How to Stop Thinning Chip Shots: Fix the Skull for Good

Few things sting like a simple chip that comes screaming off the leading edge and races across the green into trouble. If you want to know how to stop thinning chip shots, the first thing to understand is that the skull isn’t bad luck — it’s a predictable result of a couple of setup faults, and both are quick to fix. You don’t need soft hands or a magic move. You need the low point of your swing in the right place.

Thinning and chunking are two sides of the same coin. This guide covers exactly what causes the thin, the setup that prevents it, and two drills that groove crisp, ball-first contact so you can trust your wedge from around the green again.

Why You Thin Chip Shots

You’re trying to lift the ball

This is the number one cause. When you try to help the ball into the air with a scooping, flicking motion, your hands throw the clubhead upward before impact. That moves the low point of the swing behind the ball, so the club is already travelling up when it reaches it — and the leading edge catches the ball’s equator instead of sliding under it. The result is the classic screaming skull.

The counterintuitive truth is that you make the ball go up by hitting down. The loft on your wedge is designed to do the lifting. Your job is to deliver the clubhead into the ball on a slightly descending path and let the club work.

Your weight is hanging back

The second culprit is weight sitting on your trail foot at impact. When you hang back, the bottom of your swing arc moves backward with your weight, and the club bottoms out behind the ball — leading to either a chunk or a thin depending on timing. Consistent chipping contact starts with your weight favouring your lead side and staying there throughout the shot.

The chunk is the thin’s twin miss, with the same root cause. Here’s the full fix for fat contact.

How to Stop Chunking Chip Shots →

The Setup That Prevents the Thin

Lead-side pressure, and keep it there

Set up with around 60-70% of your weight on your lead foot and leave it there for the whole shot. This single adjustment moves your swing’s low point in front of the ball, which is exactly where it needs to be for a clean, descending strike. Most thin chips vanish the moment a golfer stops shifting their weight backward through impact.

Ball back, hands forward

Play the ball slightly back of centre and set your hands ahead of the clubhead so the shaft leans toward the target. This pre-sets a downward angle of attack and takes the scoop out of the equation. From here, the stroke is a simple rock of the shoulders — hands stay quiet, the leading edge stays low, and the club brushes the grass just in front of the ball.

If you’re rebuilding your chipping from the ground up, start with the fundamentals here.

Golf Chipping Technique for Beginners →

Two Drills to Groove Crisp Contact

1The Towel Behind the Ball

Lay a small towel on the grass about four inches behind your ball and hit chips without touching it. If you’re bottoming out early — the cause of both fat and thin shots — you’ll clip the towel. This forces your low point forward and gives you instant feedback on every rep. Hit 15 chips and count how many miss the towel and strike ball-first.

2The Ten Yarder

Chip 10 balls from just off the green to a hole 10 yards away and count how many finish inside three feet. It sounds like a distance drill, but you can’t get the ball close consistently without clean contact first — so it quietly scores your strike as well as your touch. Scoring Zone builds this exact drill in with automatic scoring, so you get a number to beat each session instead of a vague feeling that it “went better today.”

Want more scored chipping challenges with benchmarks for your handicap?

See Chipping Drills →