A soft, predictable ball flight is one of golf’s great joys. But hitting unintentional hooks — shots that have a lot of right-to-left movement after impact — can make the game exceedingly difficult.
At the wrong time, hooks bring water, bunkers and hazards of every kind into play when you least expect it. They can wreak havoc on your score. And trying to diagnose and fix the problem in the middle of a round can just make things worse.
But teaching professional Gia Bocra Liwski has a quick fix that you can try anywhere, and it doesn’t involve changing your swing, only your address position.
“If you have a lot of curvature in your shots, it could be as simple as your stance,” Liwski told me at GOLF’s recent Top 100 Teacher Summit at Pinehurst. “What you want to look at is, are your toes facing toward 12 o’clock at address? Are they straight on? If they are, what happens is your lower body locks up sooner and the clubface closes, causing the ball to move left.”
Liwski says the way to combat this tendency is to simply open your lead foot at address so it points to 10 or 11 o’clock instead of 12 o’clock. (Check out the right-side image in main photo above.)
“Make your same exact swing and see what your ball does,” Liwski said. “Usually, you’ll be able to get through the ball better because you’re open a little bit, you’re giving yourself a little bit more flexibility to rotate through the ball, and you’re allowing your clubface to square up more easily.”
Gia Bocra Liwski is the Creator & Host of Golf Experiences for Her® and a teaching professional at Fiddler’s Elbow in Bedminster, N.J.
