Cause Of A Hook Shot In Golf

As you can see in the picture; typically a hook is caused by an in-to-out swing, coupled with a closed clubface, creating a strong topspin (right to left) rotation on the golf ball. The closed clubface is the real issue, as in inside to out swing is a good thing, not a bad one. Learning how to square your golf clubface at impact will be crucial in correcting your hook in your golf swing.

Another cause of a hook shot is the stopping of your upper body rotation before impact, and the hands take over, which closes the face prematurely. If you are hooking the golf ball, a great tip is to work your ABT’s. The ABT’s mean…“Always Be Turning”. I can promise you, if you focus on rotating your body (and hips) aggressively through impact, you will not hook the golf ball. If you are, you have a strong golf grip causing it to close to much at impact. Getting the proper left hand golf grip (slightly weaker) will help correct the rapidly closing clubface.

Getting stuck on your downswing is another cause of a hook golf shot. This is something Tiger Woods is notorious of. Getting stuck means, your lower body gets way ahead of your upper body in the downswing, and your hands, arms and club get stuck too far inside, and the ONLY way to make decent contact is to flip your hands through impact.

Learning how to slow down your golf swing is crucial to proper golf downswing sequence. Once you get this right, you will have a perfectly timed golf swing coming into impact. Your lower and upper body will be sequenced to come into the ball with a square clubface, and just a slight in-to-out swing path.

Simple Tips To Correct Hook

1. Square your clubface at impact. Start by making sure it is square at address, and not closed, or even open, which would make you compensate coming down.
2. Weaken your left hand grip. If you’re a right-handed golfer instead of seeing 3 or even 4 knuckles on your left hand, rotate it to your left to only see 2 knuckles.
3. Slow your downswing. If you learn how to slow your downswing, your body’s sequence will be much better. You will come into the golf ball with the face square, and both upper and lower body nearly matched up, and not one ahead of the other.
4. Work your ABT’s. As mentioned earlier, focus on aggressively rotating your upper body through the shot. That way your hands will never want to take over.
5. Get your right should to come out not down. This is for the more advanced player, as the fault is coming inside too much on downswing, and part of that may be an “over-dropping” of the right shoulder in the downswing. So for that player, thinking of the right shoulder coming just a bit out and not down, might be the ticket.

Hope you enjoyed this article on how to correct and/or fix your golf hook shot. If you did, you’ll want to download our FREE Golf Lessons right away!

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If you want to learn how to improve your golf swing, then studying his golf swing will do you no wrong. I personally have a lot of admiration for what he went through as a child seeing his father take his own life, to being just an average at best golfer, to the greatest of his time.

As you can imagine, there have been many books written about him, and I’ve read many of them. Ben Hogan, An American Life written by James Dodson was an excellent book, as well as Hogan by Curt Sampson.

This article is more of an introductory article about Ben Hogan, as I will have many articles breaking down his golf swing and what you can take from it to help your swing.

If you’re looking for some great golf swing pictures of Ben Hogan, then you’ll want to get your hands on The Hogan Mystique. It is a big book with pictures never seen of Hogan in action. It is quite expensive, but an awesome “coffee table” book to refer to when you want swing tips from one of the best.

Ben himself wrote two golf instruction books, one of which many golfers consider the bible of the golf swing. His first book called Power Golf (written in 1948) was a good book in and of itself, but his later book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf (written in 1957) is the one that is still today read by the majority of golf instructors, players and coaches all around the world, even though it was written 5 decades ago!

Tournament Record

In the years between 1938 and 1959 Hogan won 63 tournaments, which shows you how accomplished he was as a professional golfer. He won 9 major championships, and after a near fatal car accident in 1949; he was told he may never walk again, let alone play golf; he won several more tournaments and even what they call the “Hogan Slam” which was the first three majors of the season, only missing the chance to win the other major, The PGA Championship because he was playing in the British Open at the very same time.

Ben Hogan’s Secret

There was a lot of speculation that Ben had found the secret to a repeatable, consistent golf swing, and he nearly proved it with his pure ball-striking. After many frustrating years fighting a wicked, nearly brutal snap hook, hogan having pounded over a million balls (supposedly) had found the secret.

But…did he really tell anyone the secret? Many instructors and fellow players said they knew Ben’s secret, but to this day, no one knows if the secret was ever revealed.

The first theory is that the “secret” was a special wrist movementaction known as “cupping”. This information was disclosed in a 1955 Life magazine article. But… many believed Hogan did not reveal all that he knew at the time. It has since been alleged in Golf Digest magazine, and by Jody Vasquez in his book “Afternoons With Mr Hogan”, that the second element of Hogan’s “secret” was the way in which he used his right knee to initiate the swing and that this right knee movement was critical to the correct operation of the wrist.

There have now been golf instructors who have leached off his name and created instruction books and DVDs saying they have the secret of Ben Hogan’s and they will show you. Be aware is all I have to say.

In future articles, we’ll break down Ben Hogan’s Golf Swing and show you how you can become a better ball striker.

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Like the older golfer pictured to the left, this is a “false” shoulder turn. It may look like a should turn, but if I were a betting man, this golfer is struggling with distance. He has swayed off the ball, and picked up the club. He has not properly rotated behind the ball with a correct shoulder turn. Does this look like you? If so, we’re going to fix it, and give you another 30 yards on your drives.

One of the first issues if you’re struggling with your backswing, is tension. If you have muscle tension, it will be very difficult to make a proper, bigger golf backswing. This tension can be caused by nerves, or from stiff muscles. Most likely it is muscles that have become tight over the years, that are keeping you from making a complete backswing. All it takes is a simple golf backswing stretch to quickly improve your turn back away from the golf ball.

Another issue is like the picture. Sliding instead of rotating. Your first move away from the ball if you’re a slider is to ROTATE your right shoulder immediately behind you! This will get you turning and not sliding to the right. Once you feel the rotation in your core, you will be able to unwind with a much higher clubhead speed.

Tip:

To help avoid sliding, take a look at the picture to your left of Ben Hogan. I’m working on this myself. See the angle of his right leg? I drew a yellow line outside his right leg. If you slide and do not rotate, the angle from the ground up in your right leg will disappear.

It is nearly impossible to rotate back into a full shoulder turn, when you lose the angle in your right leg. Instead, I want you to picture you are going to turn into right hip socket, while rotating your upper body behind you.

Tip:

Do not pick up your hands when you start your golf swing takeaway! This is huge! I have been a culprit for my entire golfing career, and it has really killed my consistency. Picture that triangle between your shoulders, arms, hands and clubhead. The all move (rotate) back together. When you do it correctly, your hands will naturally (and slowly) come up, but that this is not a voluntary action. It just happens with the proper one piece takeaway.

So in closing, the name of the game in fixing your shoulder turn in your golf swing is ROTATION. And I mean start rotating earlier in your takeaway. If you are a slider, you need to rotate immediately. Hope this article helps.

Golf Resource:

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Even though Ernie is swinging an iron in this picture, his driver swing is no different. Beautiful tempo and rhythm. God gave him this, but you can emulate him and definitely see improvement in the speed of your swing, both on the backswing and definitely on the downswing.

One of the biggest mistakes in swinging your driver is “trying” to swing too fast. When you do this, you lose any tempo and timing you had before. This loss of timing will result in mishits and swing flaws; and even a lack of distance. So your intention of swinging faster (harder) will most likely backfire on you, as this will also create tension in your golf swing.

Some of the below golf tips you might have heard before, but have you consistently applied them? That is the key. You’ve got to do them regularly to see results.

Speed Up Your Golf Swing Takeaway

You might be thinking I’ve lost my marbles on this one, but hear me out! I know when I personally try to take the club back “low and slow”, I innately triple my speed coming down. I defeated my purpose of a good tempo golf swing. When I work on this normal speed golf swing takeaway technique my overall golf swing speed is slower, but not so slow I lose distance. I actually gain distance, because my golf swing sequence was better, so my ball striking improved. So next time you want to slow down your golf swing for better contact, don’t take the club away too slow.

Pause At The Top Of Your Golf Swing

This is a very common tip, but every time I do it on the course, I crush the ball! In my humble opinion, as amateurs we really screw it up in the transition. We get way too quick, and jerk the club down from the top, throwing our golf downswing sequence off, making it nearly impossible to come into impact in the correct position.

If you watch Ernie, Freddie Couples or any of the touring pros, none of them come down fast, with a jerk from the top. Their golf swing transition is smooth and slow. For us mere mortals, we almost need to think of stopping at the top, before we make our move down. It doesn’t actually happen, but it almost feels like that.

Once you’ve done your pause at the top, then don’t rush it. Let your body unwind in the proper sequence. When you do this, you come into the ball powerfully. It’s amazing when you think you’re slowing down your downswing, because in reality, you are just giving your body a chance to unwind properly. We do not ever want a HIT impulse coming down. EVER!

FREE Golf Lessons

If you liked this article, you might be interested in our 25 FREE Golf Lessons that can be downloaded to your computer in a matter of seconds.

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Since we are mostly talking about indoor golf swing training, there are a couple of critical things you can (and should) do to improve your golf swing.

Swinging A Weighted Golf Club

One of the most obvious ones you can practice in the winter is swinging a weighted golf club in your “heated” garage. If you don’t have a weighted golf club, I would recommend you get a golf swing weight you can insert right on the shaft of any club you have, and it’s like a weighted donut that baseball players swing on their bats.

When you swing this club, you should create a routine, and not just swing it for the heck of it. What I mean by routine is say… 3 times per week, you’re going to swing it a total of 50 times per session. What I would recommend is 10 very slow swings to warm up. Then another 10 at 50%, building up to the third set of 10 at full speed; then here’s where you can increase golf swing speed. The next 10 swings will be at 110% effort, but under control. This is swinging at a speed you would not do on the course, but off the course you are training your fast twitch muscles to swing faster. The last 10 swings are at 50%. Treat it like a cool down.

One last tip with the weighted golf club. If at all possible, do all your golf swings in front of a mirror to monitor your golf swing technique.

Improve The Strength And Flexibility Of Your Golf Muscles

This is a “no-brainer”. You have more time since you’re not playing, and the majority of golfers are greatly inhibited by their current level of physical condition. Focusing on your golf muscles is a very wise decision during the winter golf months. You don’t need to join a gym, nor do you even have to purchase much equipment. You can do your entire golf training routine with a pair of dumbbells; exercise tubing; and an exercise ball. All you need is about 64 square feet in your bedroom, living room or garage and you’re good-to-go.

Exercises for golfers should focus on the specific movement requirements in your golf swing. The easiest way to do that is to break your golf swing down into phases, then add resistance to those phases.

Golf Swing Fundamentals

Working on your golf swing fundamentals is an easy thing to do during the winter time indoors. First off, your golf grip fundamentals. You can have a club at your office, beside the couch in your living; pretty much anywhere. All you’ve got to do is grab it, grip it, and regrip it multiple times to make sure you’ve got the proper golf grip.

You can then work on your golf posture in a mirror. When doing this, make sure you learn how far to stand from a golf ball so that you get the correct distance and space to make a good takeaway.

You can practice the entire golf swing (address, takeaway, top of backswing, downswing, impact and more) indoors, and so you should. I think I’ve covered enough for today.

If you want a head start on your next golf season, you’ll want to download Free Golf Lessons to your computer.

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If I had to pick one part of the setup that plays a major role in returning the clubface squarely to the back of the golf ball for a straighter and more consistent shot, I would have to go with the grip.

There is something profound about the term Golf Grip Fundamentals. The key to understanding the correct way to how to hold a golf club is to realize that there is NOT one correct way to grip it.

The grip is the only part of your body that touches the golf club and the grip is the only thing that controls the clubface. Whether the clubface returns to the back of the golf ball square, open or closed, all three of those impacts lie in the grip.

When you grip a golf club the first thing you have to remember is that if you grip it too much in the palm of your left hand (image to your left), the clubhead will have a difficult time releasing in the downswing and the clubhead speed will be reduced considerably.

When you grip a golf club too much in the fingers the opposite happens (second image below). The clubhead will close quicker in the downswing and the clubhead speed will be increase. That’s why there is a happy medium. Gripping the club at the base of your fingers and then it lies diagonally across to the bottom of the palm (see third image below).

After you grip the golf club take a peek at the top of the left hand. If cannot see any knuckles or the first knuckle that is referred to as a weak grip. If you can see two knuckles that is considered a neutral grip and if you can see three or four knuckles that is considered a strong grip.

If you grip the club weak, the clubface will not close as fast as a neutral or strong golf grip. All it takes is a bit of golf practice to get it right.

In closing let’s spend a couple of minutes on the right hand. The number one and ONLY rule of the right hand is to make sure both palms are facing each other after you grip the club.

The reason is twofold. First if insures that both hands are going to work together with the proper golf grip during the golf swing. The further to the right you turn your left hand to the top of the shaft, the further to the right you turn your right hand under the shaft.

The second reason they have to face each other is to make sure your right arm and right shoulder are in the correct position at address.

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But was I was missing was this step by step golf swing approach that I could rely on day in and day out. I am still in search of it, but I think I can help you put one together that is a good starting point to better golf. It’s not rocket science, but you’ve got to stick with it to see results.

Correct Golf Grip

This cannot be ignored. Your grip is your ONLY connection to the club, so you’ve got to get it right! You MUST learn how to grip a golf club to make a consistent golf swing for 18 holes. Your grip should be come automatic, but it’s got to be right.

Golf Set Up (Posture, Spine Tilt, Alignment & Ball Position)

Here’s another critical component of a consistent golf swing. Your golf set up must be automatic like your grip. When you step into your shot, you must do it the same EVERY time, just like the pro’s do. If you need to develop a pre-shot routine… do it. Either way, you’ve got to get your posture, spine tilt, alignment and ball position correct every time you set up to the ball.

Golf Swing Takeaway

You don’t have to get weird about this, you just need to be consistent every time you make a swing. The proper golf swing takeaway is a simple, “one-piece” takeaway with no hands at all. No early wrist cock, or lifting of the club. Just a smooth takeaway with the entire upper body (core).

Top Of Backswing

If your takeaway was good, you should be at the top of your backswing in a good position. Your right arm holding a tray, with your right elbow pointing to the ground. Clubshaft should be parallel with your target line, with your right hand “under” and supporting the club.

Golf Downswing Sequence

This proper golf downswing sequence is so important to the success of your consistency and avoidance of mishits like slices, tops, thins, bladed, hooks and even pop ups. The most common error is to come down too fast with a “hit” instinct, which puts your upper body ahead of your lower body. This is disaster to your golf swing. You will most likely have an “over the top” and hit a slice, or at a minimum hit a block or push. Any of these will kill your score in a quick minute.

Golf Impact: The Key To The Kingdom

Your golf impact position is one of the most crucial issues in your golf swing. You’ve got to get to impact with a square clubface, or you risk hitting most of your shots offline, costing your strokes and distance. Impact is a dynamic, moving part of your swing, so it’s hard to break it down and work on a position. But, I know for me, I do that in front of a mirror, to see the difference between impact and address.

Your follow through to a balanced position on your lead foot and leg is a result of a solid, and correct golf swing sequence.

If you seen value in this article, then you’ll want to get our FREE 25 Golf Lessons right now!

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If you’re having trouble with your shoulder turn, and you want to fix your shoulder turn in your golf swing, keep reading on

The modern golf swing is a “one-piece” takeaway where you move the club back from the ball with your shoulders and core… not your hands or arms. We also call this a “connected” golf swing takeaway, that is simple, and puts you into a near perfect top of the backswing position.

Let’s take a look at Adam Scott’s takeaway. Even though he is struggling a bit this year, his golf swing technique is every bit as good as Tiger. I have drawn yellow lines to show you this “one-piece” takeaway. Notice how his clubhead is several feet away from the ball, and his wrists have not started to cock. He is taking the club back with his upper body and core, not his hands.

The ONLY “takeaway” I want you to have from this article is this “one-piece” move. That’s all I want you to work on. I also want you to learn how to slow down your golf swing takeaway for better sequence. In the next takeaway article, will go further in detail and take the club back a few feet further.

But this is critical to get right! Focus on taking the club away as a whole. Do NOT under any circumstances break your wrists to the point in this picture. Notice the yellow lines look like a y? If you break your wrists earlier, you will not see this y in your takeaway.

If you liked this golf swing takeaway tip, you’ve got to get our Free Golf Lessons Download asap!

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With that being said, the search for a better golf swing continues. Is there a secret? Or… are there simple steps that can get you a better swing and not break the bank, or entail you going to the range daily and hitting hundreds of golf balls? I can say for sure… there is! You’ve got to break the golf swing down to bit-sized chunks and get those right FIRST, and then, your golf swing will be better than ever.

I can tell you there is no such thing as a “perfect golf swing”. No way! Just take a look at the swings on tour. They are all different but they work for them. So don’t try to model the exact way a certain golf professional swings. It won’t work for you. You’ve got your own set of physical capabilities and also limitations, so you’ve got to work with what you you’re capable of.

I have heard that Steve works on his golf swing fundamentals constantly to keep his swing easy to repeat and very consistent. These are the simple steps to a better golf swing. These fundamentals include:

Proper Golf Grip
Golf Alignment
Golf Posture
Ball Position

You can then take it into your golf swing takeaway, top of the golf swing position, and then your golf downswing sequence; and ultimate a square clubface at impact. But, I must urge you to get the simple steps of your fundamentals down first, if you want a better golf swing that holds up for 18 holes.

Another big help, if you’re looking to improve your golf swing is our FREE 25 Golf Lessons download!

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Take a look at Woody Austin. I drew a white line to show you his forward shaft lean at impact. The camera angle isn’t the greatest, but notice his hands ahead of the ball.

The biggest issue with most amateurs and beginner golfers is getting the proper impact position. I know I fought it and did it wrong for the first 15 years of my golf career. I always wondered why I hit my irons thin, and weak to the right. Don’t get me wrong…weak for my high expectations.

I’ve got to get you to understand where your hands, shaft and clubhead should be at impact. I can guarantee many of you don’t get there, even if you think you do. I was one of those golfers in denial. I hit my irons pretty far, but not solid or compressed. They sounded clunky and thin. Not the kind of sound you’d be proud of, and trust me… I wasn’t.

I want to give you a few simple tips (swing thoughts) that helped me finally get the impact I was dreaming of. They may work for you too, but at least you will have some different ideas of how to achieve a compressed, crisply hit iron shot.

Golf Tip #1 Lead with your hands all the way through impact. This may sound extreme, but I can assure you, you will never get the forward shaft lean any other way. You must, must have your hands ahead of the ball with ALL your irons, and even your hybrids.

Golf Tip #2 Pull the butt of the club toward the ball in your downswing. Again, this is similar to golf tip number one, but it specifically refers to the downswing, not necessarily through impact.

Golf Tip #3 Hold your right wrist angle as long as you possibly can. This will give you that forward lean of your shaft. If you release your right wrist angle, you will not only lose that forward lean and get a backwards (flippy) lean of the shaft. The later is much more common with mid to high handicap golfers.

Okay… this site is all about simple golf! The three above tips is plenty on your plate, but will give you a strong sense and feel for the proper impact position with the forward lean of your golf shaft.

If you liked this article, you’ll want to get our Free Golf Lessons Download today, to get you further along the golf improvement path.

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