help with hooking/pull hooking

For the knowledgeable folks out there please. I recently got down from a 5 to a 2.7 after a some small swing changes as my distance and consistency improved markedly. For me it was more of a weight shift to my back foot instep and a concentrated fast turning (what I feel) of my shoulders toward the target. I think this combination got me turning away from the ball more and my body through the ball more. I think this is why my ball striking improved so much so quickly.

After about 10 rounds of this glory I went out yesterday (not even a money game) with friends and found myself hitting gigantic hooky shots. Most started left of the target and went way way left, nothing subtle at all. {I'm LH but I'm presenting this as if I was RH because it's easier for me to interpret than it is for those with advice.) I tried exaggerating these two new moves but hit only 1 drive and 2 iron shots that were "good", all the others had some degree of hook with 4 or 5 being unplayable hooks---with driver, with 5 iron, with 9 iron.

I do understand that the swing path has to be way inside and the club face closed much less to have that kind of curve but I can't figure out why it went so bad so quickly. Anyway, all of you out there have likely had the same kind of thing happen to your games as well so I'm not complaining, just want to see if anyone has any answers out there that make sense. I'm not going to change my grip or try to hit fades or any other swing fixes that I don't really want to pursue right now since I was doing so well for this stretch without those.

You should definitely post a video. It's guessing without it.

My guess - based on what you said. You are overdoing the shift to the trail side. And getting stuck. When you get to the top and you are rotating to the lead the side - your just too much on the trail side at that point.

You should feel closer to 50/50 when you get to the top of the swing. My guess - is your focusing so much on creating pressure on the inside of your foot - that your like 20/80 at the top. It's nearly impossible at that point to get to a 80+ / 20- position at impact. Which is where you want to be.

Feel pressure building in the trail foot by waist high - in the back swing. Then after that point - start using that pressure in the trail side and start putting it in the lead side. To get yourself closer to 50/50 by the time you hit the top.

An easy way to check - over exaggerate it. Just stay on your trail side and try to hit the ball. The results could look very similar.

Thank you for your thoughtful and well reasoned reply, totally appreciate it! Your sequence analysis seems spot on for anyone and maybe especially for what ails me now. I've practiced a bit now without a club in my hand, and for me it's a better path to accomplishing what you're suggesting if I can start my takeaway ever so slightly after that weight shifts to the trail foot. By slowing that down a bit I'm able (not hitting balls just feeling it) to feel my weight shift to my lead foot a bit sooner than I'd been doing--- the club doesn't have to go back as far as I was doing before my tempo and rhythm make a natural weight shift to the lead foot.

Anyway, it's all feel and I think your analysis was very good. Even if it's not the right one for what ails me it'll still always be helpful. thanks!

The first thing tour pros check when anything goes wrong is alignment and grip. Have you checked those things? Or perhaps you are meticulous about them already...

LOL our multi time club champion had a bad streak and was thinking about quitting the game a while back when the pro happened to watch him tee off on number one. The pro took a couple of minutes to point out the guy was aimed 40 or 50 yards left of where he thought he was aimed. So such things do happen to good players. Happens to hacks like myself all the time also... Possibly your grip got just a hair strong?

Yea a video is the only way to correctly diagnose it. But if your ball is starting right and going right(for a lefty) your face is hooded. Why that is could be a myriad if things.

I have a very active trail hand and when I don't set my right hand up at address and get my weight on my trail side they start out straight or left and go really far left. Also, if I don't get my left hand in the correct postion on the backswing my right hand will overpower it, but the weight transfer seems to help me get it in the correct position.

also agree with others' comments about posting video.

i'm a righty and my big miss has been left of left. there are a few things i've found which exacerbate this miss, and i think they're probably connected. maybe some of it applies to you.

"jumping" off of my trail foot too quickly during transition instead of sinking into my right heel first and loading up before separating/disassociating lower and upper bodygetting too steep (maybe even a little OTT at times) and correcting on the downswing with a little yanky doodle to avoid the shanky doodle. sometimes i think this happens when i try to apply speed too soon instead of letting my hands drop a bit after the top of the backswing and getting more shallow in the downswing.rotating around the ball with my upper body too quickly during the downswing instead of keeping my back turned to the target longer and swinging through the balland probably the easiest to fix, grip and alignment -- after not hitting balls for months these two things are not as consistent as i'd likeclub face and body alignment is easy to fix and something i try to maintain with alignment sticks, etcetera. everyone should do this periodically imho. i've been experimenting with a stronger grip after going neutral for a while so i'll just have to deal with that. but if i can't fix the hooks by other means i know i can go back to a neutral grip to make it physically difficult to hook it.

as for the other stuff, doing tempo drills is probably the most helpful for me. my pulls usually seem to be a result of getting too trigger happy and jumping at the ball and over-correcting stuff as a result. i rarely pull the ball when i'm making smooth/easy swings, so i like to practice lots of 100y 7-/8-irons, half shots, and so forth. focusing on getting more shallow also helps me reduce pulling the ball with the added benefit of better low point control.

one last thing -- sometimes i've noticed when i'm sore or stiff it's more difficult to make a big turn. if i try to force a big turn things can get dicey and i'm more likely to pull the ball. but if i accept (at least) a 5y-10y loss in distance and club up, my contact is more crispy and ball flight is straighter. on cold/rainy/windy days when i'm sore or stiff i have to be even more disciplined and prevent my ego from dictating club selection or trying to do too much. in my experience this can be much easier said than done. :)

good luck!

Swinging hard left with very straight arms usually helps me to stop the hooks.

Pressure building in the lead instep while the body is still turning back is huge and most never consider doing it because they think it's wrong. So many try to segment the swing into backswing - transition - downswing. Transition happens in the backswing. It's all one thing.

I have the same problem when I start swinging poorly and it's usually because I get quick in transition and start hanging back + swinging up on the ball.

I recommend trying to be smooth at the top and tee the ball lower to feel like you are hitting down on it. (You won't actually be hitting down on it but it should help zero out your path)

You should feel closer to 50/50 when you get to the top of the swing. My guess - is your focusing so much on creating pressure on the inside of your foot - that your like 20/80 at the top. It's nearly impossible at that point to get to a 80+ / 20- position at impact. Which is where you want to be.no, this is probably bad advice for most people. why would you recommend this?

in reality, it should probably be around 20/80 at top of backswing, 50/50 when lead arm is parallel to ground in downswing, then 80/20 at impact.

e.g.:

The vast majority of Tour players load at least 80 percent of the pressure into their trail leg in their backswing and at least 80 percent into their lead leg at impact with their driver swing. Some golfers that BodiTrak has measured, like Jason Day, put as much as 95 percent of their pressure on their trail leg near the top of their backswing. sourcethere are probably some exceptions to the rule but i think advising someone to follow an exception rather than the rule should be very well qualified.

edit: more info straight from boditrak:

Fitzpatrick loads ~75% of his pressure into his trail leg on the backswing. This is consistent with the majority of Matt’s professional peers, most of whom load around 80% pressure on their trail leg in the backswing.source: https://boditrakperformance.com/analyzing-matthew-fitzpatricks-pressure-trace-on-boditrak/

You are correct but those guys are all flexible and strong enough to get through the ball properly from most of their weight on the back foot. If the OP has any kind of early extension, lack of rotation, or weakened core (hanging back) then he will do nothing but flip at the ball and hook it from that much weight on his back foot.

Need video but I’ll throw out a guess that it’s your takeaway.

Try this:

If it feels super unnatural, that could very well be your issue. I speak from personal experience. Luckily, fixing your takeaway isn’t brutally difficult.

i've never heard a pro recommend anything but 20-ish/80-ish at the top of the backswing. 50/50 at the top of the backswing doesn't make sense to me. where is the pressure shift? what does a swing like this actually look like? if someone wants to explain more, that might help.

It's basically just stack and tilt. Not good for athletic, skilled players but can be extremely helpful to some golfers.

Thing is we all can't move like a pro and the problem is a lot of instructors recommend positions and moves that a lot of guys can't actually get into or perform.

thanks, that makes sense. my guess is at a 2.7 OP probably has the skill to get back to 80/20 from 20/80 at the top. obviously video would help sort this out better than conjecture... :)

I would have been right with you guys at one time calling this stack and tilt. It's not. You still want max pressure trail side really early in the backswing (it starts building before the club even moves), but the shift back into the lead instep takes place before p4. Josh Koch who competes in long drive describes loading into the trail leg all the way to p4, as "camping out on the trail leg." I'm not saying everyone should be 50/50 at p4 but the important thing is the shift back into the lead instep takes place as the body is still rotating in the backswing.

If you watch the AMG guys, max pressure occurs between P2 and P3 or when the club is the furthest from the ball. As you go from P3 to P4, re-centering is already starting to happen, so by the time you are at P4 pressure has already started shifting forward

I vote for alignment as well.

If my alignments off or I tee the ball high, I hook the ball like crazy. Feels as if my body knows and is reacting.

I started dealing with hooks and pull hooks a few years back. I thought for the longest time that I was too in to out. My instructor for the longest time told me I was below the plane. He wanted me to try to act like I was hitting big slices. It got worse and worse over the course of a couple of years, and I’m only just now clawing out of it. I fear the right side of a course like there’s a bed of snakes and alligators and sharks over there (I’m a lefty).

Anyway, long story short, my instructor and I were totally wrong about what was wrong. I was coming over the top and standing up the shaft and not rotating the body and saving it at the bottom with a flip of my wrists. My grip had literally gotten turned about 45 degrees open / weak in misguided attempts by me to control the hook. That open face made it even harder for me to rotate, again because I had to try to close the face fast and rotation was not going to help that.

Add to it all that I had been “fit” into super-upright lie angles as well, and looking back it is a miracle I ever kept it on the planet.

Just giving you my experience. You are a lower handicap than I, so take my advice with a grain of salt. But I’m guessing that it has to do with early extension and/or being too steep, which is caused by lack of turn, width, rotation, open face, etc.

Thank you all so much for caring enough to post a response, that's one of the great things about these discussion boards. I don't like posting videos of myself swinging, it's a bit embarrassing and I can do without more of that. Once during a lesson the instructor posted my face on swing juxtaposed frame by frame with Luke Donald (I don't have a slow deliberate swing like most on the LPGA tour so his was in tempo sort of like mine) and that was really embarrassing---and I was about a 2.5 then too. My swing was fault fault fault positionally next to his. So sorry friends, no video.

I don't know how to reply to individual posts anymore here, there used to be a "reply" link under each post but I can't see one although many posts here repost other posts in chains so their post has context. Sorry too much of a computer luddite to figure out how to do that.

The posts that resonate most with my particular situation are the ones pointing to alignment and weight transfer. Today was completely different than my off the charts hook day. Pured many shots even with a 5 over round that should have been lower. Why the change? I did 4 things much better:

I checked my grip carefully each time to insure my top hand (my left) was more neutral since my right hand is actually more powerful (I do many things RH and some LH, do not think I'm a true LH person).I checked my alignment each time much more carefully, including the club face after I'd gripped it. Twice when I was a bit lax about this I hit the ball so far off line it was crazy. Then I realized just how easy it was to get way off line like one of the posters here pointed out.I really shifted my weight to my back foot instep, so I could really feel it, stopping short of my whole body/head going that direction too, and I whipped my shoulders through the ball to the right as quickly as possible allowing me to transition to the downswing while I was taking the club back. Just a note here about this move. I had many instructors tell me I wasn't turning my body through well enough and I'd had many drills trying to turn my lower body first. There was "crush the can" where I practiced barefoot so I could feel my weight shift to my front foot early enough to get those hips turning through the ball and many more. I understood the big picture but was really unable to get my lower body turning quickly, early. My own solution to this just came recently allowing to go from almost a 6 to a 2.5 (got that low right after the 2.7, now back up to 3.7 after my 80s rounds of big bad hooks.). This fast rotation of the shoulders is something I can actually feel and will my body to do, unlike my hips turning or my front foot "crushing the can." For whatever reason, for me, quickly turning my shoulders to the right also turns my lower body through the ball. For me it's the best ball striking of my life--when I can get my mind to just command those shoulders to whip through. Thank you all!

Every couple of seasons I tend to get into a funk where I start hitting low hooks with The longer clubs. It gets so bad that I can't get the driver airborne and the ball just runs along the fairway until it rests a miserable 200 yards down the left edge. The bad part is it can creep down all throughout the bag and even wedges start coming in super low and hot. I finally realized that my overly strong grip is the culprit. Over the years my left hand (righty golfer) has evolved into a full on four knuckle grip with a hold on release. It can work but If I'm off or out of sync I start de-lofting the club way too much. I'm working on a grip change and trying to get my left hand down to 2 1/2 knuckles which feels really weak for me. The results have been much better. I'm actually launching the driver in the air again and getting some stopping power back with my irons. I actually have the ability to hit a fade again which is a huge plus. Sounds like the OP has addressed it already but don't overlook your grip. It really can make or break your swing.

, this is probably bad advice for most people. why would you recommend this?

in reality, it should probably be around 20/80 at top of backswing, 50/50 when lead arm is parallel to ground in downswing, then 80/20 at impact.Well I'm sorry you feel you must bash me down for providing my opinion. If you actually read the article you sent, you'd see they say max pressure in trail side in the backswing. Not the top of the backswing. My numbers may not be 100% precise. But I think you have a misunderstanding of the pressure shift, not me.

And no, it's not for non athletic golfers.

Thank you for showing me the way. Not quite sure about the triangle and the snippet part but I'll figure that out soon.

Follow up comments:

This fast turning of the shoulders--which for me turns my hips too--often feels like I'm turning way to the right (I'm LH). It's kinda scary to look up and see where the ball is going because I fully expect it to be going way right like my shoulder turn feels. Shockingly most of the time the ball is going at the target even with this turn to the right, echoing some posters here and much instruction about turning through the ball to the left (for RH). Not really sure why it goes pretty straight when I'm really turning hard to the right but I accept it!

My idea for an in round fix for my hooking ailment is that as some posters pointed out my weight has been left on my trail side and the turn through becomes more of a flip and it's easy to see the pull and the hook--since I do have an inside out swing the pull will be quite hooky too. So for an in round fix for me I have to get my weight back to my trail foot or my quick shoulder turn will pull and my inside out swing will hook the ball.

I'm going to echo what @hoselpalooza says in post #7.

I'm righty but I fight/fought snaps and ducks for a long time. My cause was overactive bottom hand due to poor grip. It caused all kinds of issues and resulted in having a swing very, very dependant upon timing everything up correctly to get playable results. You can guess how often that happened.
Anyhow, I weakened my grip and followed the grip advice in Five Lessons. Next, I really started to get the swing feel of pulling my trail elbow right down into my hip bone and hitting the ball from the inside, almost exaggerating that move to try and hit a push. The weakened grip combined with the "feel" I described and I now hit a straight iron shot or ever so small fade. My dispersion has gone down dramatically. The only downside, and this is slight, is that if there is a miss, it is two ways now and not just the default hook I used to play with.
Really striving to get the trail elbow under the grip in my backswing and "holding the serving tray" with it is what i am working on and it has tightened up things tremndously. I find it very hard to come ott from that position and reduce the goat sodomizing and other bad things that come along with those errors.

good luck.

@smashdn, I have known people to develop elbow problems from over doing the trail elbow move so I would monitor for any elbow pain and be careful not to over do it like I did...

I find that if you get the hands connected earlier instead of later the right hand will find the correct postion eventually(with a good weight shift) and from there you can actually swing at the top without worrying about elbow position or anything else. This of course requires a neutral right hand grip and even better if pushed a little forward so the hands can set earlier.

What do you mean by "connecting the hands" earlier?

Ben Hogan said the swing starts with the hands. My current takeaway tries to imitate DJ Johnson's and Tony Finaus takeaway with the left hand rolling over earlier as opposed to later in the swing. When the back of the left hand goes flat the right hand should cup (if the hands don't separate) and at this point the hands imo are "connected". Some teachers refrain from teaching this but for someone like me who long has had a problem getting the back of the left hand flat and the right cupped(a source of easy power) it has been very helpful. I believe this is a common trait for many high handicappers because they get to the top of the backswing with the back of the right hand barely cupped and the back of the left hand cupped, a recipe for a slice for most people. The challenge with rolling the left hand over(the right hand should be passive) is I believe the tendency is to keep the weight on the left side which will limit the shoulder turn.