Every golf shot that you hit can tell you a story about why you hit the shot the way you did and it starts with analyzing your divot. Your divot in golf will tell you what happened more so than any other factor.
The golf divot is two parts, first the piece of grass that came flying off the ground after your club made contact with the ground and second, the divot in the ground itself.
The size of your divot and the shape of the divot tell a lot about your golf shot.
If we analyze a professional golfer, you’ll notice their divots tend to be perfectly straight at their target. The size of their divots are about the width of their golf club, making it easy to replace the divot perfectly back in the ground.
In this guide below, I’ll share tips on how you can use your divot to analyze your golf swing.
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Why Do Golfers Create Divots?
Compression and Swing Attack Angle
A divot in golf is created when the golf club makes contact with the ground and the clubhead scrapes the turf off the ground. How deep your divot is in the ground can say a lot about your golf swing and the angle of attack you are taking on the golf ball.
To hit the golf ball into the air, the clubhead needs to compress the golf ball. This requires a downward angle of attack on the golf ball with your club swing path.
When you take really deep divots, you are likely swinging with a really steep angle of downswing path to the ball. The more shallow the golf swing, the less divot is taken.
For most beginner golfers, they tend to want to “help the ball” into the air. They think this means lifting up on the swing rather than hitting down on the ball. To hit the ball up into the air, you need to hit down onto the golf ball, which means creating a steeper angle of attack with your swing plane.
Mastering the Low Point of the Swing
Taking too big of a divot is also just as bad as it is to not take a divot at all.
This is where understanding low point is important. The best golfers in the world have mastered low point in their golf swing, which is the moment the golf club bottoms out in the swing arc.
To take a healthy divot and properly compress the golf ball, you want your low point to happen in front of the golf ball. This means hitting golf ball first and then ground second, taking a divot after the golf ball.
If you’re hitting behind the golf ball, resulting in chunked golf swings, then you have a low point problem where the swing is bottoming out before it gets to the golf ball.
As you adjust the low point more forward in your stance, you’ll notice more consistency in your golf shots and less chunks or golf shots that are coming up short.
Here’s a video with helpful golf swing tips for improving the divots you take with your long irons. Better ball striking is key with long irons to reach the green in regulation. Follow Nick Foy Golf Channel on YouTube.
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Proper Divot for Each Golf Club
Each club should leave a different size of divot so it’s important to understand the follow proper divots per club.
Short clubs like the wedge or 9 iron, for example, should leave larger divots as compared to your long irons.
Long irons require a shallower swing plane that travels more around the body and results in less steep attack on the ball, thus creating a shallower divot.
Short clubs like wedges, require a steeper swing and will result in taking bigger divots.
Your driver is the one club in the golf bag that should NEVER take a divot! But we’ve seen it happen.
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Divot Direction
You can also learn about your golf swing by looking at the direction of your divots.
As mentioned earlier, professional golfers tend to leave perfectly straight divots that could draw a straight line from to their target.
If you notice your divot is pointing left or right of your target you were trying to aim at, this could signal a few different things.
First, you may have had improper alignment with your body and stance, resulting in a divot pointing left or right of the target. You may have made a straight divot relative to how your body was aimed, but it looks left or right of the target because you weren’t aiming properly with your body and golf stance during pre-shot setup.
Secondly, you may have a different aiming left due to the swing path coming across the ball from outside to inside. This tends to happen with beginners as they develop an outside to inside swing path which is a result of an over the top golf swing move they make on the downswing.
What Divots Can Tell You Summary
Use this sections as a quick guide for learning about your golf swing by looking at your divots.
Divot Depth
How deep your divot is depends on your swing plane and angle of attack. For shorter clubs, you should see a deeper divot. Longer clubs should not be taking deep divots.
Divot Direction
The direction of the divot will tell you where you were aimed or what your swing path is doing on the down swing. A slice is often a result of a left aiming divot and a draw/push golf shot results with a divot pointing right of your target. Ideally, the divot should point straight at your target.
Divot In Front
A divot in front of the golf ball is good. It means proper compression is being achieved. The club is making contact with ball first and then contact with the ground second.
Divot Behind
A divot behind the golf ball is not great. It means the club is bottoming out at its low point too early. This leads to inconsistent golf shots and struggles with distance. Chunks that leave the ball way short. Shots that come up a few yards short of the green. Etc.
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