Hook Golf Shot Drill 2: Basket behind ball inside line (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Hook Golf Shot Drill 2: Basket behind ball inside line (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

So a hook shot for a right handed golfer is a shot that moved from the right to the left and more importantly too much from the right to the left. It has too much spin on it. Now the spin is often created by the angle of the swing path and the angle of the club face having quite a difference to them. So the club path is travelling in one direction and the face is not pointing in that direction. And that effectively causes sort of tilted back spin. So, back spin would normally be this way. Tilted back spin going the opposite direction or a slightly tilted angle. Some people refer to it as side spin. For a lot of people, it’s easy to understand if we talk about side spin. So we said the ball is spinning too much to the side and it curved the ball too much.

Now one of the issues with hooking the golf ball is that your swing path could be too much in to out. So this is my target line here. My club could be coming too much from in to out, pushing out to the right hand side too much. If the club face is aiming at the target, but I'm hitting too much from in to out, I could impart a lot of side spin on the ball or tilted back spin and that would spin the ball off the target line too far down the left hand side. So one of the ways I'm trying to improve my consistency and my accuracy is actually reduce the amount of inside angle I have on my down swing. So here I'm setting up with a basket, right opposite my back swing position near my right foot. And it’s going to stop me from bringing the golf club on the inside line too much and the attacking the golf ball too much on the inside therefore putting too much of this curved spin on the ball.

So what I would suggest is, when you would set yourself up with a mid to short aim, just draw the golf club back to opposite the basket. Look at shaft angle as it sticks away and just give yourself an inch and a half or two inches away there. That would now encourage me to keep my back swing on a straight line back and more importantly my down swing on a straight line down. If the basket wasn’t there I might be tempted to flip the club away on the inside too much so bringing the club too shallow and too flat. More importantly in dropping the golf club too shallow and too flat on my balance swing, attacking the ball too much on the inside line which if I was too shoot the club face of that point or shoot the club face to the swing path too much, I could produce too much right to the left shape resulting in hooks.

So one of the first things to consider with your hook shots is making sure the club comes back and up and down on the ball and not too far around on the ball. So the drill and the exercise here is just outside the line of your right foot back, bring the club back about two feet. Position the basket just an inch and a half away from the shaft line with a mid aim and gently up and down on the target line to stop you coming inside. Practice 10 or 15 swings with the basket in place and see what your ball flight looks like. See how that changes then remove the basket and see if you can keep the same angles, the same positions on the same ball flight without the basket in place. And hopefully by changing your swing path, you have changed your shot shape and reduced the hooks.

2012-11-29

So a hook shot for a right handed golfer is a shot that moved from the right to the left and more importantly too much from the right to the left. It has too much spin on it. Now the spin is often created by the angle of the swing path and the angle of the club face having quite a difference to them. So the club path is travelling in one direction and the face is not pointing in that direction. And that effectively causes sort of tilted back spin. So, back spin would normally be this way. Tilted back spin going the opposite direction or a slightly tilted angle. Some people refer to it as side spin. For a lot of people, it’s easy to understand if we talk about side spin. So we said the ball is spinning too much to the side and it curved the ball too much.

Now one of the issues with hooking the golf ball is that your swing path could be too much in to out. So this is my target line here. My club could be coming too much from in to out, pushing out to the right hand side too much. If the club face is aiming at the target, but I'm hitting too much from in to out, I could impart a lot of side spin on the ball or tilted back spin and that would spin the ball off the target line too far down the left hand side. So one of the ways I'm trying to improve my consistency and my accuracy is actually reduce the amount of inside angle I have on my down swing. So here I'm setting up with a basket, right opposite my back swing position near my right foot. And it’s going to stop me from bringing the golf club on the inside line too much and the attacking the golf ball too much on the inside therefore putting too much of this curved spin on the ball.

So what I would suggest is, when you would set yourself up with a mid to short aim, just draw the golf club back to opposite the basket. Look at shaft angle as it sticks away and just give yourself an inch and a half or two inches away there. That would now encourage me to keep my back swing on a straight line back and more importantly my down swing on a straight line down. If the basket wasn’t there I might be tempted to flip the club away on the inside too much so bringing the club too shallow and too flat. More importantly in dropping the golf club too shallow and too flat on my balance swing, attacking the ball too much on the inside line which if I was too shoot the club face of that point or shoot the club face to the swing path too much, I could produce too much right to the left shape resulting in hooks.

So one of the first things to consider with your hook shots is making sure the club comes back and up and down on the ball and not too far around on the ball. So the drill and the exercise here is just outside the line of your right foot back, bring the club back about two feet. Position the basket just an inch and a half away from the shaft line with a mid aim and gently up and down on the target line to stop you coming inside.
Practice 10 or 15 swings with the basket in place and see what your ball flight looks like. See how that changes then remove the basket and see if you can keep the same angles, the same positions on the same ball flight without the basket in place. And hopefully by changing your swing path, you have changed your shot shape and reduced the hooks.