Air Shot
An air shot is a swing at the golf ball that misses it completely. It counts as one stroke.
What is an air shot in golf?
An air shot happens when a golfer swings at the ball, meaning to hit it, and the club passes through empty air. The ball sits exactly where it was. The stroke still goes on the scorecard.
Intent is what the rules look at. A golfer who takes their stance and tries to strike the ball has made a stroke, contact or no contact. A golfer rehearsing the motion with no plan to move the ball has not made one. Almost every question golfers ask about air shots comes back to that single distinction.
Air shot and whiff describe the same event. Golfers in Britain and Ireland lean towards air shot, or fresh air shot; American golfers more often say whiff. Collins English Dictionary carries both forms of the phrase and defines it as a swing that fails to touch the ball and is scored as a stroke regardless.
Two places on the course produce most of them. The first tee is one, where nerves tighten the swing in front of an audience. The area around the green is the other, where a ball perched on top of deep rough gives the clubhead room to slide underneath without ever touching the cover.
Does an air shot count as a stroke?
Yes. The Rules of Golf define a stroke as the forward movement of the club made to strike the ball. Contact appears nowhere in that definition. Once the club starts forward with the intention of hitting the ball, the stroke has been made, and it goes on the card even though the ball never moved.
A golfer who misses a tee shot is playing their second shot from the same spot. No separate penalty is added for missing, because the swing itself is the stroke being counted.
Paul Broadhurst provided a public example at the 2024 Senior Open at Carnoustie. Swiping at a tap-in from a couple of inches on the seventh green, he went clean over the ball, then holed out for a double bogey six. He called it on himself, checking with a referee that a legitimate attempt at the ball counted even though nothing was touched.
When a swing and miss does not count
Intent cuts both ways. A golfer who changes their mind partway down and deliberately avoids the ball has not made a stroke, because the swing was no longer made to strike it. The same logic covers a practice swing, where there was never any intention to move the ball at all.
Jeremy Ellwood, a Golf Monthly contributing editor who qualified as a referee through an R&A course, notes two further situations where a missed swing escapes being counted, both rare enough that most golfers will never see one. Set out together, the possibilities look like this.
| Situation | Counts as a stroke? |
|---|---|
| Swinging at the ball meaning to hit it, and missing | Yes |
| Stopping the clubhead deliberately before it reaches the ball | No |
| Being unable to stop, so deliberately swinging over the ball | No |
| Accidentally striking the ball during a practice swing | No |
| Clubhead separating from the shaft during the backswing, then missing | No |
| Dislodging a ball lodged in a tree by striking the branch below it | No, though Rule 9.4 applies instead |
That final row rarely helps anyone. Under Rule 9.4, moving a ball at rest costs one penalty stroke, so the scorecard reads the same either way. The difference is technical rather than practical.
What happens after an air shot
The ball has not moved, so play continues from the same spot with one more stroke on the card. Off the tee, though, there is a provision that most golfers never discover.
Rule 6.2b(6) covers a ball that is still sitting in the teeing area after a stroke, and it names a missed swing as the example. A golfer in that position may lift the ball, move it anywhere within the teeing area, and put it back on a tee. There is no penalty for doing so. The air shot still counts, but the next swing comes off a tee rather than off bare turf.
Air shot vs. other golf misses
Every other common mishit involves contact of some kind. That single fact separates an air shot from the shots golfers tend to confuse it with.
| Term | What happens |
|---|---|
| Air shot (whiff) | The club misses the ball entirely. Nothing is touched. |
| Top | The clubhead catches the upper half of the ball, sending it scuttling along the ground. |
| Thin | The leading edge strikes near the ball’s middle, producing a low shot with little control. |
| Fat (duff, chunk) | The club digs into the ground behind the ball and loses most of its speed. |
| Shank | The ball catches the hosel where shaft meets clubhead and shoots off sideways. |
Brushing the grass on the way through still leaves the shot as an air shot, provided the clubhead never reaches the ball. Any contact with the ball itself, however faint, means a different miss altogether.
Why air shots happen
The bottom of the swing arc finishes above the ball rather than at it. That is the mechanical answer, and everything else is a reason the low point ended up in the wrong place.
Trying to lift the ball into the air is the usual culprit, since raising the chest through impact pulls the club up with it. Standing too far away or swinging hard enough to lose balance does much the same. Deep rough adds its own version, holding the ball above the turf the golfer is aiming at.
Where the term comes from
British sport uses air shot broadly for any attempt that connects with nothing, and the phrase appears in football and cricket commentary as readily as in golf. The longer variant, fresh air shot, carries the same meaning with a little more emphasis on the emptiness of the swing.
Related Golf Terms
- Three-minute search — The maximum time allowed to look for a ball before it is deemed lost.
- Double hit — Accidentally striking the ball more than once in a single stroke.
- Wrong ball — Playing a ball that is not yours, which incurs a penalty.
- Lost ball — A ball not found within the allotted search time, incurring penalty.
- Wrong green — A green other than the one in play, requiring mandatory relief.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an air shot count on the tee?
Yes. A missed swing on the tee counts as the first stroke of the hole, and the ball is then in play. The next swing is the second shot.
Is an air shot a penalty?
No. It counts as one stroke because a stroke was made, but no penalty stroke is added on top of it.
Can a golfer re-tee after an air shot?
Yes. Rule 6.2b(6) allows a ball still lying in the teeing area after a stroke to be lifted and re-teed anywhere in that area without penalty. The missed swing still counts.
What if the club hits the ground but not the ball?
It counts. The stroke turns on whether the golfer intended to strike the ball, and hitting the turf instead does not change that intention.
Do professional golfers hit air shots?
Rarely, and almost never on a full swing. Hale Irwin missed a tap-in of about an inch on the 14th green during the third round of the 1983 Open at Royal Birkdale, then finished a stroke behind Tom Watson.
Is an air shot the same as a whiff?
Yes. The two words describe an identical event, with air shot the more common term in British and Irish golf.
Sources
- USGA and R&A. “Rules of Golf: Definitions (Stroke).” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules/rules-2019/committee-procedures/definitions.html - USGA and R&A. “Rule 6: Playing a Hole (Rules 6.2b(5) and 6.2b(6)).” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/custom-search-pages/rules/2019-golf-rules-and-interpretations/fr-rule-6.html - R&A. “Rule 6: Playing a Hole.” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.randa.org/en/rog/the-rules-of-golf/rule-6 - Golf Monthly (Jeremy Ellwood). “Hit An Air Shot In Golf? Here’s What The Rules Say.” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.golfmonthly.com/golf-rules/hit-an-air-shot-in-golf-heres-what-the-rules-say - Collins English Dictionary. “Golf Terms Word List.” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/word-lists/golf-golf-terms - The Open. “Previous Opens: 112th Open, Royal Birkdale 1983.” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.theopen.com/previous-opens/112th-open-royal-birkdale-1983 - National Club Golfer (Steve Carroll). “Fresh Air Shot In Golf: Why Is This A Stroke?” Accessed July 2026.
https://www.nationalclubgolfer.com/rules/paul-broadhurst-fresh-air-shot-in-golf-rules/ - Wikipedia. “Glossary of Golf: Air Shot.” Accessed July 2026.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_golf
