That sickening thud of a club digging into the ground well behind the ball is a sound no golfer wants to hear. A chunked shot, also known as a "fat" shot, doesn't just fly a fraction of its intended distance—it's one of the most frustrating and confidence-sapping mistakes in an amateur's game. This guide will walk you through exactly why you chunk the ball and provide simple, actionable steps and drills to help you achieve crisp, ball-first contact on every swing.
Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand it. In golf, for an iron or wedge shot, our goal is to strike the ball first, and then the turf second. This downward strike compresses the ball against the clubface, creating optimal spin and distance. The lowest point of your swing arc should happen just after the golf ball.
A chunk occurs when this sequence is reversed: the club hits the ground first, and then the ball. Your swing's low point is happening behind the ball. The club digs deep into the turf, loses nearly all of its speed, and then clumsily bounces up into the ball, sending it pitifully short of the target.
Blaming your hands or a "bad swing" is too simple. Chunking is almost always a symptom of a larger issue in your setup or swing mechanics. Let's look at the primary culprits.
Most chunked shots can be traced back to one of these four common flaws. Identify which one sounds most like you, and you'll be on the right path to a solution.
This is, by far, the most common reason amateurs chunk their irons. Many players have a subconscious desire to "help" or "lift" the ball into the air. This instinct causes them to keep their weight on their trail foot (the right foot for a right-handed golfer) through the downswing.
When your weight hangs back, the center of your swing—and therefore, the low point—also stays back. Your club bottoms out behind the ball, creating a deep, fat divot. Feeling your weight finish on your back foot after a swing is a dead giveaway that this is your issue.
The Fix: Focus on the Finish. The fix begins in the transition. The downswing should be initiated by a slight "bump" or shift of your hips toward the target, which allows your body to unwind and release the power you've stored. At the end of your follow-through, you should be able to lift your trail foot completely off the ground with ease. All of your weight—around 90% of it—should be balanced over your lead foot, with your chest and hips facing the target.
Think about casting a fishing rod. You whip the rod forward to send the line out. In the golf swing, "casting" refers to unhinging your wrists too early in the downswing. At the top of your swing, your wrists should have a natural hinge, creating an angle between your forearms and the club shaft. Great ball strikers maintain this angle for as long as possible in the downswing, releasing it only as they approach impact. This is called lag.
Casting is the opposite. It's an attempt to generate power by throwing the clubhead at the ball right from the top. While it might feel powerful, it actually drains your swing of speed and completely destroys the swing arc. When you cast, the clubhead reaches its maximum speed far too early and bottoms out behind the ball, leading to a classic chunk.
The Fix: Feel the Pull. Instead of thinking about "hitting" the ball from the top, feel as though you are pulling the handle of the club down toward the ball. This feeling helps maintain that critical wrist angle, allowing the power to be unloaded at the perfect moment: impact. The body's rotation should be what brings the club down, not a forcible throwing motion from the hands and arms.
Your setup is the foundation of your swing. A poor foundation leads to a collapsing structure. Two key setup elements can directly lead to chunks:
The Fix: Be Deliberate. Start every shot by placing the clubhead behind the ball first. Then, build your stance around it. Bend from the hips into an athletic posture where your arms hang down freely. Position the ball in the middle of your shoulder-width stance and ensure your weight feels evenly distributed (50/50) between your feet.
A good golf swing is a rotational action. You turn your shoulders and hips around a relatively stable spine, like a spinning top. A common fault, however, is a lateral "sway," where the player moves their entire body sideways, away from the target, during the backswing.
Think of your body being inside a narrow cylinder. During the backswing, you want to rotate inside that cylinder, not shift and bump into the sides of it. When you sway away from the target, your swing-center moves with you. Getting back to the ball properly requires a perfectly timed lunge back toward the target. It's a difficult move to time consistently, and if you don't do it, the club's low point remains far behind the ball, resulting in a fat impact.
The Fix: Stay Centered. A great feel is to keep the weight pressured on the inside of the trail foot during the backswing. This promotes a proper rotation instead of a lateral sway. You can also place an alignment rod or an obstacle just outside your trail hip at setup to provide instant feedback if you start drifting sideways.
Understanding the theory is one thing, but putting the change into motion is another. Here are four simple drills you can practice at the driving range to make ball-then-turf contact second nature.
This is the most direct feedback drill for fixing chunks. Place a small towel (or a headcover) a few inches directly behind your golf ball. Your only job is to hit the ball without hitting the towel. If you're hanging back or casting, you will inevitably strike the towel first, sending a fluffy explosion into the air. It forces you to control your swing's low point and get it either on top of, or just in front of, the ball.
This drill gives you undeniable visual feedback on your low point. On the driving range, draw a line in the turf perpendicular to your target line (or simply use the dividing line on a mat). Set up to the line as if it were the ball and make practice swings, trying to have your divot start on or ahead of the line (closer to the target). Once you can do that consistently, place a ball directly on the line and repeat. The goal is to see the ball disappear, with your divot starting right where the ball was.
For the ultimate weight-shift drill, the step-through is best. Set up normally, make your usual swing, but immediately after impact, let your back foot (the right foot for a righty) take a natural step forward towards the target, like you are walking after the shot. It is impossible to do this properly if your weight is hanging back. It forces your momentum and your weight to move through the shot, exactly what we want.
Sometimes, chunks come from getting too long and loose in the backswing, leading to a loss of control. By taking shorter, more compact swings—just to waist-height on both sides (like the arms of a clock at "9" and "3")—you can reconnect to the feel of a proper body rotation powering the swing. Focus on rotating your chest back and then through, with quiet hands. The club will naturally drop into the right place when the body leads it.
Stopping chunks comes down to understanding one simple concept: your goal is to strike the ball first, and the low point of your swing needs to happen after impact. By improving your weight shift, maintaining your wrist angles, starting from a solid setup, and focusing on rotation, you actively move that low point forward, guaranteeing solid, pure contact.
Fixing swing flaws takes dedicated practice, but conquering the chunks is a game-changer for your confidence and your scores. Of course, even with a great swing, golf presents tricky situations on the course. You might hit a perfect drive only to find your ball in a deep divot or on a tricky upslope—prime territory for a chunked shot if you're not careful. That's where a tool like Caddie AI comes in. When you find yourself in a nasty lie and are second-guessing your shot, you can snap a photo, and our AI will offer a smart, simple strategy for how to handle it. It takes the guesswork out of recovery shots and helps you make the smarter play, avoiding those costly mistakes that come from chunking the ball.
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