How To Build A DIY Divot Action Golf Mat

[UPDATE] We now have a Divot Style Hitting Strip - please feel free to check our our Kaizen Golf Hitting Strip. 

What?! You can take a REAL DIVOT on a golf mat?

Without a doubt that the most important factor for determining the quality of a golf mat is how well it simulates hitting the ball off real turf and taking a divot.

Whilst most mainstream products do this very well through using artificial turf and a thick foam padding (see our product range for examples of this design here), a number of innovative designs are starting to emerge with the claims that their mats 'feeling like real turf'. 

One of such designs is the Fiberbuilt mat - see my review of this mat here. 

Another product which has also built a cult following especially in the golf simulator community is the Divot Action mat.

You only have to take a quick at their website to get a taste of the bald claims

The ONLY TURF SURFACES That Perform Like Real Grass!
​100% Real Grass Feel & 100% Data Accuracy!

 Zero Shock     Zero Deceleration     Zero Bounce     Zero Club Head Twisting

You definitely get a sense of how confident they are with their products when they offer 'Divot Action' retrofits for the Fiberbuilt and Truestrike mats which are considered to be the market leaders.

They've also got the price tag to match their claims too, with a small 12" x 18" (30cm x 45cm) insert costing ~$120 USD.

What Makes Divot Action Special?

Although as you would imagine that the company selling these mats do not divulge too much on how the mats deliver on such bald claims, but with a bit of googling and looking through various forums and groups, you can get an idea pretty quickly.

The idea is pretty simple actually and it's quite ingenious - introducing... Lexan. Lexan is essentially a strong yet flexible polycarbonate/Perspex sheet, it can be used for making riot shields and with a film of laminate, can even be used for making bullet-proof windows. Stick a piece of artificial turf on top and suspend it ~10mm above ground with some foam 'legs' and you've got a hitting surface which will allow you to hit down and through with no bounce...so the theory goes. See image below from GolfSimulatorForum for what this looks like "under the bonnet".

So as the components are fairly easy to source (unlike the Fiberbuilt mat) it's not surprising to find that many golf simulator enthusiasts have DIY'ed their own Divot Action golf mats with success. 

Here's my go at it.

Making the Kaizen DIY Divot Action Golf Mat

The build turned out to be really easy, once you source all the materials required it was literally a 5min assembly job. 

The Parts List

Here's the list of components used:

• Lexan - 3mm Lexan Sheet cut to 30cm x 60cm. Bought through eBay for $35. Note - recommended thickness is 4.5mm. Also the only reason I didn't buy this from Bunnings was because I wanted this to be cut to size.
• Artificial turf - I've got a 30cm x 60cm piece cut-out from a cheap thin golf mat (bought before I started Kaizen Golf).
• Double sided carpet tape - for sticking the turf down to the Lexan sheet. $9 from Bunnings.
• Foam Roll Adhesive - to go underneath the Lexan. $3.64 from Bunnings.

The Assembly

Stick the turf onto the sheet of Lexan using double sided carpet tape.

Cut the roll of foam adhesive into desired lengths and then stick under the Lexan sheet.

That's it.

If I was going to build this to last I would use glue instead of carpet tape as the turf does come loose from time to time, but this was my 'cheap and dirty' version just to test the concept out, but for a DIY job that's the only thing I would do differently.

So with my DIY Divot Action Mat done, I was ready to take some 'divots' in my indoor studio. 

Testing It Out

So did I manage to take some divots? You bet! See video below - it really worked!

 You can really see the mat 'flex' during impact.

After hitting 30 odd shots with the mat, here are some of my observations:

• The mat did feel easy on the hands/arms - no crash, no bounce.
• I really had to get used to the sound. For some shots, especially if I caught it slightly heavy, the distinctly unpleasant sound of golf club hitting Perspex/plastic was very obvious. But interestingly the sound gave me instant feedback on fat shots. Need to look into this a bit more to see if this can be dampened.
• Ball Flight Data - I didn't notice a big difference from previous ball data captured using our tee turf mat, which is my go-to mat. That's good news as the DIY job did deliver fairly true ball numbers (see below), maybe the backspin was a tad on the low side, by a few hundred revs.

Final Thoughts

The Divot Action mat is a good design concept - having the hitting surface "floating" above the floor provides some additional protection and give for those golfers who have steep swings. 

With easy to source materials, if you don't want to import one from the States, it is something that is fairly doable if you want to go down the DIY route.

Time allowing, I may look into creating a version 2 which hopefully will sound better - I think having a thicker piece of lexan and having the turf glued onto the lexan sheet will help with this - watch this space! 

[UPDATE] We now have a Divot Style Hitting Strip - please feel free to check our our Kaizen Golf Hitting Strip.