Control Your Low Point to Avoid Fat and Thin Shots

The 9 to low point drill teaches you how to move the bottom of your swing in front of the golf ball, which is one of the biggest keys to solid iron contact. If you tend to hit fat shots, catch the ball thin, or feel like the club is scooping through impact, your low point is often happening too early. This drill gives you a clear reference for where the club should be brushing the ground and helps you connect a good delivery position to a better strike.

How the Drill Works

The idea is simple: instead of letting the club reach the ground behind the ball and then trying to “save” the shot, you train the club to arrive at its lowest point slightly forward of the ball. That is what creates the crisp, ball-then-turf strike you want with your irons.

You begin by using an impact fix position as your checkpoint. From your normal address, you preset yourself into a solid impact look, then place the clubhead several inches ahead of the ball to represent where the swing should bottom out. This gives you a physical awareness of the correct low-point location.

From there, you make a short backswing to about waist high—roughly the “9 o’clock” position—and then swing down so the club brushes the ground at that forward low point. The ball is not the main focus. The ground contact is. In a good rep, the club approaches on a gradual downward line and reaches the bottom of the arc ahead of the ball.

That distinction matters because many golfers do the opposite. They get the club low too early, often around the middle of the stance or behind the ball, and then try to drag it along the ground through impact. That pattern almost guarantees inconsistent contact. Once speed is added, the problem usually gets worse: the club bottoms out farther back, rises too soon, and produces fat or thin strikes.

The drill teaches a better pattern: keep the club a little higher for a little longer, then let it extend into the turf at the proper spot. You are not trying to force the handle down or shove the club into the ground early. You are learning the timing and direction of the swing so the arc shifts forward without steepening excessively.

This is an important point. There are really two ways to move low point forward:

You can tilt the swing more steeply and chop across it, which tends to create an over-the-top motion.
Or you can move the swing’s arc forward through better arm timing and delivery, while your body remains in a functional impact alignmnent.

The drill is designed to train the second option. You want the swing circle to move forward, not just get steeper.

Step-by-Step

Set up normally. Address the ball as you would for a short iron shot. Stay balanced and relaxed.
Move into your impact fix. Preset yourself into a good impact position with your weight favoring the lead side, hands ahead, and your body organized the way you want it at strike.
Place the club at low point. From that impact fix, move the clubhead about 6 to 8 inches ahead of the ball—roughly closer to your lead foot. Let the club just press slightly into the ground so you can feel where the turf interaction should happen.
Notice the shape of the approach. From the face-on view, the club should work on a gradual downward line into that spot. You do not want the club already skimming the ground behind the ball.
Rehearse the low-point position. Pump into that forward brushing point a couple of times. This builds awareness of where the club should meet the ground.
Swing back to waist high. Make a short backswing to about 9 o’clock. Keep it controlled and compact.
Swing through in one motion. From waist high, return the club so it brushes the ground at the forward low point. Let the ball simply get in the way of that motion.
Watch for the correct turf contact. The club should not bottom out behind the ball and then stay low. It should approach, strike the ball, and brush the turf slightly ahead of it.
Repeat until the strike improves. Early reps may come out thin or slightly right. That is normal. Stay patient and keep training the location of the low point.
Blend it into a 9-to-3 motion. Once the drill starts to feel natural, hit some short, fluid 9-to-3 shots while keeping the same low-point awareness.
Gradually build toward your full swing. As the contact improves, either add a little more speed or lengthen the motion while preserving the same strike pattern.

What You Should Feel

At first, this drill may feel very different from your normal swing—especially if you are used to helping the ball into the air. That is a good sign. You are trying to change where the club meets the ground.

Key sensations

The club stays higher longer on the way down instead of dropping to the turf too early.
The low point happens ahead of the ball, not under your trail shoulder or in the middle of your stance.
Your arms extend into the strike so the club reaches outward to the turf rather than dragging behind you.
The ball gets in the way of the low point. You are not trying to lift it; you are swinging through it.
The turf contact feels late compared to what you may be used to if you normally hit fat shots.

Useful checkpoints

The clubhead should not be hugging the ground before it reaches the ball.
From face-on, the shaft and club should appear to move on a fairly straight, descending line into the strike area.
Your chest can stay behind the ball in a functional impact alignmnent; you do not need to lunge your whole upper body forward.
The divot, if there is one, should begin in front of the ball.

If you are new to this movement, a few thin shots are common. In many cases, that is part of the adjustment because you are no longer crashing the club into the ground too early. With a little repetition, those thin strikes often turn into much cleaner contact.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Letting the club get low too early. If the clubhead reaches the ground behind the ball, you have made the drill much harder. The whole point is to train a forward low point.
Dragging the club along the turf. You do not want a long skid through the strike area. The club should approach, bottom out forward, and then continue on.
Trying to move low point forward by swinging over the top. That can push the bottom of the arc forward, but it creates a different problem. The goal is forward low point without a steep, glancing delivery.
Shoving your entire upper body forward. For short shots you can sometimes get away with it, but for normal iron swings this is not a reliable fix. You want the arc to move forward through better delivery, not a big body lunge.
Focusing only on the ball. In this drill, the turf contact is the real target. The ball is secondary.
Expecting perfect contact immediately. Stop drills can feel awkward at first. A few thin or pushed shots are normal while you learn the pattern.
Going too fast too soon. If you add speed before you can control the low point in the short motion, the old pattern usually returns.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is not just a band-aid for one bad range session. It addresses a core piece of impact: where the swing bottoms out. If that point is behind the ball, you are always going to be vulnerable to fat and thin shots, especially with irons.

For many golfers, poor contact is blamed on the wrong thing. They think they need to keep their head down, hold their posture longer, or hit down harder. Sometimes those ideas make the problem worse. The real issue is often that the club is reaching the ground too soon, then rising or skidding through the ball.

The 9 to low point drill helps you organize the motion in a more functional way. It links:

Delivery position — how the club approaches the ball
Arm extension — how the club reaches outward into the strike
Ground contact — where the club actually bottoms out

Once you can control those pieces in a short motion, you can start blending them into your normal swing. A good progression looks like this:

Rehearse the impact fix and low-point position
Hit short 9 to low point shots
Blend into a fluid 9-to-3 swing
Add speed or length gradually
Carry the same low-point awareness into full irons

If your usual miss is scoopy, heavy, or inconsistent with the irons, this drill gives you a very direct way to improve. It teaches you that solid contact is not about forcing the club into the ground or trying to help the ball up. It is about delivering the club so the bottom of the arc occurs in the right place.

When that low point moves forward consistently, your strike gets cleaner, your divots get better, and your iron play becomes much more predictable.