And I want to talk a little about: How do we fix the dreaded hook?
It's a shot that, really, a lot of high-level players fear, including myself.
I think a lot of the guys and gals on the tour really are afraid of hitting a hook,
particularly under pressure, you know, when the adrenaline's going.
They want to be aggressive, they want to be able to swing hard, but the last thing they
want to do is start hooking the golf ball.
You just feel like you don't have much control over what's going on if you're starting to
hit big hooks.
So, let's talk a little bit about how you can maybe control that, how you can fix that,
and what are the causes of a hook.
So, the first thing that we should look at, number one, is your club face, you know, what
is your club face like at the top of the swing.
If your club face is pointing to the sky, then it's closed.
And what I mean by that is, if I go from here and take it back down to impact without any
manipulation, you can see that that face is going to be going way left to my target line.
So, we have to address this, so let's take a look at our grip.
A lot of you out there may have a grip that's a little too strong.
And what I mean by that is, it's probably too much in your fingers, turned too far to
the right, and you might be able to see all five of your knuckles, too many.
And what happens when someone grips the club like that, typically, their other hand, their
right hand is far too far under the club, and when they take the club back, they get
it in this position here, and you can see, that face is pointing to the sky.
And if I bring that down, that face now is pointing way left.
So, that's strike one as far as trying to beat the hook, so let's get the proper grip
going.
Let's hold the club up, make sure the grip runs diagonally from the base of our forefinger
to underneath our heel pad, and when we close our hand over the top of the grip, you can
see now, when I look down, I can see two and a half, maybe three knuckles.
And I would consider that a neutral grip, and pretty much used by most players, and
I think it really enhances the chances of the club face being in a better position at
the top.
Your right hand is going to fit on there, mostly in your fingers, and the V formed by
that forefinger and thumb, along with this V, should point somewhere between your neck
and your right shoulder.
So, those of you who have the grip turned too far to the right, check that out, and
maybe make a little adjustment and turn it a little more to the left.
Occasionally, I'll see someone who has it in the palm of their hand, and when it goes
back, their wrist works this way, and it also closes the face, and they have no wrist mobility
so it's really almost a double-negative.
They're not going to be able to create much speed with their wrist in this position if
the club is too much in the palm of their hand.
So, again, go through the steps.
Left hand runs diagonal at the base of the fingers, closed over the top, the right hand
fits on there, and these Vs run parallel, somewhere between the neck and the right shoulder.
When we have that neutral grip now, at the top, you can see that the club face is in
a much more square position, in line with my left hand.
This is a huge fundamental in the game, and if you can really work on having this kind
of position at the top of your swing, it's going to eliminate a lot of problems for you
in the future.
The more neutral we can get our hands and club face to be, the better off you're going
to be.
So, the second part of the bad hook is the path of the club, and what happens there is,
that club's working way too much in to out.
Now, I really know about this because I struggled a little bit with this in my game, but I've
got some really great ideas for you coming up that are going to help you get rid of it.
So, I can demonstrate this bad hook because I hit it too many times in my career.
So, the path, way in-and-out, club face is shut, leads to disaster.
It probably looks something like this.
So, I'm going to have a closed face, I'm going to swing excessively in-to-out, and that ball's
going to curve like crazy from right to left.
That's not a shot you can play good golf with.
So, let's talk about, how do we get the correct path?
Now, maybe, this is a little drill that I do, and maybe there's some hockey players
out there that'll really be able to do this really well, because I've played with some
hockey players in pro-ams, and they seem to hit the ball great.
So, the slapshot.
I've got my alignment stick here.
I'm going to split my hands.
I'm going to pretend, now, I'm in the NHL.
There's my hockey puck, right here.
So, if I have an excessive in-to-out path, I'm not going to be very good at hitting the
slapshot because as I skate up to this puck and I go in to out, my stick is going to hit
the ice, and I'm never going to hit the ball.
So, the motion to hit a great slapshot as I'm skating in to this puck is, once I plant
my left, my forward skate, I've got to open up like this to reach that puck, and you can
see a whole different position with my chest here.
My chest is now out in front of the golf ball, my right shoulder has moved really well into
the shot, my left shoulder has cleared, and here, now my path is working more this way,
on plane, which is going to allow me to stop hitting that hook.
What happens when you have an excessive in-to-out swing, your right side stops, your spine tilts
to the right, this club starts rolling over as we go through the strike, and that's where
you're going to have vicious stuck hooks.
So, I'm going to show you how I practice, and it really helped me get out of hooking
it.
Number one, check your grip.
Number two, I'm going to give you some shots that you can hit off downhill lies, and show
you why it works.
Okay, so here we are.
We've got a downhill lie.
This drill has probably been the best drill in the last 10 years for my own personal golf
game, so I really, really encourage you to try this out, especially if hooking the ball
or pulling the ball has been a big issue for you.
So, this downhill lie, I don't want you to try to help the ball in the air.
The key to this downhill lie shot is, I want you to swing down the slope.
So, when you watch, you're going to see my shoulders, instead of tilting, they're going
to be turning, and that turning is the feeling we want.
So, my chest is going to continue to turn through the shot, and I'm going to finish.
My shoulders are going to be level, and as a result, I am going to eliminate this face
rotation that's caused by swinging way out to the right.
So, I'm not going to try to hit this hard in the beginning, and I'm going to set up,
downhill lie, and my feeling is, is right from the top, I'm going to swing down the
slope and finish over here.
So, let's take a whack at one here.
So, you can see, I finished down the slope, my spine was straight, shoulders were turning
instead of tilting, the ball went straight.
So, let me try one more.
This one, I'm going to put a little more speed on it, with the same concepts in mind.
Setting up, I've got my nice neutral grip.
I'm going to swing down the slope.
When I do, that right side fires through, no club rotation, straight shots.
Okay, so let's review some of the ways that we can maybe stop that excessive hooking problem.
Number one, let's check our grip, make sure our face is more neutral at the top.
We don't want that club face pointing to the sky.
Nice 45-degree angle, flat left wrist, so make sure your grip is in order.
That's a good place to start.
And then, of course, the next big issue is club path, and normally, when we see people
really hooking it, that club path is coming excessively from in to out.
The spine tilts to the right, there's no right side in the swing, and the closed face along
with in-to-out motion, that face is even closing more, so you're going to hit a big hook.
So, remember the hockey drill where we split our hands, we pretend we're in the NHL, and
we stride.
You're going to feel your chest open up, you're going to feel that you have more room to swing
on plane to the left, and you won't have as much club rotation.
And a great way to practice that feeling was hitting balls off a downhill lie.
When we do, I don't want you to try to help the ball in the air.
We're going to swing down the slope.
So, our shoulders are going to work down the slope.
This way, no good, and it's more hooks, more hooks and blocks.
This way, it's going to straighten out your shots and eliminate that hooking problem.