Stop hitting it thin!

One of the most common errors in mid to high handicappers is the thinned shot.

A thin shot can create unpredictable shapes as well painful if you play in colder climates. It is an uncontrollable shot, that appears in many amateur’s games as a result of poor balance and posture.

One of the most common errors that cause the shot is posture, however not just in set up but maintaining that angle throughout the swing. You must learn to limit the amount of body movement in the swing, reducing it to a rotation only.

If we do not maintain this posture throughout the swing it creates a new “low point” in the arc of the golf swing, resulting in a different impact point on the golf ball.

A thin is generally caused by one of three errors:

1 – “Jumping” up onto your toes as you swing through, trying to create space to hit the ball because you have not maintained your posture during the backswing. Most likely due to a “drop” of the target shoulder instead of a correct rotation of the shoulders.

2 – “Pulling the arms up into towards the body” as you swing through you again try to create the space required to hit the golf ball. This time it is because your shoulder and hip rotation are too “vertical”.

3 – Your ball position is wrong from the start. If you have the ball too far back in your stance you are likely to thin the ball as you swing down. This is simply because the ball is not positioned correctly if you were to make a proper swing. Being further back means that the arc of the swing will reach the ball before the bottom of the arc resulting in a thin shot.

How to fix the problem:

1 – Jumping; Hit shots with a wedge or a golf ball under your heels and maintain contact.

This will immediately notify you if you are jumping as you will feel the disconnection between ball and foot.

2 – Pulling arms into the body; This is a hard one to correct quickly as the drill can be quite difficult to achieve. You have to feel your arms extending down the target line without them moving outside of the intended target line. IF they move outside the intended target line you will be developing another swing flaw, which we do not to do.

3 – Ball position

There are a lot of golfers that do not correctly position the ball within the stance. The reasons for this are varied, but the main one for me is that they are constantly trying to change the ball position to suit the club. Which I believe to be incorrect. The ball should be played from the same spot with each club, with the exception of the driver. This is because to create a consistent bottom of arc position we need to maintain a correct ball position. If you are thinning it because of this then you need to move the ball towards the target. It will be a bit of trial and error to find your perfect ball position but it will make all the difference.