What Can You Tell From Your Divots On The Golf Course (Video) - by Peter Finch
What Can You Tell From Your Divots On The Golf Course (Video) - by Peter Finch

What can you tell from divots on the golf course? Now a divot is produced when the ball is struck first and then the turf is struck after. It happens when the correct angle of attack is actually adopted during impact, when the hands slightly leave the club, the ball is struck first and then the turf is struck after. Hopefully you won’t be doing this for the driver because the driver is set on the ball is forward, and you just want to be clipping it off the tee. But when you’re on the course, it’s in the wedges or the end, you can actually tell quite a lot of what’s happened in the swing from just looking at the characteristics of your divot?

First of all you want to be looking at where the divot is pointing after you’ve hit the shot. If the divot is pointing straight down your target line, it normally means that the club has travelled on a very square path into the ball, and if the club face is square to your target line and the divot is pointing down the target, that ball should come out with a very straight ball flight. If the divot is pointing off to the left of the target, you’ll have come into impact with an out to in swing pass, and if the divot is pointing out towards the right of the target, you’ll have come into the ball with an in to out swing path. Now this isn’t universally true because you can get some very funny divots depending on the angle of the club as it enters the turf. Generally those divots will correspond to those paths. The second thing you can actually tell from a divot is how it’s depths. If it’s a very, very deep divot then your angle of attack into the ball, will have been a very, very steep, you’ll have hit the ball first but then the angle of attack was so steep you entered the turf and dug out a very large piece of earth. That’s generally what you don’t want to be seeing and that will cause, it kind of tell you that your angle of attack has been a little bit too steep and you might need to shallow it out. On the other end of the spectrum if you come through the ball and pick it cleanly off the turf without leaving it divot at all that will show that your angle of attack into the ball has been very, very shallow and you might need to steepen it slightly. A perfect divot will be one where it points directly down to the target and is very thin and about the size of a one dollar note. If you can produce those divots time after time, that will show the angle of attack has been fantastic and the path has been fantastic and hopefully the resulting golf shot was also just as good.
2014-10-21

What can you tell from divots on the golf course? Now a divot is produced when the ball is struck first and then the turf is struck after. It happens when the correct angle of attack is actually adopted during impact, when the hands slightly leave the club, the ball is struck first and then the turf is struck after. Hopefully you won’t be doing this for the driver because the driver is set on the ball is forward, and you just want to be clipping it off the tee. But when you’re on the course, it’s in the wedges or the end, you can actually tell quite a lot of what’s happened in the swing from just looking at the characteristics of your divot?

First of all you want to be looking at where the divot is pointing after you’ve hit the shot. If the divot is pointing straight down your target line, it normally means that the club has travelled on a very square path into the ball, and if the club face is square to your target line and the divot is pointing down the target, that ball should come out with a very straight ball flight. If the divot is pointing off to the left of the target, you’ll have come into impact with an out to in swing pass, and if the divot is pointing out towards the right of the target, you’ll have come into the ball with an in to out swing path.

Now this isn’t universally true because you can get some very funny divots depending on the angle of the club as it enters the turf. Generally those divots will correspond to those paths. The second thing you can actually tell from a divot is how it’s depths. If it’s a very, very deep divot then your angle of attack into the ball, will have been a very, very steep, you’ll have hit the ball first but then the angle of attack was so steep you entered the turf and dug out a very large piece of earth. That’s generally what you don’t want to be seeing and that will cause, it kind of tell you that your angle of attack has been a little bit too steep and you might need to shallow it out.

On the other end of the spectrum if you come through the ball and pick it cleanly off the turf without leaving it divot at all that will show that your angle of attack into the ball has been very, very shallow and you might need to steepen it slightly. A perfect divot will be one where it points directly down to the target and is very thin and about the size of a one dollar note. If you can produce those divots time after time, that will show the angle of attack has been fantastic and the path has been fantastic and hopefully the resulting golf shot was also just as good.