My divots still start behind the ball.

Even though I'm doing more things right than I have in a long time, and the fact I'm hitting the both straighter and maybe a hair longer, I continue to have my divot start behind the ball instead of in front of it. While at the range today, I tried to move the ball a tad back from center but seemed to want to pull the ball left. So I played around with rotating back more on the backswing and a bigger effort on my hip rotation and that seemed to get the divot started more at the ball.

But every once in awhile I'm plagued with that dang hit about a 6" behind the ball, takes half a yard of sod, and it goes 20 feet. It would make sense that I'm moving my core to the right and my swing is bottoming out behind the ball but I just can't catch myself doing that. If I could only solve that . . .

Instead of focusing your eyes directly on the ball, focus them directly in front of the ball. That's a quick fix for me when I seem to be chunking everything.

Take iacas' advice and video yourself and perhaps even start a swing thread on here.

But without the video, it's a safe bet that your weight is not forward (or forward enough) at impact.  And if your weight is forward at impact, then the only way to reach the ground 6" behind the ball would be to drop your upper body way down.

Hence Erik's simple suggestion that you work on Keys 1 and 2. ;)

EDIT:  Whoops, I just realized that he actually said Keys 2 and 3. No matter.  They're all important and he's the expert, so look at them all, but focus on 2 and 3. ;)

while on the range and hit off the grass push a tee in the ground a few inches in front off your ball, when taking your swing try to hit that

tee out off the ground. Practice this for a while and your ball striking will improve.

However hitting it fat is caused by something going wrong in a swing, so vtape it and post it in the myswing tread.

That is where we can help the best