Transform Your Hook With These Proven Golf Tips

While hooking isn’t as common as slicing, it’s still a nasty swing fault—one that can cost you strokes or ruin a day.

But if you’re a hooker and not a slicer, you’re in luck. A hook, as they say, “is the last stop on the road to a good golf swing.”

Transform your hook with these proven golf tips below and you can be well on your way to greatness.

Basically, there are two kinds of hooks—a pull hook and a true hook.

A pull hook is a shot you just pull dead left.

It’s caused by an outside/in swing path and a closed clubface at impact.

A true hook starts out straight then goes left.

It comes from an inside/out swing path and a closed clubface at impact.

Both hooks can trip you up and stop you from breaking 80 and shrinking your golf handicap.

Golf Tips: How to Cure a Hook

But curing a hook isn’t quite as hard as curing a slice.

You’ll have to make some adjustments to your current swing, but they won’t be anything major.

See below for four golf tips on how to cure a hook:

• Weaken your grip — This is probably the simplest and easiest of the changes you might make. As a golfer you may have an overly strong grip. That means you’ve turned your hands and forearms away from the target way too much at impact.

To cure your hook, turn your hands and forearms so that the V formed by your thumb and forefinger are straight up at address. That way they point more toward your right shoulder.

• Lengthen out your swing — This golf tip doesn’t cure a hook as much as it helps you control the ball flight. If you turn too short and too quickly with your typical swing, you hit a snap hook. That’s where the ball takes a quick turn left then dives into the ground. It comes from rushing your transition and downswing. To cure it, slow down your swing and focus on taking a full-length backswing.

• Make a full turn — Another form of the hook is what’s called a duck hook, caused by coming over the top in your swing. One cause of a duck hook is an incomplete backswing, the result of rushing your swing.

A full turn, on the other hand, ensures that you make the transition from your backswing to your downswing in the proper sequence. So, slow your transition down and make a full shoulder turn.

• Get your tempo right — You need good temp to sequence your swing correctly. When your tempo is off, your swing is off.

Tempo is the time of your golf swing from the moment you begin your takeaway to the completion of your follow-through. A tempo that’s too quick throws your sequence out of whack, resulting in a hook.

One way of maintaining the correct tempo is to count “one and two” in your head during the transition. One when you stop at the top. Two when you transition to the downswing.

These four golf tips should help you cure your hook with a little practice. The key in most cases is to slow your swing down and make a nice smooth transition to your downswing, which helps you maintain the proper sequence.

I’ve added a golf drill below to help you with your hook:

The Cure Your Golf Hook Drill

Set up to a ball with your 7-iron. Now make a routine backswing.

Stop at the top of your backswing and pause for a count of two before beginning your downswing.

That will give you an idea of how patient you have to be with your swing.