Fix That Hook – 6 Simple Steps to Stop Hooking the Ball in Golf

The worst part about a hook is that it can feel great when it comes off the clubface. Usually, hooks are powerful, and you watch the golf ball head out straight before it starts making that ugly turn left.

After analyzing more than 1,000,000 golf swings of some of the best golfers in the world, we know the exact reasons why golfers hook, but more importantly, we know how to fix them!

Luckily, learning how to fix a hook is entirely possible and, if you ask us, considerably easier than fixing a slice. If it’s time to fix your hook and get familiar with the center of the fairway, you are in the right place.

How to Fix a Hook in Golf (Key Takeaways)

If you don’t have time to head to the range and work on all of our hook fixes and cures right now, here are a few of the most important facts to know about how to fix a hook in golf.

• Make sure your ball position is not too far forward.
• Check that your legs and shoulders are square to your target (not closed).
• Grip strength should be neutral, a strong grip with the left hand (right handed golfers) turned too far to the right is not the correct setup to fix a hook.
• Shallow swing path can make a hook worse, make sure you aren’t taking the club back inside as the first move on your takeaway.
• Too much flexion in the lead wrist at the top of the swing and again at impact can lead to a closed clubface, use HackMotion to check your wrist angles.

Golf Hook Causes: What to Look Out For

A golf hook is caused by a closed clubface at impact. If your clubface is closed, the ball goes left. However, there are a few things that can cause that closed clubface to happen.

A Grip That is Too Strong

When golfers slice the ball, the first thing that a coach will often tell them to do is strengthen their grip.

As you can imagine, the opposite is true for golfers that hook. If your grip is too strong, your left hand (for a right-handed player) will be twisted too far to the right.

The left hand turns to a strong position, in turn, requires the right hand to fit more on the underside of the golf club.

From this position, the hands and wrists have a more dominant role in the clubface and what it does at impact. It’s too much power. Moving the hands to a slightly weaker position can get the clubface more neutral at impact.

Setup Lines are Crossed

Amateur golfers are often completely unaware of how their setup position impacts their golf swing.

Most players have feet going one way, clubface another, and even hips and shoulders could be on their own line. This is not ideal.

Use alignment sticks when you practice.

If your clubface is not square to the rest of your stance, you could be set up to hit a hook before you even swing the club back.

Shallow Swing Path

A shallow swing path has often been called one of the most common reasons behind a hook in golf. However, a shallow swing path alone is not always the cause.

When you combine the shallow swing path with the closed clubface, you will see the hook get considerably worse. Having a more neutral swing path with a square clubface is the best position for any player.

From this position, you can focus more on speed and consistency through impact and forget all the other minute details.

Poor Wrist Action

The wrist action in your golf swing can also be a major culprit when it comes to hooking the golf ball. Your wrist position at impact determines the ball flight of your golf shot.

HackMotion can diagnose the wrist issue and then give you the proper feedback in your practice routine to improve it. Wrists can cause the clubface to close before impact, leaving you no time to recover.

In this video, you can see how HackMotion can read your wrist angle on the takeaway, at the top of the swing, and again at impact.

With a tool like this, you will learn where exactly in your swing the wrist issues are occurring. For most golfers, it happens right in the takeaway.

6 Simple Steps to Fix the Hook in Your Golf Swing

Now that you have a better idea of how to determine what is causing your hook, let’s break down how to fix it.

I’m going to go through a few different ways to fix a hook, and one of them should do the trick to allow you to hit a straight golf shot again.

1. Grip Adjustment

A neutral grip is best for hitting a straight shot.

Take the club and hold it mainly in the fingers of your left hand. Then, place your hand down on the club so that your thumb points just right of the center of the shaft. If you can see the top part of your left hand from the address, you are already in a bad position that will require you to recover.

Once the left hand is in the right place, interlock or overlap the right hand into position.

Play around with a strong, weak, and neutral grip on the driving range; you will see how much of a difference it makes in your game. I find that to fix a hook, a slightly weaker grip is often key.

Use your HackMotion to check on the consistency of your grip position. If you can put your hands on the club the same way each time, you’ll be a more consistent golfer.

2. Align the Clubface Correctly to Start

Do you know what a square clubface looks like?

A square clubface is where the bottom of the face sits at a 90-degree angle.

Golfers who hook the ball would decrease this angle and have the clubface pointing left of the target.

My favorite way to determine if my clubface is square is to find a straight edge, like the driving range station or a door jam, and place the club at the base.

3. Swing Path Alignment

As long as your clubface is closed, the ball will go left regardless of your swing path. The shallow swing path can worsen the hook, but the wrist action is usually the root cause of the issue.

You can set up an alignment stick in the ground a few feet behind you, away from where it could get hit with the club.

As you swing back, look and see if your club is on a matching plane as this alignment stick or if it is starting out below it. If your swing path is starting out below it, you may have a swing that goes more around your body.

A shallow/rounder swing makes more of a hook-type swing path, especially if the rotation in your swing is not timed perfectly.

4. Wrist Action on the Takeaway

One of the best ways to check to see if your club face position is closed is to take the club back to waist high.

If you swing back to waist high, look at where the toe of the club is pointing.

• A neutral clubhead will have the toe pointing to the sky.
• A closed clubface will have the clubhead pointing down towards the ground.

The wrist action on the takeaway can make or break your golf swing the entire way. With the HackMotion wrist sensor, you can set the wrist angle so that you are alerted if you are too closed on the takeaway.

5. Squaring the Clubface at Impact

Did you know that sometimes golfers (myself included) have a slightly closed clubface the entire time they swing?

These players know how to manipulate the clubface at impact to square it up and get a great shot.

For the majority of amateurs, it’s best to leave a small amount of work to do at impact. In fact, if there is no work and you can just swing through the ball freely, the results will be easier to repeat.

Golfers should be able to release the club as part of their downswing and impact position. Sometimes, if your clubface is closed, you must give up on this release, which can be a problem.

Instead, work on letting the club release the clubface, which will now be square if you made your other adjustments.

6. Equipment Check

We don’t like to give equipment too much credit for anything, but it does need to be mentioned here.

Setting your driver to open is not going to entirely fix your hook; you will also have to make some swing adjustments.

A golf club fitting can give you some idea of what clubs you should be using and whether you need to change.

I’ve seen quite a few players using clubs that are too short for them, and this causes a significant hook. Sometimes, slight adjustments can be made to the equipment, and a new club does not need to be purchased.

Troubleshooting the Hook in Golf: Things You Should Know

At this point, you have plenty of details on how to fix your hook. Here are a few more tips and a few of our best drills to get rid of your hook for good.

• Don’t aim right of your target when you start hooking the golf ball; you may end up making the hook worse by overcorrecting the aim.
• Check to ensure you are not playing with a draw-biased golf club; these are designed for golfers who slice the ball, not those who hook it.
• It’s still a good idea to feel like you are swinging out to your target; this is necessary to generate power, distance, and accuracy.
• When tempo gets a little quick, it could make the results of a hooked golf shot a bit worse. Ease up on your tempo and see if that makes the issue any better.
• Take a video of your swing if you have the opportunity, compare the original video with the video after you make changes, and see how they differ.

Practical Drills to Fix a Hook

The best way to fix a problem in your golf game is to find a way to “feel” what the issue is. Once you feel it, you can learn to repeat it.

Here are some of the best drills to get you to feel that square clubface at impact and hit a straight shot.

HackMotion Audio Feedback

If you can determine your wrist patterns at setup, the top of the backswing, and then again at impact, you may find some outliers. For most golfers, the hook issues happen at the top of the swing where there is too much flexion in the left wrist.

Set the audio feedback on the HackMotion to alert you when your wrist angles have fallen outside of the range of what would lead to a square clubface.

The best thing about HackMotion audio feedback is the fact that it occurs in real-time. Most golf technology alerts you to issues after you have already hit the ball.

The quickest way to fix your swing is to feel the issue and be alerted to it at the same time.

Be Aware of the Clubface

If your golf clubface tends to be closed and is causing your hook, you can learn to check the clubface at different positions in your swing.

• Setup to hit a regular shot.
• Swing back to halfway without taking your head off the ball.
• Look back to see where the clubface is. Has it opened if not, open it slightly so that it is square with the toe pointing up towards the sky at waist high.
• Repeat this drill until you are able to feel that slight opening of the clubface on the takeaway.
• Learn to incorporate this into your full swing if you feel it could be helpful.

Create a Runway

Use your golf alignment sticks to set up a path for your golf club to swing through. The first club will be set up parallel to the target line, and the second will be slightly outside the target line and aimed more at the target.

Leave room for you to hit golf balls between these two sticks. They are there for your visual aid.

Practice swinging the club along this inside-out path, where you hit shots between the two alignment sticks. You will stop from swinging too much from the inside.

45 Degree Exit Drill

Eric Cognoro has a 45-degree exit drill to help golfers who are hooking the ball. Sometimes, the idea of inside out gets slightly exaggerated with those who hit a hook. With this 45-degree exit drill, you can learn that you can come from the inside but still finish a little low and left.

Do this drill with an 8 iron, and go with about 70% swing speed when first working on this drill.

Club Path Exit Drill

In this drill, Danny Malcolm gives you a unique way to work on your club face as you swing through the ball.

He shows how the golfer who hooks tends to struggle with getting the club to go left after impact, and this drill with a simple alignment stick will fix it.

Summary

I would rather fix a hook than a slice any day. Hooking the golf ball usually means closing the clubface at some point during your swing.

Find out if this happens at set up, during the takeaway, at the top, or on the downswing.

Wrist action is a significant factor in determining if your clubface is closing, and the HackMotion helps players perfect wrist angle throughout the entire swing.