The post The 2 biggest reasons you hook the ball — and how to fix them appeared first on Golf.

The post The 2 biggest reasons you hook the ball — and how to fix them appeared first on Golf.

By far the most common swing ailment among recreational golfers is a slice. However, the opposite ball flight — a hook — can be equally frustrating to deal with.

Although far less common, a duck hook can be a score-wrecker. While the slice has little power and typically flies high in the sky, the hook has the opposite characteristics. The ball comes out hot and low. It’s a ball flight that is nearly impossible to score with.

As Lee Trevino famously once said, “You can talk to a fade but a hook won’t listen.” So if you find yourself developing a hook, work on correcting the issue as soon as possible. If not, your scores are sure to suffer.

At GOLFTEC, golfers of all different types come in seeking advice — chronic duck hookers among them. And with the data they’ve compiled, there are two main reasons recreational golfers hook the ball.

GOLFTEC’s Director of Teaching Quality Josh Troyer explains more below.

1. Swing path too far right

One of the key ingredients for a hook is a swing path that is too far in-to-out. This can be caused by a variety of reasons, but one of the most common Troyer sees is swaying (or sliding) toward the target during the downswing instead of properly turning the body.

Basically, they are keeping their back to the target too long during the downswing,” Troyer says. “This keeps their shoulder closed and send the swing path out to the right.”

The fix: Try focusing on rotating your body more during the downswing. If you can get your body turning as opposed to swaying, you’ll be able to get the club on a more neutral path.

2. Closed clubface

The second key ingredient that causes a slice is a clubface that is closed relative to the club path. This can be caused by a grip that is far too strong or the way the arms and wrists are working through impact.

“You’ll see a lot of golfers who over-hook the ball have too much lead arm supenration through impact,” Troyer says. “You’ll start to see the clubhead exit too far to the left, and the hands will exit much higher, and the face will be pointed down to the ground.”

The fix: Take a look at your grip and make sure it’s not too strong (hands rotated counterclockwise). If it is, weaken it just a bit. Also, try to keep your wrists and arms quieter through impact.

If you want to get some expert insights into your swing — and learn how how to eliminate your hook under the guidance of a coach — book a swing evaluation with GOLFTEC below.

GOLFTEC Swing Evaluation

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The post This elite amateur struggled with missing left — here’s how he fixed it appeared first on Golf.

The post This elite amateur struggled with missing left — here’s how he fixed it appeared first on Golf.

It was Ben Carr’s 34th hole of a long, grueling, pressure-packed round. Sam Bennett, Carr’s opponent, was 5 up in their match at one point, but little by little Carr had clawed his way back. From five to four to three and now to two, as he tagged his ball with 185 mph of ball speed down the right side of Ridgewood Country Club’s 426-yard 16th hole.

The 185 mph is a little more juice than usual, because of the adrenaline, but not all that much. On the other driver holes where Carr’s ball speed was tracked, Carr hit 178 mph ball speed on his 26th hole, and 180 mph five holes later. All three flew into the distance with gentle fades.

Despite his best efforts, victory at the 2022 U.S. Amateur wasn’t to be for Carr. He pushed the match to the final hole, but Bennett’s early lead ultimately proved too much. Nevertheless, as runner-up Carr booked his ticket to the Masters next year — and introduced the wider golfing public to a name we’ll certainly be hearing more of in the future.

‘I struggled with a left miss’

Perhaps the defining quality of Carr’s technique occurs before he even starts his swing: his grip. Like Paul Azinger, Brendan Steele, and Takumi Kanaya, Carr’s hands are rotated severely away from the target, so they’re more on the side of the golf club. This puts both hands into a “strong” position, which naturally closes the clubface. For most golfers, that will cause a harsh hook.

Yet for Carr, it’s the key ingredient to his power fade. How?

Gripping the golf club stronger has become more common in recent years, especially in the United States, where it becomes a partial holdover for juniors stemming from baseball. It’s often difficult to coach players with grips like these, and because of how often golfers like these hit hooks, most teachers will opt to change it.

News

Gang of Fore: Swing guru Tony Ruggiero chased a dream and assembled the best team spirit on Tour

When Carr and GOLF Top 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero found their way into each other’s orbits, Carr was struggling with a left miss himself. Indeed, it was the product of his grip. But in Ruggiero’s mind, changing his hold was never on the table.

“I never wanted to change Ben’s grip,” Ruggiero says. “It’s what felt natural to him and he was already a good player. … I wanted to match up the other stuff in his swing instead.”

“My teacher Tony Ruggiero, the ‘Dew Sweeper,’ has helped me a lot,” Carr said. “Left drives have been something I’ve struggled with for a while, and I’ve gotten more confident with them.”

Perfecting your golf-swing pivot

Instead, Ruggiero wanted to help add more body rotation to Carr’s golf swing, and to do that, opening his body up with more rotation would allow Carr’s clubface from “twisting shut” too soon on his downswing. And like Dustin Johnson, add one power move (more rotation) to balance out another (a closed clubface). Some golfers may struggle to rotate as much or as fast as Carr to make a grip as strong as his work. It’s very individual to each, Ruggiero says, but Carr had the tools, so they got to work on his golf’s swing’s pivot.

The first step was working on his address position and hips at setup. Carr would sometimes set his hips slightly behind the ball, and his upper body too far on top of it.

“That makes him slide more going back, rather than loading into his right side and hip,” Ruggiero said.

The pair wanted to reverse this, so Carr would tilt his upper body more away from the target at setup, with more hinge in his hips. Both of those things would help improve the way he pivoted, or turned, in both his backswing and downswing.

That’s what came next.

“We wanted him to feel like he was separate upper from lower going back,” Ruggiero said. “Almost like he was turning his upper body first and loading into his trail hip.”

That’s what you see the pair working on above. When it came time to hit balls, Carr would practice with an alignment stick sticking out of the ground, flush with his trail hip like you see below. That helped turn his trail hip out of the way, rather than sliding, which enhanced the feeling of separating his upper and lower body.

Soon, those left misses were gone. His swing was now one of “pure rotation,” Ruggiero says, and his fade was more powerful than ever.

And most important of all, he never stopped swinging his swing.

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The post If your miss is a hook, try this simple swing thought to fix it appeared first on Golf.

The post If your miss is a hook, try this simple swing thought to fix it appeared first on Golf.

While a slice is by far the most common miss for recreational golfers, there are still some players out there that have the opposite problem. Instead of getting too steep and coming over the top, they come from too far inside, producing a hook.

Worse yet, a hook is a maddening miss to deal with. While a push fade lands softly and doesn’t get much run, a hook gets on the grounds and just keeps going. It makes the ball nearly impossible to control, and brings lost balls and out of bounds in play on nearly every swing.

The good news for those who hook the ball is that your swing is close. An inside-out swing path is what you want, all you need to learn is to control it.

For help with that, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood has a simple swig thought that will straighten out your hooks and have you hitting it better than ever.

First and foremost, check and make sure your grip is not too strong, causing a shut clubface. If it is, your hook will only worsen.

“You don’t want this thing too Dustin Johnson-esque,” Yarwood says. “You’ll end up the rest of the time just reacting to it.”

Once you make sure your grip is all set, it’s time to focus on your downswing. Specifically, how you initiate your move to the ball from the top.

“A little key move coming down is feeling like this lead arm moves away from your lead shoulder at the start of your swing,” he says. “Then you start to spin your body open a little earlier.”

This move gets the clubhead more out in front of you and helps steepen the downswing, which will help straighten out your hook.

“If anything, I should start to work it [to the right] a little bit,” Yarwood says. “Get rid of those hooks once and for all.”

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The post What is young Tiger Woods working on in this interesting old video? appeared first on Golf.

The post What is young Tiger Woods working on in this interesting old video? appeared first on Golf.

There’s nothing better than when a vintage clip of Tiger Woods comes across your social media feed. This week one of my favorite Instagram follows (GolfBetterTucson, who you can follow right here) shared a fascinating one of Tiger Woods and Butch Harmon, working together in 1993. There’s a lot the rest of us can learn from it.

In the clip, you can see Tiger hitting an iron at full speed, and his then-coach Butch Harmon standing just in front of him, holding a golf club in his way.

What’s going on here?

Tiger embarked on his first major swing change in 1998. Before that, young Tiger had a stronger-than-neutral grip and a club that was slightly shut and across the line at the top of his backswing. He would make it all work by using a huge, fast rotation of his hips along with some A+ timing with his hands.

When it worked (and it did often) he would hit drives impossibly far. But later he spoke of his younger swing being heavily dependent on timing. When things would go wrong, his hips would spin too soon and leave his arms stuck behind him. That would send them way out to the right, which would cause high hooks or blocks.

“It’s a product of being a junior golfer, trying to hit the ball far,” Tiger says.

Tiger used to call it his “ole'” golf swing. You can hear him talk about it in his famed GOLF Channel Academy segment below:

Which brings us back to the initial video. To prevent Tiger’s arms from getting stuck and flying out to the right, Butch is holding an obstacle in his way. That keeps his arms moving more to the left, keeps them from flipping as much, and prevents the blocks and high hooks that would happen when his ole’ swing went wrong.

“A big thing we’ve worked on is getting Tiger to feel like his arms are more in front of him on the downswing,” Harmon says.

An interesting insight into the best before he reached the pinnacle, and a good reminder for the rest of us: Even the best golf swings require fine-tuning.

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The post All great ball-strikers have these 2 things in common appeared first on Golf.

The post All great ball-strikers have these 2 things in common appeared first on Golf.

With so many different swings in the hall of fame, it’s clear that there are a lot of ways to successfully swing the golf club. However, there are commonalities all great ball strikers share. Conversely, there are commonalities poor players share, too. And the No. 1 thing on both of those lists is hand and wrist position at impact.

There is not one great player that I can think of that didn’t or doesn’t have their lead wrist in flexion while having their trail wrist in extension at impact.  While at the same time, many amateur’s wrists are in the exact opposite position. Their lead wrist is in extension while trail wrist is in flexion.

Flexion and extension can be confusing until you think of it in the right way. Think of flexion as flexing forward, while extension is extending backward.  At the moment a player is striking the golf ball, their lead wrist should be flexing forward while the trail wrist should be extending backward. You can see Collin Morikawa doing these things in the picture below.

When a player gets this position correct, they get two benefits as a result — maximized clubhead speed and clubface control. Better said, they can hit the ball further and straighter. Clubhead speed is maximized because the club head is releasing properly at the moment of impact and not losing power with a premature release. At the same time, control is increased because the leading edge of the club head remains square to the target line longer.

Many amateur’s wrists are in the exact opposite position. The lead wrist is extending backward while the trail wrist is flexing forward.  The clubhead has released early resulting in a power loss while the leading edge is crooked in relation to the target line. Hence, both a loss of club head speed and ball control. You can see the incorrect position in the picture below.

A great way to learn and integrate the proper wrist position while improving your short game is to first learn the technique in chipping and then carry it forward into mini wedge play. Once a player has learned to control their wrist position in their short game, they have a greater chance to maintain that position in the full swing.

If you can work on finding these correct hand and wrist positions at impact, your iron play will improve and your scores will drop.

Need more help with your game? Get a full-bag fitting from the experts at our affiliate company, True Spec Golf.

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The post The simple swing thought a Hall of Fame coach gave this U.S. Open contender appeared first on Golf.

The post The simple swing thought a Hall of Fame coach gave this U.S. Open contender appeared first on Golf.

Jim McLean is a giant in the world of golf instruction: A member of GOLF Magazine’s Teacher Hall of Fame, and author of some of the most innovative ideas in golf history, he’s the kind of teacher who has taught every different kind of golfer. He’s seen it all, so when Russell Henley came to him looking for help with his driver, McLean knew exactly what to do.

The issue, McLean explains, was that Henley was hooking the golf ball, and his accuracy off the tee was suffering. Henley ranked 9th and 16th on tour in Driving Accuracy in 2018 and 2019, but dropped to 30th and 44th in his next two seasons.

The pair started working together at last year’s Tour Championship, first online and then in person at this year’s Honda Classic.

“There are only a few ways that a top player will hook the golf ball,” he said. “Russell was getting trapped or too far inside on the downswing.”

The simple thought that fixed it

When golfers get trapped with their arms on the downswing, in a nutshell, it means their arms get “stuck” too far behind them. Their body can’t get back around in time at impact, which leads to either blocks out to the right, or hooks left if their hands take over too much.

But Henley wasn’t concerned about the details. Like the rest of us, he just wanted a simple thought to stop hooking the ball.

“Russell definitely does not like too much detail from the teaching,” McLean says. “He does not want complicated answers to questions he asks.”

And what was the thought that helped him?

“Getting his arms to move faster,” McLean says. “And to get the club more out in front of them.”

For Russell, that means feeling like he’s swinging his arms “aggressively” through the swing.

“Staying aggressive through the shot with my arms,” he said after his opening round.

It’s a thought that’s clearly working well for Henley so far this week at Torrey Pines, and he credits McLean’s simplicity that’s helped him get there.

“He’s been very simple when I’ve asked him any questions,” Henley said. “But he’s taught me a lot.”

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The post Try this ball-flight test on the range to sync-up your golf grip appeared first on Golf.

The post Try this ball-flight test on the range to sync-up your golf grip appeared first on Golf.

There’s no one way to grip a golf club. Just look at players on tour and you’ll see a range of different golf grips. It’s about finding the right grip for you, that matches your unique body.

If you think your grip is off and you’re not sure what to do, here’s a way you can check.

Your first check point will be your ball flight, which includes the start direction of your ball.  The next time you are on the range, place a ball on the ground, then take an alignment stick or golf shaft and walk ten paces directly in front of your ball. Insert the stick in the turf directly in line between your shaft and your target, like you see below.

Now hit a group of shots (I’d suggest five-to-10), paying attention to whether your ball starts out to the right, center, or left of the stick. 

Instruction

10 mistakes I see average golfers make all the time

By: Luke Kerr-Dineen

Pay attention to what is happening to the golf ball. Watch the flight of the ball as it flies beyond the stick to see which way it’s spinning. This will give you the information you need to then make your grip adjustment accordingly.

For example: If your ball is starting to the left of the stick — aka, your target — and curving left, that means your clubface is closed in relation to the path that it was swinging. Check out your right-hand grip to see if your placement if ‘under’ the shaft.  If it is, start to hit balls with a more neutral grip where your palm is aimed more towards your target rather than facing the sky.

If the opposite is happening, your grip may be too weak. In this case, you may need to move your right-hand grip so it’s more under the shaft, like you see below.

If you can’t correct your ball flight on your own, please contact a PGA instructor who will know a variety of assessments that will allow you to learn the grip that best suits your physical makeup.

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The post Johnny Miller: This is 1 thing ‘every golfer’ should do appeared first on Golf.

The post Johnny Miller: This is 1 thing ‘every golfer’ should do appeared first on Golf.

I’ve been delving back into the archives of golf-swing stuff recently, and had a jolly old time doing it. Sam Snead has been my most recent focus — you can read those articles here and here — but now I’ve found myself on a Johnny Miller kick.

Countless golf fans who witnessed Miller’s prime say he was the best ball-striker they’ve ever seen, evidenced by a little-known fact that he once shot a 63 at Oakmont during the U.S. Open (yes, that was a joke, we all knew that already).

But in all seriousness, it’s easy to forget how astonishingly good peak Johnny Miller was. 18 wins and two majors in five years is a haul almost any player would be proud of.

But anyway, all this Miller appreciation sent me down an inevitable YouTube rabbit-hole where I happened upon a handy video that GOLF.com put together back in 2014. It’s a one-on-one with Miller where he describes his most important golf swing tip.

“It’s something I do on my irons, and it’s something everybody should do.”

Alright, Johnny. I’m sold. What’s the tip?

Johnny’s swing thought: Return your LEFT shoulder to where it started

Miller had a slightly weak grip and his stock shot was a fade. That’s why his most important swing thought is to set up to the ball, make a full turn and then focus on returning your left shoulder to the same place it started.

Why is this so important?

“It eliminates the left side of the golf course. No way it can go left,” Miller says.

Not returning your left shoulder “back to where it started” at address can cause all sorts of problems.

“The momentum of the backswing pulls you off the ball, which is ok, as long as you get back,” Miller says. “If I leave the shoulder back in sort of a ‘sway-and-stay,’ as I call it — it’s terrible.”

Swaying-and-staying can lead to tops, thins, chunks and hooks. But by focusing on returning your left shoulder back to where it started, you’ll keep your body turning, you’ll eliminate the left side of the course, and you’ll hit more compressed iron shots.

Want to *really* dial-in your irons? Schedule a fitting with the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

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The post This was our most read instruction feature of 2020 appeared first on Golf.

The post This was our most read instruction feature of 2020 appeared first on Golf.

We do a lot of game improvement content here at GOLF.com and GOLF Magazine, and we’re proud of all of it. It’s our bread and butter, the thing we’re most proud of. Golf is a fun, but endlessly difficult and complicated game. If we can make your lives a little better by making the game simple — and easier — we’re happy.

Our bigger Game Improvement packages usually start in the pages of our magazine, and we had a lot of them this year, from our 60 essential tips every golfer will always need package, to our stats-fueled smart-players guide to dropping 10 shots. But there was one that caught like wildfire when it hit GOLF.com: Shaun Webb and Mike Granato take on what they consider the 10 biggest golf swing killers in golf, which you can read about in full right here.

Webb and Granato run Athletic Motion Golf, and use their GEARs technology to analyze the common traits of some of the best players in the world. Not all teachers will agree with their conclusions, but even the harshest skeptics would admit it acts as a good starting point for golfers troubleshooting their golf swing.

I’d suggest reading all of them, but one that I found especially interesting was the “trail arm collapse” — a common fault among recreational golfers that costs them power and consistency.

Nearly all the pros Webb and Granato studied measured between 55 and 85 degrees of right-arm bend at the top of the backswing. By comparison, most of the amateurs they’ve captured fall between 95 and 125 degrees. That’s a big power leak. Your right arm is a major acceleration source at the start of the downswing, and the straighter you keep it on the way back, the more likely you’ll increase your shoulder turn (another power source). Webb and Granato report that students who worked on keeping their trail arm straighter picked up an additional 30 degrees of shoulder rotation — even those aged 65 and older!

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The post Use this simple drill to get rid of your slice for good appeared first on Golf.

The post Use this simple drill to get rid of your slice for good appeared first on Golf.

It’s not often we get days with temperatures in the high 50s up here in New York City in December, but that’s just what happened on Christmas Eve. It was a little soggy from melted snow and occasional drizzle, but all in all, you couldn’t ask for better weather during winter in the northeast. So, even with the holiday just beginning, I headed out to the range in hope of getting in one more practice session before storing away the clubs for the winter.

Living in New York City, I don’t usually get time to grind on my game. If I get out to the course, I’m usually playing, and the course is not the best place to work on changing things up in your swing. Despite the limited practice time, I had a pretty solid year of golf as I worked my handicap back into the mid single digits.  

But even with some great rounds under my belt in 2020, there are still plenty of things I want to work on in my swing. Although I can’t practice much, I do take inventory of what needs to be ironed out in my swing. One of the biggest changes I want to make in 2021 is getting shallower as I come into the ball.

With my lanky frame, I play with very high hands in my swing. It’s not the worst position, but it does make it difficult to get shallow on the downswing. This causes me to cut across the ball and play a fade as my typical ball flight (or, if I mishit it, a dreaded slice), but oh do I ever wish I could play a big, beautiful draw.

So, with the forecast in my favor on Christmas Eve, I decided to take some time to really work on shallowing out and change my club path as I come into the ball. I’m not armed with any fancy training aids, but I did use one simple drill that really did start to improve my path.

All you need for this drill is three range balls — one to hit, and the other two to serve as guides. Set up with the ball like normal, and then put one ball outside your club path just behind the first ball. Then, put another inside your club path just in front of the first ball.

The goal of the drill is to hit the center ball without making contact with the other two balls. If you can do this, you’ll know the club path is coming from the inside and help you hit a draw.

Conversely, if you want to hit fades, set the “gate” balls up inversely, with one ball inside your club path behind the ball and one ball outside the path in front of the ball. This will encourage your club to work from out to in and produce a fade.

There are obviously many more factors to shaping the ball than just your club path, but if you struggle losing the ball with hooks or slices (or just want to learn how to work the ball in both directions) try this drill. If you can start controlling the club path coming into the ball, your ball striking will improve dramatically.  

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