What Divot Depth Will Tell You About The Golf Swing (Video) - by Peter Finch
What Divot Depth Will Tell You About The Golf Swing (Video) - by Peter Finch

The overall depth of the divots that you’re taking on the golf course is something a lot of people overlook, but it can give very valuable insight into what is happening with your angle of attack and with your path as you hit a shot. You only really want to be taking about half an inch of turf after you’ve hit an iron shot, any more than that would be considered a little bit too steep. However, if you have a look at the depth of your divot it can tell you a lot about what is happening.

So if you do take that perfect divot that we’ve just mentioned and it’s traveling down towards your target then you don’t really need to worry much at all, if you take the same direction of divot but the actual depth that you’ve gone down into the surface is much more, say an inch or an inch and a half, then you know that going through the point of impact you must of hit down on the ball very, very steeply, so you hit the ball, you hit the turf but you’ve moved that club downwards through impact what would be considered in a very steep angle of attack. Now if you can correlate that depth of divot to a lower ball flight, one that starts very low it doesn’t climb quite so high in the air, then it could give you an indication that you start to need to mess around with the angle of your attack and your swing arc moving through the point of impact. A deep divot normally correlates with a path which is travelling from out to in. As a golfer swings more left through the point of impact, the angle of attack gets steeper. It needs to get steeper to actually encourage a better strike on the ball. You don’t generally see a player swing massively from out to in with an iron shot and not take a pretty hefty divot. It also works in the opposite direction. So if you’re swinging a long way from the inside, an inside path would generally see the angle of attack and the swing arc move upwards. So players who swing a long way from the inside will tend to take more shallower divots, and in those two cases you can use the depth of your divot to give an indication of what you need to do. If it’s very deep it’s going left, then the angle of attack is too steep and you’re swinging out to in. If it’s very shallow and moving right, then your angle of attack is very shallow and you’re swinging from in to out. You can use that information to help you change your path and to hopeful hit the shots that you want to have. 2016-08-31

The overall depth of the divots that you’re taking on the golf course is something a lot of people overlook, but it can give very valuable insight into what is happening with your angle of attack and with your path as you hit a shot. You only really want to be taking about half an inch of turf after you’ve hit an iron shot, any more than that would be considered a little bit too steep. However, if you have a look at the depth of your divot it can tell you a lot about what is happening.

So if you do take that perfect divot that we’ve just mentioned and it’s traveling down towards your target then you don’t really need to worry much at all, if you take the same direction of divot but the actual depth that you’ve gone down into the surface is much more, say an inch or an inch and a half, then you know that going through the point of impact you must of hit down on the ball very, very steeply, so you hit the ball, you hit the turf but you’ve moved that club downwards through impact what would be considered in a very steep angle of attack. Now if you can correlate that depth of divot to a lower ball flight, one that starts very low it doesn’t climb quite so high in the air, then it could give you an indication that you start to need to mess around with the angle of your attack and your swing arc moving through the point of impact.

A deep divot normally correlates with a path which is travelling from out to in. As a golfer swings more left through the point of impact, the angle of attack gets steeper. It needs to get steeper to actually encourage a better strike on the ball. You don’t generally see a player swing massively from out to in with an iron shot and not take a pretty hefty divot. It also works in the opposite direction. So if you’re swinging a long way from the inside, an inside path would generally see the angle of attack and the swing arc move upwards. So players who swing a long way from the inside will tend to take more shallower divots, and in those two cases you can use the depth of your divot to give an indication of what you need to do. If it’s very deep it’s going left, then the angle of attack is too steep and you’re swinging out to in. If it’s very shallow and moving right, then your angle of attack is very shallow and you’re swinging from in to out. You can use that information to help you change your path and to hopeful hit the shots that you want to have.