How to Fix Hooking the Golf Ball

Nothing sours a round of golf faster than watching your tee shot start right of the target only to take a vicious, hard left turn into the woods. That diving, uncontrollable shot is a true scorecard-wrecker, and it can leave you feeling completely lost on the course. But here's the good news: the dreaded hook is one of the most diagnose-able faults in golf. This guide will provide a step-by-step process to understand why you're hooking the ball and give you simple, actionable fixes to get your shots flying straight and true.

What Actually Causes a Hook?

Before we can fix it, we need to understand the simple physics behind that ball flight. In golf, your clubface angle at impact has the biggest influence on where the ball starts, and your swing path determines how it curves. A hook is the result of a specific combination of these two factors: a clubface that is closed relative to your swing path at the moment of impact.

Think of it like this: your swing path is the road your car is driving on, and the clubface is the steering wheel. For a hook, your swing path is usually coming too much from "in-to-out" (the car is heading slightly out to the right field for a right-handed golfer). At the same time, your hands are rolling over, causing the clubface to be closed, or pointing to the left of that path (you're steering the car hard left). The ball starts right because of the path and then curves aggressively left because of the closed face. Our goal is to get the "steering wheel" and the "road" working together.

Check Your Grip: The Most Common Culprit

More often than not, a chronic hook begins before you even start your swing. It starts with the way you hold the club. Golfers who hook the ball almost always have a grip that is too “strong" - and by strong, we don’t mean grip pressure. A "strong" grip is one where your hands are rotated too far to the right (for a right-handed player) on the handle.

How a Strong Grip Causes a Hook

When your hands are turned too far to the right on the grip, they have a natural tendency to want to twist back to a neutral position during the swing. As you come into impact, that natural rotation aggressively shuts the clubface. No matter how perfect the rest of your swing is, a grip that's too strong will set you up for failure before you even move the club. Let's fix it.

How to Build a Neutral Grip

Remember, changing your grip will feel incredibly awkward at first. You have to trust the process. Find a place where you can make 50-100 practice swings a day with this new hold until it starts to feel normal.

• The Top Hand (Left Hand for Righties): Stand up straight and let your left arm hang naturally by your side. Notice how your palm isn't facing directly forward or backward - it rests in a neutral, slightly turned-in position. That's the position we want to recreate on the club. Place the club in the fingers of your left hand, running from the base of your little finger to the middle of your index finger. Close your hand over the top. When you look down, you should be able to clearly see the first two knuckles of your index and middle finger. The "V" formed by your thumb and index finger should point roughly towards your right shoulder or ear. If you see three or even four knuckles, your grip is too strong.
• The Bottom Hand (Right Hand for Righties): Bring your right hand to the club, also from the side rather than from underneath. The grip should rest primarily in the fingers. When you place your right hand on the club, the palm should essentially cover your left thumb. The "V" formed by your right thumb and index finger should now mirror the left one, also pointing up towards your right shoulder area. You can use an interlocking, overlapping, or ten-finger grip - whatever is most comfortable. What matters most is the neutral positioning of the hands.

This neutral grip keeps your hands from wanting to aggressively roll over through impact. It requires you to rotate your body to square the clubface, which is a much more stable and reliable way to hit straight shots.

Audit Your Setup and Alignment

If your grip is looking good but the hook persists, your setup is the next place to look. Many golfers who hook the ball unknowingly set themselves up in a way that encourages the fault.

Are You Aiming Correctly?

This is a classic chicken-or-the-egg problem. Do you hook because you aim right, or do you aim right because you hook? Often, golfers will start aiming farther and farther right to "play for the hook." This just ingrains the problem. You swing even more in-to-out and flip your hands even harder to try and get the ball back to the target. It's a vicious cycle.

The Fix: Start using an intermediate target. Stand behind your ball and pick a spot on the ground - a discolored patch of grass, a leaf, an old divot - just a few feet in front of your ball on the exact target line. Now, walk up to your ball and forget about the distant fairway. Just align your clubface to that intermediate spot. Then, set your feet parallel to that line. This forces you to aim straight and allows you to work on a swing that produces a straight ball flight.

Where is Your Ball Position?

Having the ball too far back in your stance (closer to your trail foot) can also promote a strong in-to-out path. Because you're contacting the ball earlier in the swing arc, the club is still naturally traveling out to the right, making it easier to hook. For a mid-iron, the ball should be in the center of your stance. For a driver, it should be positioned off the inside of your lead heel. Moving it slightly more forward in your stance can give the clubface more time to naturally square up.

Taming Your Swing Path

If the grip and setup a good, the cause of your hook is almost certainly coming from your in-swing motion itself.specifically, an over-the-top inside-out swing-path.

The "Stuck" Feeling

An excessively in-to-out swing path often happens when a golfer tries to generate power by dropping the club far behind them on the downswing. This can feel powerful, but it gets the club "stuck" behind your body. From this position, the only way to get the club back to the ball and try to square the face is by aggressively rotating your hands and forearms through impact. The body pivot stalls, the hands take over, and the result is a massive hook.

A Drill to Neutralize Your Path

The goal is to feel the club working more "down" in front of you, not "around" and behind you. Here’s a great drill to help:

• The Gate Drill: Set up to a ball on the driving range. Place an object (like a headcover or a water bottle) about a foot outside your ball, just beyond the toe of your club. Place another object about a foot inside your ball, just behind the heel of the club. Your goal is to swing the club through the gate without hitting either object. Golfers who hook will typically hit the outside object on their downswing. To avoid it, you’ll be forced to shallow the club on a more neutral path, bringing it down more in line with your hands. It might feel like you're coming "over the top" at first, and that’s okay. That "feel" is often the correction you need.

Quit Flipping and Start Rotating

The final piece of the puzzle is how you release the club through the impact zone. Hookers are "flippers." They deliver force to the ball by rapidly closing the clubface with an overactive wrist and hand motion.

Elite golfers release the club by rotating their body. Their arms, hands, and the club respond passively to the unwinding of their bigger muscles - their legs, hips, and torso. The feeling is one of the entire system turning through the shot together, with the chest pointing toward the target at the finish.

The Punch Shot Drill for a Body Release

Hitting low, controlled punch shots is one of the best ways to train this feeling.

1. Take a 7-iron and set up normally.
2. Take a shorter, three-quarter backswing.
3. On the downswing, focus entirely on rotating your body through the shot.
4. Your goal is to "hold off" the finish. Try to keep the clubface pointing at the target for as long as possible after the ball is gone. Your hands and arms should finish low and to the left, around hip height, still in front of your chest.

This drill removes the temptation to flip in a desperate search for loft and power. It forces you to use your body's rotation as the engine, which leads to a much more stable and controlled clubface through impact.

Final Thoughts

Fixing a hook is a process of elimination that turns you into a detective of your own swing. Start with your grip - it’s the root cause 80% of the time - and don't move on until you're positive it's neutral. From there, check your setup and work on drills that promote a more neutral swing path and a body-driven release. Be patient, make one change at a time, and you’ll straighten out that ball flight for good.

As you work through these fixes, there will be times when you need a clear answer right on the spot. If you're standing on the range struggling with a drill or find yourself in a tricky situation on the course that tempts you back into old habits, that's what our app is built for. With Caddie AI, you can get a second opinion on what a specific lie calls for by snapping a picture, or ask for a swing thought or drill to address the specific issue you’re facing. We designed it to be your on-demand golf coach, helping you make smarter decisions and take the guesswork out of your game so you can finally play with confidence.