Divots

[Jayro]

Hi Mike,

What type of divots do you like to see from your students?
I haven't played in a couple of years, until yesterday. I was hitting a lot of thin shots, made some adjustments and started taking some huge divots with my irons. Thinking I was coming in too steep but didn't know what to do about it,
or for that matter what exactly I was looking for.
Also do you have any tips for about a 40 yard bunker shot?
Found a bunch of them yesterday.

[Michael Jacobs]

Hi Mike,

What type of divots do you like to see from your students?
I haven't played in a couple of years, until yesterday. I was hitting a lot of thin shots, made some adjustments and started taking some huge divots with my irons. Thinking I was coming in too steep but didn't know what to do about it,
or for that matter what exactly I was looking for.
Also do you have any tips for about a 40 yard bunker shot?
Found a bunch of them yesterday.

Jayro,

You haven't played in a couple of years?? Sorry to hear that...

Divots like everything else depend, you can learn a lot from a divot:
Direction
Depth
Curls

So you were hitting thin then started taking huge divots?? Huge deep divots come from a club head that is very high relative to the ground at final approach to the golf ball... Did you notice divot direction

I have a great tip for 40 yard Splash Sand Shots:

Less of a face opening
Full Swivel

I cover it in this video here:
Starting at 6 mins and 38 seconds

I just realized something in this video - I goofed, I said my SW has 4 degrees of bounce instead of 14

[Jayro]

the divots were straight at the target and getting progressively deeper past the ball. I was hitting just a hair fat. The bottom of the divot was flat.

What kind of adjustments do you make for varying types of sand? This course had shallow firm sand. Do you change wedges, less bounce, or do you adapt to the sand with your usual wedge setup?

[Michael Jacobs]

the divots were straight at the target and getting progressively deeper past the ball. I was hitting just a hair fat. The bottom of the divot was flat.

What kind of adjustments do you make for varying types of sand? This course had shallow firm sand. Do you change wedges, less bounce, or do you adapt to the sand with your usual wedge setup?

Check your left hand grip / club face
Make sure there is no laying back of the club face in the contact area which would cause thin & heavy shots. Grip check would be to make sure that it is lower in the hand.. review my last golf channel tip, the 90 second closing tip about the top hand grip.

There are going to be adjustments for sand texture, controlling the speed and stroke size will allow you to accommodate the firmer and softer sand types.
The firmer the sand the less speed of the 'Splash' needed and the softer the sand the greater 'Splash' speed required. Changing wedges or bounces would be players choice but I don't see a need for anything like that.