Tiger Woods explains viral ‘no-divots’ video. Here’s what he meant

Tiger Woods first amazed golf fans at the age of 2. Clad in a white shirt with a red collar, little Eldrick appeared on the Mike Douglas Show to show off his skills with an oversized driver. Mini Tiger blasted a ball off the artificial turf, the crowd oohed and awed, and golf was introduced to its next superstar.

Forty-five years later, Woods still has that magic. From legendary major-championship runs to unthinkable comebacks, the last four-plus decades have been full of moments that left golf fans speechless.

Although his full-time playing days are behind him, Woods still has a knack for surprises — even among the best golfers in the world.

Take Scottie Scheffler, for example. In a video from TaylorMade earlier this year (see above), the the top-ranked player in the world was left perplexed after watching Woods hit balls (29:47 mark).

“Hey, what’s with the no divots?” Scheffler said.

“What?” Woods said. “Why do you take a divot?”

Scheffler, a major champion in his own right, was a bit dumbfounded.

“I’m just picking it,” Woods said.

“Do you do that always when you’re warming up?” Scheffler responded.

“Uh-huh,” Woods said. “When I’m swinging well, I don’t take divots.”

Scheffler’s face said everything you need to know. He simply could not believe what he was hearing. Was it possible that the greatest iron player of all time really didn’t take divots? The video ended without any resolution, and we were all left with as many questions as Scheffler.

On Thursday, we finally got some answers. In a video shared by the TaylorMade content team, they asked the 15-time major champion to elaborate on his no-divots remarks. The answer didn’t disappoint.

“I was wide and wide”

If you watch the video above and it sounds like Woods is speaking gibberish, worry not. Woods has always been a golf-swing nerd, and this video gets a little bit in the weeds on the technical side of the swing. But when you break it down, it makes a lot of sense.

Woods starts by saying early in his career he was “wide and wide.” What he means is he was wide during his takeaway and then also wide on the downswing. As a result, his swing path was in-to-out. You can see that illustrated in the picture below from 2002. When the shaft is parallel to the ground on the downswing, the clubhead is still inside his hands, meaning he will be delivering the club from the inside.

“It was actually hard for me to take a divot when I was hitting it really well,” he says. “At that time, early 2000s, mid-2000s, even late 90s, my natural shot was a draw. So obviously, with the draw, you’re not going to be swinging that left, you’re not going to be that steep.”

With a shallow angle of attack, Woods likely didn’t take divots, or if he did, they were quite minimal. With the in-to-out swing path, he was much more of a sweeper than a digger, hence the shallow (or nonexistent) divots.

“Yes, I didn’t take a lot of divots,” Woods says. “I would stand there for an entire day and you couldn’t really see where I was hitting golf balls at. Especially with long irons and anything up. Just because I was hitting draws.”

If he were hitting a cut — requiring a steeper angle of attack and more out-to-in path — it would be nearly impossible to take no divot. But since he was sweeping the ball off the turf, the divots were all but invisible.

“It would’ve been totally different if I was hitting punch cuts,” Woods says. “But my natural shot was a draw.”

Early-2000s Tiger had one of the greatest swings of all time, so it makes sense that he’d consider that when he was “flushing it.” And it appears that when the TaylorMade video was filmed, he was dialed in with his draw.