A splayed divot tool is the most common failure in golf merchandise and it is entirely a specification problem.

What the tool is doing

It is pushed into compacted turf and then levered. The load concentrates at the base of the prongs, where the metal is narrowest.

If that section is too thin, the prongs bend outward. Once bent, they never return, and the tool stops working.

What to ask for

A gauge. Not “heavy duty”, not “solid” — a stated metal thickness.

And ask whether the prongs are the same gauge as the body, because on cheap tools they are not.

Designs that will fail anyway

Very slim tools, long thin prongs, and deep cut-outs near the base of the prongs. All of them concentrate the load exactly where the metal is weakest.

A supplier who will not tell you a design is going to fail is a supplier who has never had one come back.

The magnet, while you are asking

The marker recess needs enough depth and enough magnet that the marker survives a pocket, and not so much that it fights to come out.

A shallow recess with a weak magnet loses markers constantly and looks identical in a product photograph.