If you’ve ever been to a driving range, you’ve probably seen signs like the one below asking you to manage your divot patterns in order to care for the course.

No matter how hard the superintendent tries, somehow their range still ends up looking like swiss cheese. And these bad divot patterns act like a domino effect on the range. Once enough golfers hit with incorrect divot patterns, it becomes even more difficult to hit using the right ones. Which ends up ruining the grass and the range.

So why is it so hard for golfers to follow these patterns?

Mostly because they don’t understand the right way to arrange their ball when hitting. Luckily, Hannah Gregg, a professional golfer on the Epson Tour, shared a great tip that should help clear up the confusion for most golfers—and hopefully make your superintendent’s life a little easier.

I can’t think of an easier way to explain this ??‍ pic.twitter.com/f2EkotBDYx

— Hannah Gregg (@hannahbggg) June 27, 2023

In the tweet above, you can see that Gregg breaks down hitting patterns on the range using numbers. Starting from one and working up to eight, you can see that golfers with a bad divot pattern hit their shots sporadically on the range.

But, golfers with a proper divot pattern are more organized, placing each new ball directly behind the one before it. This works because when using an iron, you should be hitting the ball, then the ground. So your divot should actually happen in front of your ball, not under it or behind it.

Not only does this contribute to the betterment of the range, but if you’re more cognizant about your divot pattern you can also use it as a tool to analyze what’s going on in your swing.

Try taking a look after you hit to see how deep or shallow your divots are, and where they’re pointing.

Having a solid divot pattern will allow you to recognize when something changes in your swing and how it’s affecting your game.

The post 1 picture that shows the best (and worst) way to take divots on the driving range appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

I never practice, but other people do, and recently Gary reported that repairing the damage they do to the range was becoming more time-consuming than taking care of our fairways and greens. The main problem is lazy divot-taking. People see all those acres of brand-new sod and can’t resist chopping it to smithereens:

The problem is that they don’t know the proper way to take divots on a driving range: in neat lines separated by bands of intact turf, as in this diagram from the USGA:

Here’s the USGA’s explanation:

A scattered divot pattern removes the most amount of turf because a full divot is removed with every swing. Scattering divots results in the most turf loss and uses up the largest area of a tee stall. This forces the golf facility to rotate tee stalls most frequently and often results in an inefficient use of the tee.

A concentrated divot pattern removes all turf in a given area. While this approach does not necessarily result in a full-sized divot removed with every swing, by creating a large void in the turf canopy there is little opportunity for timely turf recovery.

The linear divot pattern involves placing each shot directly behind the previous divot. In so doing, a linear pattern is created and only a small amount of turf is removed with each swing. This can usually be done for 15 to 20 shots before moving sideways to create a new line of divots. So long as a minimum of 4 inches of live turf is preserved between strips of divots, the turf will recover quickly. Because this divot pattern removes the least amount of turf and promotes quick recovery, it is the preferred method.

Thoughtful golfers know how to do it the right way. Here’s Todd, who probably practices more than any other member of our club but does way less damage than guys who just slash their way through a quick half-bucket before heading to the first tee, because he takes his divots in neat lines, the way the USGA recommends.

The post This is the wrong way to take divots on the driving range appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.