What The Direction Of Golf Divots Will Tell You (Video) - by Peter Finch
What The Direction Of Golf Divots Will Tell You (Video) - by Peter Finch

First of all learning what information divots can give you on the golf course, is direction; so where are the divots traveling to after you’ve hit the shot. Now I’ve got an alignment stick here just to kind of give a little bit more of an indication. If I put this alignment stick straight down after the ball, so sitting directly on the target line that I want to be hitting, and my club moves a little bit more straight through the ball, what I should be seeing at the point of impact here, get this alignment stick perfectly aligned.

What I want to be seeing through the point of impact, is the ball to be hit, the club to enter the turf, and the divot to be traveling pretty much straight down towards the target line. That would give me a rough indication that my club is travelling straight through the point of impact. There are a couple of ways that you can almost trick a divot a little bit so you can kind of come from different positions and move the hands in a way to get the divot a little bit straighter than it normally would be. But generally speaking if you’re hitting a normal iron shot, if that divot is pointing straight down towards the target after you hit, then that club has moved through the ball in a very straight path. If that divot is pointing out to the right hand side that would indicate that the club has moved more from an inside path, hit the ball, hit the turf and then continued to travel out to the right of the target, this is the type of divot pattern that you’d expect to see to hit a draw. However, when the divot start to go a little bit more off to the right or a little bit more off to the left, it’s not an automatic assumption that your path is different, it could just be the fact that you’re aiming a little bit off. So when you’re checking your divot patterns you need to think about club path and you need to think about aim. And the last of these, if that divot is pointing off to the left hand side after you’ve hit then this is the one that most people don’t generally want to see, because it causes the big slice, is when that club moves big from out to in, hits the ball first, and then travels off to the left hand side. If this is the case, you should start to see a fade or a slice, or yet again you need to check your alignment. But those are the general rules that you need to be following when hitting divots. If you see that pattern starts to emerge, it can give you some valuable insight into what your swing path is doing when you hit the shot. 2016-08-31

First of all learning what information divots can give you on the golf course, is direction; so where are the divots traveling to after you’ve hit the shot. Now I’ve got an alignment stick here just to kind of give a little bit more of an indication. If I put this alignment stick straight down after the ball, so sitting directly on the target line that I want to be hitting, and my club moves a little bit more straight through the ball, what I should be seeing at the point of impact here, get this alignment stick perfectly aligned.

What I want to be seeing through the point of impact, is the ball to be hit, the club to enter the turf, and the divot to be traveling pretty much straight down towards the target line. That would give me a rough indication that my club is travelling straight through the point of impact. There are a couple of ways that you can almost trick a divot a little bit so you can kind of come from different positions and move the hands in a way to get the divot a little bit straighter than it normally would be. But generally speaking if you’re hitting a normal iron shot, if that divot is pointing straight down towards the target after you hit, then that club has moved through the ball in a very straight path. If that divot is pointing out to the right hand side that would indicate that the club has moved more from an inside path, hit the ball, hit the turf and then continued to travel out to the right of the target, this is the type of divot pattern that you’d expect to see to hit a draw.

However, when the divot start to go a little bit more off to the right or a little bit more off to the left, it’s not an automatic assumption that your path is different, it could just be the fact that you’re aiming a little bit off. So when you’re checking your divot patterns you need to think about club path and you need to think about aim. And the last of these, if that divot is pointing off to the left hand side after you’ve hit then this is the one that most people don’t generally want to see, because it causes the big slice, is when that club moves big from out to in, hits the ball first, and then travels off to the left hand side. If this is the case, you should start to see a fade or a slice, or yet again you need to check your alignment. But those are the general rules that you need to be following when hitting divots. If you see that pattern starts to emerge, it can give you some valuable insight into what your swing path is doing when you hit the shot.