Curing A Hook Requires Practice

You may have heard that it’s easier to correct a problem with slicing the golf ball than it is to cure hooking. Golf pros will tell you that what you’ve heard is true. Patience is the keyword in ensuring your golf game success. Even though it seems like a slice and a hook are much the same, the golf tips you get from the experts say just the opposite and remind you that you’ll need a lot of patient practice if you’re working at correcting a hook.

A slice occurs when the club face is open. This results from the force of the swing, and is often coupled with an out-to-in swing. The net effect is a “slicing” through the golf ball, and hence the name. As the out-to-in swing is further increased, the golf ball trajectory similarly increases from a straight-line path.

It begins on the interior of your body, then rotating and fading away. The hook shot is the opposite of the slice shot. Unlike ’slicing’, the hook swing starts with a closed club face at the point of impact, and is often connected with an in-to-out swing, which causes the ball first to go away from your body, and then hook back.

First you have to focus on the club face at the impact. Most unintentional hooks shots are caused due to a closed club face. The most common cause is early wrist rotation. This can be observed at the bottom of the swing where the thumb is turning over too soon prior to the club face making contact with the ball or ground. This can be merely due to turning your wrists over too quickly, and not following through with the help of your hands to aim, or, in some cases, opening up your hips almost immediately.

The main consideration when you are working at correcting a golf hook is to be certain that you are holding your hands and wrists properly when you strike the golf ball. You want to control your wrists to avoid excessively rapid rotation. You can see and reproduce this movement by chipping the ball or practicing with a higher club.

Using a 7 or 8 iron can usually make this flawless. Start by swinging with your standard chipping motion. If the problem of hooking still persists then check to see if you are turning your wrists during the swing.

Try using this exercise repeatedly with the same club until you are able to attain a straight arc in your chipping motion. With a great deal of practice you will soon be able to feel the difference between a swing with hook, and a normal swing that will provide a slim draw or hopefully a straight flight of the ball. Through the patient use of this exercise you will be able to overcome your hook eventually.

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