It never ceases to amaze me how the modern media do backflips over anything a modern player does, as if today’s best player is the greatest ever.

Here’s yet another point, where Tiger Woods apparently is a god because when he was at his best, he didn’t take divots with his irons.

It doesn’t even end there – in Golf Digest’s online article about this that I’ve linked above, they try to get “science-y” with the explanation, and it’s pretty laughable, I hate to say.

I’ll be honest in stating that I was completely mystified by the kerfuffle T.W. created when making the statement last year, and by this Golf Digest article.

My first thought at the time was, “Yeah, no kidding – a good ball-striker will be able to pick the ball clean with irons, absolutely no surprise there…”

Look – I’ve just finished explaining a little while back that you can accomplish no-divot striking (with enough practice, of course) by simply adjusting your ball position so that the club’s shaft is vertical or close to it at address:

In addition, all the way back to 2019, I explained how when you’re swinging with a proper swing model, mechanically-wise, you will actually be able to zero out the descent of the club head because the hands will begin to lift through impact.

So, even with a forward-leaning shaft at impact, the rising leading shoulder pulls the hands and therefore the club upward, and you get no divot:

Very simply:

• when the hands reach swing bottom, they rise,
• if you look at the the impact in the above gif. where it freezes the club head at the ball, the hands are past the ball, which means the club head should continue to descend,
• however, the hands now begin to move upward and the degree of “rise” in the hands cancels out the degree of “descent” in the club head,
• therefore, it just skims the ground instead of creating a divot.

In 2018, I actually superimposed dots on the same part of the club shaft as it moved through impact to show how the hands move upward from the swing bottom:

So, the only relevant science here is that of physics and the swing arc – the hands and club will descend to the swing bottom, and then they will begin to ascend, and by adjusting either or both of ball position or shaft angle at address, you can literally pick the ball clean with irons and leave no divots.

I can’t even recall how many pros in the past were remarked upon for picking the ball clean with their irons, but Tiger Woods was certainly not the first, nor will he be the last to be able to do so.

And to be honest, I really don’t think one has to do with one’s equipment what he did to get this effect – I can do it with any iron you hand me, provided I’ve been getting in enough practice hitting balls, and I don’t even play golf for a living.

The fact that this is even something over which to marvel is a sad comment on the state of golf swing mechanics today.