Strike Down to Escape Hardpan and Divots, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Strike Down to Escape Hardpan and Divots, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, if you’ve ever found yourself on the golf course and you are in a bare patch of ground maybe where there is a pathway where people walk through quite often, there is no grass underneath the golf ball or even if you find yourself in a divot, chances are you’re first thought is, “Oh, how lucky am I? I’ve got this bad lie. I’d much rather be on the nice fluffy grass over here.” Actually, you ask a lot of golfers, they’d actually rather have the ball in the semi-rough than in a nice tightly mown lie on the fairway.

When you question why that is, we get to the root cause of the problem. That a lot of golfers are still hitting up on the golf ball, trying to get from below the ball to hit up on it. Therefore, when that hits bare ground or divot, hitting up on the ball proves very difficult indeed. They would rather have the ball in the semi-rough where they can sweep underneath the ball and lift it up into the air.

If you ask a professional, they wouldn’t really have too many problems with playing the ball from the bare lie. Now, the reason is they hit the ball first. So, if you contact the golf ball first on the way down, it doesn’t really matter what is after the golf ball. It could be a wet lie, it could be a bare lie or it could even be a divot. The swing and the strike isn’t affected that much.

Now, there are a couple of things that we could do just to make sure we get a good strike on this. We could play the ball back slightly, play the hands slightly in front of the golf ball, make a nice smooth swing and stay down on the golf ball. Be really careful because no thought of trying to help the ball up into the air, but you’re only thought is, ‘if I stay down, the club will hit the ball up into the air.’

So, be confident that you can take a divot, and you should take a divot. In fact, if your ball is already in a divot, try and make the divot even bigger. Look at the front of the divot and think, ‘I'm going to hit the front of that and make this divot even bigger.’ Stay down onto your left side and hit through it. The more you can stay down and hit through and take big a divot, the cleaner that ball will fly, even the lie wasn’t very good.

 2012-05-10

So, if you’ve ever found yourself on the golf course and you are in a bare patch of ground maybe where there is a pathway where people walk through quite often, there is no grass underneath the golf ball or even if you find yourself in a divot, chances are you’re first thought is, “Oh, how lucky am I? I’ve got this bad lie. I’d much rather be on the nice fluffy grass over here.” Actually, you ask a lot of golfers, they’d actually rather have the ball in the semi-rough than in a nice tightly mown lie on the fairway.

When you question why that is, we get to the root cause of the problem. That a lot of golfers are still hitting up on the golf ball, trying to get from below the ball to hit up on it. Therefore, when that hits bare ground or divot, hitting up on the ball proves very difficult indeed. They would rather have the ball in the semi-rough where they can sweep underneath the ball and lift it up into the air.

If you ask a professional, they wouldn’t really have too many problems with playing the ball from the bare lie. Now, the reason is they hit the ball first. So, if you contact the golf ball first on the way down, it doesn’t really matter what is after the golf ball. It could be a wet lie, it could be a bare lie or it could even be a divot. The swing and the strike isn’t affected that much.

Now, there are a couple of things that we could do just to make sure we get a good strike on this. We could play the ball back slightly, play the hands slightly in front of the golf ball, make a nice smooth swing and stay down on the golf ball. Be really careful because no thought of trying to help the ball up into the air, but you’re only thought is, ‘if I stay down, the club will hit the ball up into the air.’

So, be confident that you can take a divot, and you should take a divot. In fact, if your ball is already in a divot, try and make the divot even bigger. Look at the front of the divot and think, ‘I'm going to hit the front of that and make this divot even bigger.’ Stay down onto your left side and hit through it. The more you can stay down and hit through and take big a divot, the cleaner that ball will fly, even the lie wasn’t very good.