your swing is too steep, you need a visual guide that forces you to shallow the club. An alignment stick laid on the ground at an angle does this.

The drill: Lay a stick on the ground about two feet behind the ball, angled from inside the target line to outside, roughly matching a shallow swing path. Address the ball and take practice swings without hitting the stick. If your club is too steep, you will clip the stick on the way down. If your path is shallow, you miss it.

Once you can make 10 clean practice swings without touching the stick, hit 10 balls with the stick in place. The stick forces a shallower approach, which moves your low point forward and reduces the margin for error.

Time commitment: 10 minutes, twice a week. Five minutes of practice swings, five minutes of hitting balls. Do this for three weeks alongside the Divot Board work.

What it fixed: The steep angle. I was coming down like I was swinging an axe. The stick made me shallow out, and the shallower path made the low point more predictable. Fewer craters, more clean strikes.

The Tour Sticks two-pack at $15 is all you need. They are fiberglass rods.

The Six-Week Plan

Weeks one and two: Divot Board for 10 minutes, three times a week. Impact tape on every session. Just learn where your low point is. Do not try to fix everything yet.

Weeks three and four: Add the Smart Ball, 10 minutes, four times a week. Half under the lead arm for half-swings, half between the forearms for three-quarter swings. Keep the Divot Board out and check your marks. They should be moving forward.

Weeks five and six: Add alignment sticks for shallow-path drills, 10 minutes, twice a week. Keep the Divot Board and Smart Ball in the rotation. By week six, your fat shots should be cut in half. Mine were.

What I Would Skip

The Impact Bag at $25 to $40 is decent for forward shaft lean, but it does not give you the same low-point feedback as the Divot Board. The Divot Board and Smart Ball cover 80% of the problem.

Why do I only hit fat with my irons and not my driver?

Because the ball is on a tee with a driver. Your low point can be behind the ball and you still hit it fine. With an iron, the ball is on the ground, so your low point has to be ahead of it. Fat shots are an iron problem by definition.