Golf Tips: What can You Learn from Your Divots?

When you strike a golf ball with an iron club, you will often take a bit of turf out of the fairway. The remaining scrape (or hole!) in the fairway and/or the bit or turf removed is referred to as a divot.

I am often asked by golfers if they should take divots or not.

Well, the answer is yes and no!

Taking a divot has a lot to do with which club you are using for the shot and how hard the ground is underneath.

I generally try to teach my golf students to avoid taking unnecessary divots. The objective is to hit the ball and hit it as cleanly as possible. The divot is only the result of the swing you took.

Now with short irons, where you are naturally standing much closer to the ball, the swing plane is much steeper, much more vertical. The result is a swing that comes down on the ball and will result much more naturally in taking a divot after the ball has been struck.

With a long iron or wood, you are standing further form the ball, and your swing plane is flatter

A lot of information about your swing can be learned from looking at the divot you have taken.

If your divot is a "good" one, it will start just in front (target side) of where the ball was at rest. This means that your club struck the ball first, then the ground.

If the divot starts behind the ball, you have mishit the shot (this type of mishit is often called hitting the ball "heavy" or "fat").

The direction of the divot gives you a clue to your swing path. Look at which direction the divot is and compare it to where your ball has gone. If the ball is right of the divot direction, then your club face was open at impact. If the ball is left of the divot line, then you had closed the club face at impact.

Remember, you can hit very good shots without taking any divot at all. The bigger the divot the more the club is driving down into the ground - which is OK as long as you are sure to hit the ball before the ground. If the divot is too deep then you are swinging down too steep and with a swing that is "bottoming out" too low.

If the club goes so deep it gets stuck in the ground...try to remember it is a golf club, not an axe!

Divots are a normal result of a good golf swing with a mid or short iron.

Don't try to take a divot - just let it happen naturally.

And make sure you repair the divot - leave the course as you would like to find it!