Divots Provide Valuable Swing Info (Video) - by Pete Styles
Divots Provide Valuable Swing Info (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now if you are a good ball striker you should start to notice that you are taking divots. Divots need to be in the right place and it needs to be of the right depth and it can actually tell us a little bit about what might have happened in the downswing. So a divot should be around about the size of a $1 bill and it should be after the golf ball, it should start at the ball and travel forward from the golf ball.

Now once you have started striking down and taking some divots have a look at that divot and see what it can tell you about what you have just done. Now we appreciate that although the divot is after impact and isn't an absolute representation of what the club was doing or what the path was doing, before impact it would generally give us a rough idea of how our swing was and what our swing was looking like. So after you have hit the divot you could actually stand back look down your target line and just see what a general direction of the divot look like. If the divot was a across the line one way or another it may indicate that’s the direction that your swing was taking as it came through the impact area. So if your divot is pointing left of target you may question whether your swing path was on that line as well. You could also look at the depth of a divot, if a divot tends to be too low and more than a half balls width is too low. So if you could sort of knock a ball into a divot and the thing went down and it sunk down a little bit too low you would know that your divots were too deep. That would tell us that maybe you are a bit steep coming into the golf ball maybe you were driving too much to your left hand side and chopping too much on the golf ball or again swinging from out to in and chopping the club down into the ball. So we don’t want to get take divots that are too deep we want maybe half a ball’s width in depth or less not too deep.

We could also question if whether the depth of the divot was even right the way across or whether it was deeper on the toe side or the heel side. If the far sight of the divot is deeper it may suggest that your irons aren’t fitted correctly. It may suggest that the heel was grounding out too early as well and don’t forget if a golf club has been fitted correctly it should be a nice square, even shape as it comes through not too much on the toe, not too much on the heel. So after you have hit a few shots on the practice ground if you are hitting off grass have a look at your divot shapes and use the divot forensics and see if you can workout the divots can tell you what your swing look like just at the point of impact.

 2012-07-16

Now if you are a good ball striker you should start to notice that you are taking divots. Divots need to be in the right place and it needs to be of the right depth and it can actually tell us a little bit about what might have happened in the downswing. So a divot should be around about the size of a $1 bill and it should be after the golf ball, it should start at the ball and travel forward from the golf ball.

Now once you have started striking down and taking some divots have a look at that divot and see what it can tell you about what you have just done. Now we appreciate that although the divot is after impact and isn't an absolute representation of what the club was doing or what the path was doing, before impact it would generally give us a rough idea of how our swing was and what our swing was looking like. So after you have hit the divot you could actually stand back look down your target line and just see what a general direction of the divot look like. If the divot was a across the line one way or another it may indicate that’s the direction that your swing was taking as it came through the impact area. So if your divot is pointing left of target you may question whether your swing path was on that line as well. You could also look at the depth of a divot, if a divot tends to be too low and more than a half balls width is too low. So if you could sort of knock a ball into a divot and the thing went down and it sunk down a little bit too low you would know that your divots were too deep. That would tell us that maybe you are a bit steep coming into the golf ball maybe you were driving too much to your left hand side and chopping too much on the golf ball or again swinging from out to in and chopping the club down into the ball. So we don’t want to get take divots that are too deep we want maybe half a ball’s width in depth or less not too deep.

We could also question if whether the depth of the divot was even right the way across or whether it was deeper on the toe side or the heel side. If the far sight of the divot is deeper it may suggest that your irons aren’t fitted correctly. It may suggest that the heel was grounding out too early as well and don’t forget if a golf club has been fitted correctly it should be a nice square, even shape as it comes through not too much on the toe, not too much on the heel. So after you have hit a few shots on the practice ground if you are hitting off grass have a look at your divot shapes and use the divot forensics and see if you can workout the divots can tell you what your swing look like just at the point of impact.