Taking a proper golf divot is one of the most critical skills for crisp, consistent iron contact, yet most golfers have never been shown what a correct divot actually looks like — which makes it nearly impossible to self-diagnose when something goes wrong.
Below, we're going to take a close look at the proper divot from the face-on view. Study the photographs below carefully:
In the sequence above, notice how the divot doesn't appear until well after the ball has already launched into the air. In the first frame just past impact, the ball is airborne and no dirt has been displaced yet — this is exactly what you're after.
In the picture on the right, the golf club is still working downward long after the strike has been made. The shaft remains loaded as it continues toward the low point in the golf swing, with the divot bottoming out significantly in front of where the ball was sitting at address. That's the hallmark of a well-struck iron.
WHY DO YOU NEED THE DIVOT IN FRONT OF THE GOLF BALL?
Having your divot start forward of the ball is essential for ensuring a descending angle of attack and genuine clean ball striking. In most situations, you also want to develop shallower divots for better control of spin and trajectory. When your divots are excessively deep, controlling iron distance becomes almost impossible. A shallow divot is one where only the top layer of turf is removed — you can still see the grass roots below the soil surface.
If your divots are very deep and you're consistently seeing dark soil at the bottom of the hole, they're too deep for reliable iron play. To learn how to shallow your divots and ensure they're starting in front of the golf ball, use the drill demonstrated in the video below. You can see the key position in the image here:
"I was lucky enough to have a lesson with Chuck this summer. This was the first thing he showed me, because I really shove my right shoulder at the ball, making my divots very deep, even if in front of the ball. This should be required viewing for anyone working on the downswing/impact."
-Jason S. | Oct 16, 2012 | New Jersey
Here you can see an overlay showing the ball just before impact alongside the position of the lead hand after impact. Take note of how much shaft lean this drill produces — it's a significant amount that most amateurs never achieve.
This is one of the fundamental reasons why tour pros hit their irons so much farther than amateurs, and this drill lets you exaggerate this proper impact position so your body can truly feel the difference. Getting your divots to start after the front edge of the ball is non-negotiable for crisp iron shots, and you simply cannot achieve it without forward shaft lean at impact. If you want an objective look at your own impact position, try a free AI swing analysis to see exactly where you stand.
SHAFT LEAN - THE KEY TO GOOD DIVOTS
If you want to consistently take a golf divot in front of the ball, forward shaft lean is absolutely mandatory. But what exactly is shaft lean? Take a look at one of Chuck's students below.
In the image on the left, you can clearly see this student was very "flippy" at impact — his shaft was actually leaning away from the target rather than toward it. With focused work on the impact drills from RotarySwing, his impact position improved dramatically by his second lesson.
Now he has the necessary forward shaft lean to strike the ball before the turf — which is the entire ballgame when it comes to crisp iron contact.
GOLF SWING LAG & DIVOTS
Maintaining lag in your golf swing is the prerequisite for having forward shaft lean at impact, which is in turn the prerequisite for taking a divot in front of the golf ball. Swing lag creates the additional time the hands need to get ahead of the ball before impact, naturally producing that all-important forward lean.
There are many excellent drills throughout this site for building more lag (click here for lag video golf lessons). One of the most effective is from the video on "Shaping Your Golf Swing."
Below, you can see the amount of lag this drill produces. Carrying this much lag angle into the downswing essentially guarantees a divot in front of the golf ball (click here for the instruction video). You can also deepen your understanding of these mechanics with the GOAT Drill video lesson, which walks through the full body sequencing that supports proper lag and shaft lean.
Improve by Hitting Irons off a Tee
Another highly effective way to train this pattern is to hit balls off a tee. Take a 7-iron and tee the ball extremely low — the tee should be barely above ground level, roughly 1/8 of an inch.
Now hit full shots off the tee and make it your goal to leave the tee completely undisturbed.
Your golf divot should begin about an inch in front of the tee, and the tee itself should not be clipped or snapped. As simple as this sounds, many golfers struggle with it at first, so don't underestimate the drill.
Invest time in this exercise until you can confidently avoid striking the tee, and you'll notice your ball flight becoming more penetrating and tour-like. As you develop the skill, your practice divot pattern will become noticeably tighter and more controlled, with far less sod being displaced per swing.
Jack Nicklaus famously said that he could practice all day in an area about the size of a shoebox. That's a powerful visual if you're currently tearing up massive chunks of turf on the practice tee.
What you're pursuing is the ideal balance of launch angle, trajectory, and spin for consistent iron distance control — and striking down on the ball is the foundation of great iron play. In this video, you'll discover how to get your hands ahead of the golf ball at impact so your divots consistently start in front of the ball, every single time.
"This video told me exactly what my problem has been all my golfing life...The previous video on training the two arms separately started a breakthrough for me also just about the time I was ready to give up. Thank you! Thank you!"
-Ken M. | Oct 15, 2012 | 15 HDCP
"Agreed, one of the best videos on here. Good work, Chuck"
-Zac E. | Oct 16, 2012 | Brisbane, Australia
Watch the Video Now!
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Checkpoints for Practice
The lead hand and lead-side musculature control most of the conditions at impact - club face, swing plane, shaft lean, etc.
Learn proper form by training the lead arm independently
Once the divot is consistently in front of the ball, practice hitting chip shots with the lead arm
Review the Impact Alignment and Lag lessons for proper form
Learning how to get your golf divots to start in front of the ball — rather than even with it, or worse, behind it — is the ultimate goal for most amateur golfers who are accustomed to hitting shots fat.
Today I'm going to give you a couple of focused tips to show you how to take a proper golf divot, and to start building the correct swing mechanics into your motion — so your divots start in front of the ball for cleaner contact. But I'm also going to share one simple secret that better players know and most amateurs don't.
Let's start there. The key to golf is understanding what actually controls the conditions at impact. When I say "conditions," I mean where the club face is pointing, what the swing plane and path are, and how much shaft lean you have at impact. All of these are primarily determined by the lead hand and the movements of the lead-side muscles.
Unfortunately, most golfers are trail-hand dominant, and that's exactly why they fall into a pattern of fully releasing the trail wrist through the hitting area. When the trail wrist fully uncocks early, the club face takes on a ton of loft because there's no forward shaft lean toward the target. Because trail-side dominance is such a deeply ingrained pattern, this early release is extremely common — it's what most golfers have trained themselves to do over years of play.
The solution is learning to move the lead hand into the correct position at impact, and the only reliable way to do that is to train it independently — which is exactly what Rotary Swing Tour teaches. We train each arm independently so you develop precise control over each movement without the interference of a dominant trail-side motion undoing all your hard work.
To learn how to get your lead hand into the correct impact position and take a golf divot in front of the ball, start with your normal setup with a ball in position. Then, with your lead hand only, choke up slightly on the club. Don't involve your body yet — we're keeping it simple in the beginning.
Make practice swings with your lead hand only and watch where your divots bottom out. You should see the divot bottoming out in front of the ball — approximately two club-head widths, or five to six inches, ahead of where the ball was sitting.
What's happening is that the lead arm is swinging freely from the shoulder socket, and that natural pendulum motion is exactly what pushes the low point forward in front of the ball. You can clearly see the divot is well ahead of the ball position. Now, if you remove the lead hand and repeat the same drill with only the trail hand, you'll immediately understand the problem.
Notice how dramatically the divots shift backward when swinging with the trail hand only. They want to bottom out well behind where the ball was sitting. Now you can feel why this matters — unless you're playing the ball way back off your trail foot, a trail-side dominant swing will consistently produce fat contact and thin iron shots. The answer is to train the lead hand to dominate the impact zone.
That's the way to practice. Watch good golfers on the range and you'll notice they almost always take their practice swings and shadow swings with the lead arm. You're very unlikely to see a low-handicapper making idle swings with the trail arm only — there's a reason for that.
The trail hand has an important role to play, but as far as ensuring your golf divot starts in front of the ball, your focus needs to be entirely on developing and trusting the lead hand.
Once your divots are bottoming out consistently in front of the ball because your lead arm is swinging freely from the socket, it's time to progress to hitting actual chip shots with the lead arm only. The close-up footage coming up will show you exactly what this looks like at impact.
At first it will be genuinely difficult. You'll have a strong urge to flip the lead wrist through impact. Make sure you go back to the Impact Alignment videos to understand the positions you need to be in — specifically, you need to arrive at impact with a flat lead wrist and a solid, compressed impact position using the lead arm alone.
One other absolutely critical component is developing lag in the golf swing. There are extensive resources on this site covering how to build and retain lag, but the core principle is this: if you have no lag on the way down and the trail wrist is releasing early, you have no chance of getting the lead hand in front of the ball at impact. Everything has to work as an integrated system.
You must carry lag, the trail wrist must stay bent back through the transition, and that's what creates the time window for the lead hand to get ahead of the ball before the strike. These elements are all interdependent.
Work on this drill consistently. The close-up and slow-motion footage that follows will show you exactly how the golf divots bottom out using this method, and how to get that lead hand into the powerful, compressed impact position that separates good iron players from great ones.
Note how, at impact in the first frame, there is no dirt being kicked up yet and the amount of shaft lean at impact. This is what it looks like when your divot starts after the golf ball.
Here is the look of the ideal divot. Note the square edges on all 4 corners and the depth. You can still see some of the grass roots here, proof that you didn't approach the ball too steeply.
Having lag like this makes it easy for your divots to start in front of the ball, but it can make your angle of attack very steep.
Shaft lean is critical for a proper golf divot
Swing with the left - where do the golf divots bottom out?
Golf divot in front of the ball
Golf divots with the right hand are behind the ball
Keep the left wrist flat
Impact with left arm only (left) and both arms (right)
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There's a reason that Earl Woods taught Tiger how to play the game
from the green back.
I admit, at first, even I didn't think it was necessary. I thought I
could skip ahead and learn the full swing without building a solid
foundation in putting, chipping and pitching.
All this belief did was cost me MORE time than had I started
at the beginning just like The GOAT did. Over the past 20 years of
doing golf clinics, my observations of thousands of students was
always the same - those who started the slowest at the beginning
always got there the fasted in the end.
In other words, the students I observed being diligent with the
small things like grip, setup, posture and the basics of controlling
the clubface on day 1 were always WAY further ahead of those who
didn't on day 1.
In the post above by member Everett, he said it all in a nutshell.
Go through the program exactly the way it is laid out and you
will have extraordinary results. Skip to the end and you'll end up
with the exact same swing you started with.
This is a system, not a grouping of random tips.
There is a method to my madness deeply rooted in learning psychology
and over 30 years of teaching hundreds of thousands of golfers
just like you how to hit a ball with a stick. Slow down and you'll
get there faster...
Note how, at impact in the first frame, there is no dirt being kicked up yet and the amount of shaft lean at impact. This is what it looks like when your divot starts after the golf ball.
Here is the look of the ideal divot. Note the square edges on all 4 corners and the depth. You can still see some of the grass roots here, proof that you didn't approach the ball too steeply.
Having lag like this makes it easy for your divots to start in front of the ball, but it can make your angle of attack very steep.
Shaft lean is critical for a proper golf divot
Swing with the left - where do the golf divots bottom out?
Golf divot in front of the ball
Golf divots with the right hand are behind the ball
Keep the left wrist flat
Impact with left arm only (left) and both arms (right)
