How to Stop Chunking Your Irons
A chunk — hitting the ground well behind the ball, sending a heavy shot a fraction of the distance — is demoralising because it feels random. It isn't. Fat shots have one dominant cause, and once you feel the fix you'll wonder how you ever played without it.
The real cause of a chunk
You chunk it when the low point of your swing happens behind the ball instead of just in front of it. The most common reason: your weight stays on your trail foot through impact, so the bottom of the swing arc falls back.
Hanging back usually happens because the arms try to 'help' the ball up. Ironically, the harder you try to lift it, the more you hit the ground first. The fix is learning to move your weight forward and let the club's loft do the lifting.
Drill 1: Step-through finish
Hit an iron at 60% speed and, immediately after impact, step through so your trail foot finishes beside your lead foot. You literally cannot complete this finish with your weight still on the back foot. If you stumble, that's the hanging-back showing itself.
- 1.Set up normally with a 7-iron.
- 2.Swing at 60%, and as you follow through step your trail foot toward the target.
- 3.Hold the finish: belt buckle facing the target, almost all weight on the lead foot.
- 4.Do 10 shots, then hit normal shots trying to keep the same finish.
Drill 2: The towel ahead of the ball
Lay a towel flat on the ground two or three inches in front of the ball and hit irons trying to brush the turf starting after the ball — without touching the towel. This trains the low point to move forward, which is the whole fix in one image.
Drill 3: Ball slightly back, hands slightly ahead
At address, play the ball a ball-width back of your usual iron position and press your hands a touch toward the target. This gives you a small margin for error: even a slightly early low point still catches ball first.
Then verify: film the swing and check your skill ratings in Caddigo. Contact quality is one of the five areas the analyzer scores, so a week of towel drills should move it visibly.
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