How to Cure Your Slice or Hook

What’s the most important club in your bag? Most golfers say the putter. But others say it’s the driver. Surprised? The driver is a scoring club like the putter. It’s important to scoring well because it determines whether you play a hole defensively or offensively. If you’re going to reduce your golf handicap, you must play holes offensively, not defensively, a strategy we stress in our golf instruction sessions.

If you’re a typical weekend golfer, you probably make two or three serious mistakes off the tee per round. Mistakes are shots that result in a penalty, like hitting out-of-bounds or into water hazard, or that force you to play a recovery shot. These mistakes eventually add up and can impact your golf handicap. Fortunately, golfers tend to make the same mistake on the tee over and over, so correcting that one swing flaw goes a long way.

Below you’ll find a discussion of two of the most common mistakes players make off the tee—the slice and the hook—and golf tips to help correct them.

Delete Your Slice

Since the driver is played off the front foot, you tend to open your shoulder to the target line when you reach forward to address the ball. Open shoulders can cause you to swing out to in, creating a slice.  To correct a slice, picture your target as being at the 12 o’clock position. Open your hips at address by pointing them to the 11 o’clock position. Close your shoulders at address by pointing the buttons of your shirt to the 1 o’clock position. Now swing away. This stance feels strange at first, but it helps you swing down from the inside, which you must do to hit a draw.

Fix Your Snap Hook

When you hit a snap hook your right hand (left hand for left-handers) separates from your left thumb through impact. Without pressure from the heel of the right hand, the handle slows down and the clubface snaps shut, forcing you to release the club too much, too soon. To correct a snap hook, we place a tee between the bases of a student’s thumbs in our golf lessons then have him practice hitting drives. If the tee moves or falls from this spot, you know your right hand separated from your left. This is a time-tested drill used in many golf instruction sessions.

Harnessing The Hook 

Hooking sometimes comes from excessive hand and wrist rotation through the downswing. So instead of hitting the ball with a square clubface, you hit it with a closed one. Here’s a mental trick we teach students in our golf lessons to help tame a hook: Imagine a poll standing straight up about a yard in front of your front foot. Now swing your club, so when the shaft “hits” the pole on the follow-through, your hands are left of the pole and the clubhead is right. (Reverse this if you’re left-handed.) This mental trick helps prevent you from closing the clubface too soon.

Taming The High-right Slice 

If you hit a high-right slice (high-left slice for left-handed golfers) off the tee, your swing may be too steep. The driver requires more of a sweeping motion. To correct this, pretend the practice range has a low ceiling when you hit balls. In fact, the ceiling is so low you can’t swing the club higher than the top of your head. Now follow through. Exaggerating a flat swing helps you deliver the club more from the inside and on a shallow angle, which you must do to make solid contact with a clubface that’s square.

These golf tips should help you get more out of your driver—a critical club in your bag. Driving the fairway enables you to play the hole offensively. Missing the fairway forces you to play defensively. If you’re going to break 80 consistently—and lower your golf handicap—you must play holes offensively. The golf tips above will help.

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