Getting to the bottom of topped shots

There's a particular kind of silence that follows the dreaded worm burner.

"Well at least I kept it below the wind."

Welcome to volume one of the SwingSync Data Journal, where we take a deep dive into the millions of shots that have been synced, cleaned, enriched, and analysed on SwingSync in order to satisfy my own personal curiosities and ponderings.

Today's topic: topped shots.
By definition, a topped shot is one where the club strikes the ball above its equator, causing it to roll or bounce along the ground instead of flying through the air.

I sliced and diced the data to understand how often this happens, which clubs are most likely to be topped, and whether certain swing characteristics correlate with a higher topped shot rate.

Who tops the most? Do you top more as you get older? Does swinging harder make it worse? Is it more common with certain brands of clubs? (Spoiler: yes)

Here's what I found.

First: how often does it actually happen?

Everybody tops! But some golfers top it more than others.

The overall topped shot rate across all shots in the dataset sits at about 3.28%, so pretty much 1 in 30 shots. But that number hides a lot of variation based on skill level.

Scratch golfers top the ball about 0.23% of the time. That's roughly one topped shot every 435 shots, or 1 top every 10.6 rounds.

By the time you get to 30+ handicap, it's 5.3% of shots. That's more than 1 in 20. In a round where you hit, say, 100 shots, that's five topped balls. That tracks with my lived experience.

What's interesting is the jump isn't linear. Going from 10–19 handicap (2.38%) to 20–29 handicap (4.84%) is a bigger leap than going from scratch to a 9. There seems to be something that clicks mechanically once you get under a 20 handicap that helps reduce topped shots.

Which clubs are the worst offenders?

I find "teebox tops" to be the most painful. Probably because you typically have an audience for it I guess.
I was interested to see if that materializes in the data, or it's just trauma surfacing.

Fairway woods top the list at nearly 5%. Driver is right behind at 4.91%. Long irons, hybrids, all up in the 4–4.4% range. Wedges are actually the least topped club at just under 2%.

This makes some sense when you think about it. Longer clubs mean a wider arc, a faster swing, more room for the bottom of the arc to shift. With a wedge, you're making a much more controlled, compact swing. There's less that can go wrong, or at least less that can go wrong in this specific way.

The fairway wood number is honestly painful to look at. 1 in 20 fairway wood shots ends up as a grounder. That's a rough stat.

An interesting takeaway here is how effective high-loft woods (7 and 9 wood) are at reducing topped shots, a staggering 35% reduction compared to hybrids and long irons. If you struggle with those clubs, a high-lofted wood might be a good option to reduce topped shots while still giving you distance.

What about club path?

Club path is one of the most talked-about swing metrics. Out-to-in, in-to-out, slicers obsess over it. Does it actually contribute to topping?

Small variations around a neutral path (0-3.5° in either direction) don't seem to have much impact, with topped shot rates in the 1.6–1.84% range.
However, once you leave that neutral zone, the odds of a worm burner start to climb aggressively.

Even more interestingly, an extreme in-to-out path is substantially more punishing than an extreme out-to-in-path. Something about that specific motion seems to be a big contributor to topped shots.
Slicers may have other problems (common with out-to-in paths), but apparently topping the ball isn't one of them (at least compared to their hook-happy counterparts).

An extreme in-to-out path is typically associated with a "flipping" motion through impact, the hands flipping over aggressively to square the face. My guess is that same motion is what's causing the club to rise through impact and catch the top of the ball. But that's me speculating. The correlation is real, the causation I'm less sure about.

What about angle of attack?

The vertical angle at which the club approaches the ball should logically have a big impact on whether you top it or not.

For this chart, I'm breaking the groups up into percentiles of a specific user's specific club. So "Shallow (0–20%)" means the 20% of swings with the shallowest angle of attack for "John's driver". This way we can control for the fact that a higher handicap golfer's "steep" might be a different absolute angle than a scratch golfer's "steep". We're looking at relative steepness within each golfer's own swing profile.

This is the clearest relationship in the whole dataset.

You don't want to be too shallow, but it's a hell of a lot better than being too steep. The steepest 5% of swings increase the topped shot rate by 422% compared to a neutral angle of attack. Which I think is somewhat counterintuitive.

I think a few things are going on here.

First, most of these swings are on mats, which can often make chunked shots act like topped shots due to the club bouncing off the mat and making contact with the ball on the "upbounce", causing a strike to the top of the ball.

Secondly, a good angle of attack is all about increasing the "margin for error" in low point control.
If you're steep, you have to be very precise with where the bottom of your swing arc is. If it's too far back, you chunk it. If it's too far forward, you top it. A shallower angle gives you more forgiveness on that low point control.
Interestingly, we see an increase in topped shots at the extreme shallow end as well, which also reduces the margin for error, but the increase isn't nearly as dramatic as the steep end.

What about face angle?

A square or slightly open face? Pretty modest topped shot rates, between 1.72% and 2.40%. But an extreme closed face (more than 5°) jumps to 7.31%, and extreme open isn't far behind at 6.01%.

A severely closed face at impact is often associated with a flip or a roll of the hands, similar to what we saw with extreme in-to-out path.
These aren't coincidental. These things tend to come together in the same swing.
If your face is wildly closed, you're probably also flipping your hands through impact, which is also causing you to come in with a steep angle of attack, which is also causing you to top the ball.

It's all part of the same mechanical mess.

What about club speed?

Look at that beautiful U-curve.

When a golfer gives a swing everything they've got (the top 5%), the topped shot rate is 76% higher than when they swing a comfortable 70–85% of their max.

We also see a less dramatic increase at the slow end of the spectrum, which is interesting. Maybe this is timing or "hesitation" related, lack of confidence or commitment to the shot.

It's a lesson I need to relearn every time I play golf. Swinging harder isn't the answer. 70% is probably the sweet spot for contact quality.

If you find yourself topping the ball, try dialing back the speed and see if that helps.

The age breakdown

The 60s age group tops the ball at 10%, by far the highest of any group. That's one in ten shots.

I want to be careful not to be dismissive here because the handicap data shows they're also playing off a 23 average, which is the highest of any group, so some of this is just skill-level correlation. But even controlling for handicap, I'd expect there's a genuine physical component: flexibility and rotation decline with age, which makes consistent low point control harder.

The 40s are the best in this data at just 2.7%, with a corresponding 14.3 average handicap, the lowest of any group. Make of that what you will.

I find it interesting that the 30 year olds have a lower handicap than the 50 year olds, but a higher topped shot rate. Maybe this is a case of younger golfers swinging harder and being more aggressive with their shots, which could lead to more topped shots, while the 50 year olds are swinging more conservatively.
"Old man golf" wins again.

If there's a lesson here, it's probably that flexibility and rotation work might be the highest-leverage thing an older golfer can do for their ball-striking.

The brand breakdown (this one's just for fun)

Look, I know what you're thinking. "This is just a proxy for handicap." Yes. Largely.

But I included this chart because
a) it's interesting,
b) the handicap correlation isn't perfect.

Bridgestone players (16.4 hcp) are at 2.3%, while Cobra players (23.7 hcp) are at 3.9%. If we look closely, we can see some brands that seem to be punching above their handicap weight.

The average Takomo golfer sits at a 15.2 handicap, but has a 0.4% topped shot rate, effectively the lowest in the dataset (only rivalled by Srixon at 0.3%, but they average a handicap of 8.9).

TaylorMade also performs better than their average handicap would suggest, and those still playing Nikes (probably second-hand given the brand's exit from the market and the high average handicap) enjoy a far lower topped shot rate than their handicap would predict.

On the flip side, I'm not sure what's going on with Callaway.

So what actually causes topped shots?

Based on all of this, my reading is:

Something happens once you go lower than a 20 handicap. This seems to be a mechanical "click" that happens for most golfers that helps reduce topped shots. It's not just a linear relationship with skill level, there's something that changes in the swing mechanics or consistency once you get under 20. Or probably more accurately, something changes than enables golfers to get under 20.

Angle of attack, followed by club path and face angle are the most actionable swing metrics. If you want to reduce topped shots, work on shallowing out your angle of attack and keeping your face from getting too closed at impact. These are the two biggest swing-related factors in the data.

Club type matters a lot. If you're topping your hybrids or long irons, try a high-lofted wood.

Don't swing out of your shoes. If you're swinging at 100% effort, you're much more likely to top the ball than if you dial it back to 70–85%. Swinging harder isn't the answer.

Stretch! Especially as you age, flexibility and rotation work might be the highest-leverage thing you can do for your ball-striking.

This is the first post in a series I'm going to be running here: the SwingSync Data Journal. The idea is to take the shot data from the SwingSync database and use it to explore different questions and curiosities about the game. Topped shots are just the first topic. If there is a particular topic you'd like me to explore in a future post, let me know!