Divot Board Review: My New Favorite Training Aid

[mpatrickriley]

One suggestion: the Divot Board is great for hitting balls off of. It’s also immensely useful if you are in a place where you can’t hit balls. But there’s a nice middle ground: using the Divot Board in combination with the Flat Ball. Many of you will be familiar with this training aid: they’re small soft plastic/rubber discs the diameter of a golf ball. They don’t damage things inside, but your strike has to be pretty precise to hit them properly.

I like the combo with the Divot Board because they give a pretty good indication of the limits of how far forward you should move your strike. Most of us are using the Divot Board to fight fat shots, and so we’re trying to move the low point foward.

[jon]

great suggestion - thanks, Mike!

[mpatrickriley]

It’s basically a different version of Adam’s suggestion of the towel behind the ball/hit the guitar pick drill. Same principle.

[sirchunksalot]

I just ordered the Divot Board to use at home with a net. Low point control is a problem I have and I’m hoping the feedback I get will help me become a better ball striker. I have a net here at the house and love how it helps me focus more on results than just going and swinging away at balls on the range.

Huge shutout to @mpatrickriley for the review he did over on the MGS forum that inspired me to pick this up and I’m looking forward to incorporating it into my practice.

[Craigers]

Hahaha, hopefully it fixes the chunking problem!

Excited to hear how it works.

[sirchunksalot]

I’m pretty excited to see how it’ll do. I know @jon gave it a great review and I’m hoping the feedback it gives me will lead to fewer bad shots. That’s been my only complaint hitting off a mat into my net, unless it’s really bad contact, you can’t tell how well you struck it.

I’ll be sure to post up my thoughts once I get some time in with it.

[jon]

With a name like @sirchunksalot I think the feedback will be welcome in your practice sessions

[jon]

Update on the Divot Board. It is completely sold out, again!

The inventor is allocating me units from two shipments coming in early and mid-march, so you can reserve yours by placing an order here.

[sirchunksalot]

That makes me glad that I was able to get an order in when I did. I got a shopping notification today that it’s been sent out so now I’ll be watching the mail for it.

[Deadskins]

Jon, just got my divot board, thanks. I could not use it on 1/4 inch of ice this weekend. Finally used it this morning with my 9 iron. First thing I noticed was I was striking a full inch behind the ball placement, which would probably lead to lots of mid hits. Used my practice to fine tune my foot placement. This should work great out on the range,

[jon]

great! Glad you are enjoying it so far. As I mentioned in the review, my tendency is to strike behind the ball as well. So it’s something to pay attention to over time, and see if you can start shifting “the line” closer to the ball. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but gradual progress will certainly help.

[cksurfdude]

@mpatrickriley

using the Divot Board in combination with the Flat Ball

I set up a DIY low point drill…

Works nicely, and helps to reinforce what my instructor is trying to hammer into my thick skull during our recent lessons…!

[sirchunksalot]

My Divot Board showed up at the house today and I couldn’t wait to get home and open it up. I’ve got to say, it seems like a quality product. In the past, I thought about getting the Accu-Strike mat to judge my patterns and work on improving. I’m glad I didn’t.

Of course, I had to take it outside for a trial run and get a baseline for my strike.

It looks like I dropped a fried egg on the Divot Board.

There were good shots.

There was whatever this is.

I feel like the Divot Board is going to be a great way to improve my ball striking. I feel like I might be swaying on some shots and that’s leading to my inconsistency. I’m excited to have this product and be able to use it along with foot spray to enhance both my net and range sessions.

[jon]

Looking good, glad you are enjoying it so far!

[sirchunksalot]

@jon I can see where it can be addictive. I took it back outside to hit again for a minute to see if I could improve over my last time. I have a habit of trying to get too active with my arms and worked on allowing my body to do the work and just brought the arms along for the ride. I saw better results this time around with strike being more at or in front of the ball.
That’s what I love about training aids like this, it allows you to dissect what you’ve done and work in trying different thoughts.

[jon]

@sirchunksalot

I can see where it can be addictive

Yes I often find myself gravitating back to it quite a bit myself!

@sirchunksalot

I have a habit of trying to get too active with my arms and worked on allowing my body to do the work and just brought the arms along for the ride.

This is exactly how I think about the golf swing. The rotation of your body is the primary driving force, and the hands and arms are “along for the ride”

As I said in the review, I almost never get excited about training aids. But because this product is such a good diagnostic tool I immediately knew it could help golfers simply by providing feedback they never got before when practicing on artificial turf.

[Qschool]

I just got it. I have dozens of training aids, and this is one of my favorites after one week.

I’m curious about whether it is important to have it level with feet, but for right now am ignoring that concern while focusing on getting low point where i want it to be.

Have longer term users been satisfied with durability? Mine looks a little beat up after less than one week.

Absolutely love it, and even if it were only to last three months would definitely buy it again. I believe they have some replacement parts sonit might not even be necessary to buy new one. However im super tempted to get one for work.

[jon]

The initial wear is very common, and expected. I wouldn’t worry about that. Durability will depend on your swing speed and angle of attack, but since you said in your other post that you are pretty shallow, it should last quite a while for you. I haven’t had to replace mine yet and I’ve been using it since the winter. Once the sequins start falling off the mat quite a bit, then it’s time to order a replacement insert (from the Divot Board site).

[Qschool]

I’m not sure how i would know if I am blading the ball now that I’m reliably hitting the board on the target side of the ball indicator. Some of the contact points are starting to be really towards the extreme end of the sequins.

It continues to be one of my favorite products for improvement, especially because im trying to focus on low point control and temper my shallow tendencies.

Thanks.

[Jayjay]

Broke down and ordered one of these too. We’ll see. I’m hoping to combine it with the Flat Ball mentioned upthread, and with my launch monitor in pure swing speed mode.

Tips on use from those of you who’ve already played around with it. Do I need to stand on a mat too? I.e., how high off the ground is the strike point? Do I have to anchor the Board in some fashion? Already planning on thwacking flat balls into a homemade towel/range net.

Thanks! I’m eager to try this out.