What Causes My Hooked Golf Shots? (Video) - by Peter Finch
What Causes My Hooked Golf Shots? (Video) - by Peter Finch

What causes my hooked golf shots? Now a hooked golf shot is a shot that starts to the right of your intended target, before curving wildly in the air to finish a long way to the left of your target. It’s a very distractive shot because you don’t have a great amount of control of where the ball is travelling and what it will do when it lands. There’s generally less backspin and there’s generally more pace on the ball; so it’s quite a wild and uncontrollable shot.

Now a hook is caused when the club travels through impact on an in-to-out path. So it swings from the inside of the body out over your target line until it points off to the right-hand side. Now if the clubface were square to that path, then the ball would travel off to the right. However with a hook shot, the clubface coming into impact is closed, and what that actually causes is the side spin to be created and the revolutions to take the ball from right to left in the air. Now there are a couple of reasons why you could be hooking a shot. Probably the main cause and the first thing you should focus on is your grip. Ensure your grip is nice and neutral and not too strong. A strong grip can be identified when the left hand sits a long way on top of the club, and as you look down to address you can see four knuckles – well three or four knuckles. But if you’ve got a very exaggerated hook, it would probably be four knuckles. With your right hand, if that’s too much underneath the club and you can’t see any knuckles at all, this is a classic hook position. It goes from here at impact, your palms will return to face each other and that closes the clubface. And if you mirror that with that very much in-to-out swing path, you’re going to get quite an exaggerated hook motion on the ball. And it can become quite distractive as you get to the lower lofted clubs, because it causes to clubface the driver which is maybe 10 and a half degrees can suddenly become about six degrees, and no one will be able to hit a consistent ball flight using that type of grip and that type of loft. Now one thing you need understand and one thing you need to be careful about is if a ball starts right and then curves left, finishing left, that’s a hook. If a ball starts left and then curves left during the air, that is a pull hook, and that is caused when the clubface travels from an outside position to an inside position with a closed clubface. It’s very important to make sure you get your diagnosis correct so then you can apply the correct medicine. So if you’re a little bit unsure, ask a pro or understand both flights a little bit better and then you can try and apply the cure. But if you are hitting a consistent hook, focus on your path, but most of all focus on your grip, because that’s the main control of your clubface position throughout the swing. 2014-08-18

What causes my hooked golf shots? Now a hooked golf shot is a shot that starts to the right of your intended target, before curving wildly in the air to finish a long way to the left of your target. It’s a very distractive shot because you don’t have a great amount of control of where the ball is travelling and what it will do when it lands. There’s generally less backspin and there’s generally more pace on the ball; so it’s quite a wild and uncontrollable shot.

Now a hook is caused when the club travels through impact on an in-to-out path. So it swings from the inside of the body out over your target line until it points off to the right-hand side. Now if the clubface were square to that path, then the ball would travel off to the right. However with a hook shot, the clubface coming into impact is closed, and what that actually causes is the side spin to be created and the revolutions to take the ball from right to left in the air. Now there are a couple of reasons why you could be hooking a shot. Probably the main cause and the first thing you should focus on is your grip. Ensure your grip is nice and neutral and not too strong. A strong grip can be identified when the left hand sits a long way on top of the club, and as you look down to address you can see four knuckles – well three or four knuckles. But if you’ve got a very exaggerated hook, it would probably be four knuckles. With your right hand, if that’s too much underneath the club and you can’t see any knuckles at all, this is a classic hook position. It goes from here at impact, your palms will return to face each other and that closes the clubface. And if you mirror that with that very much in-to-out swing path, you’re going to get quite an exaggerated hook motion on the ball. And it can become quite distractive as you get to the lower lofted clubs, because it causes to clubface the driver which is maybe 10 and a half degrees can suddenly become about six degrees, and no one will be able to hit a consistent ball flight using that type of grip and that type of loft.

Now one thing you need understand and one thing you need to be careful about is if a ball starts right and then curves left, finishing left, that’s a hook. If a ball starts left and then curves left during the air, that is a pull hook, and that is caused when the clubface travels from an outside position to an inside position with a closed clubface. It’s very important to make sure you get your diagnosis correct so then you can apply the correct medicine. So if you’re a little bit unsure, ask a pro or understand both flights a little bit better and then you can try and apply the cure. But if you are hitting a consistent hook, focus on your path, but most of all focus on your grip, because that’s the main control of your clubface position throughout the swing.