What Causes Weak Golf Shots to the Right?

There’s nothing more frustrating than making what feels like a decent swing, only to watch your ball float helplessly out to the right of your target, landing short and weak. This pesky shot, often called a push or a block, can dismantle a good round and leave you completely bewildered. This is a common hiccup that plagues golfers of all levels, and it almost always points back to a specific an error in your swing's mechanics. In this guide, we'll walk through the most common reasons your shots are leaking right and give you some simple, effective drills to straighten them out and get your power back.

First, Let's Be Clear: Is it a Push or a Slice?

Before we go any further, it's important to understand the shot you're actually hitting. A slice is a ball that starts relatively straight (or even left) and then curves dramatically to the right in the air. This is caused by an ugly combination of swinging the club from "out-to-in" across the ball with an open clubface, putting sidespin on the ball.

A push, which is what we're focused on here, is different. The ball starts right of the target and flies on a fairly straight line, still to the right. This shot happens when your swing path is moving from "in-to-out" but your clubface is square to that path (which means it's open relative to your target line). While an inside-out path is a good thing for hitting powerful draws, when it gets too extreme, it results in the weak push. Understanding this difference is the first step because the fixes for a slice are often the complete opposite of the fixes for a push.

Cause #1: Your Swing Path is Overcooked "Inside-Out"

The path your club travels on its way to the ball is everything. For a straight shot, you want the club to approach the ball from slightly inside the target line, make contact, and then exit slightly inside the target line again. As mentioned, an in-to-out path is desirable for creating a draw, but like most things in golf, too much of a good thing becomes a problem.

When you get the club "stuck" too far behind you on the downswing, your only option is to swing excessively out to the right. Your body feels cramped, so your arms a have to throw the club away from you to make room. The result? A push.

The Real Reason it Happens

An overly aggressive in-to-out path is usually a symptom of another problem, not the problem itself. It's often the result of your arms and body getting out of sync. You might start the downswing with your arms, leaving your body behind. When your lower body stalls and doesn't rotate, the club has no path to the ball except from way behind you and then out to the right. It feels like you're reaching for the ball and pushing it away from you instead of rotating powerfully through it.

The Fix: The Headcover Gate Drill

To retrain your swing path, you need clear visual feedback. This drill helps you feel what a more neutral, connected downswing path is like.

• Take your normal setup to a ball with a mid-iron.
• Place an object like a headcover or a water bottle about a foot outside of your golf ball, slightly ahead of it. This is your "outer gate."
• Place a second object (another headcover or a tee) about a foot inside your golf ball, slightly behind it. This is your "inner gate."
• The goal is to make practice swings (and then hit shots) without striking either object. To accomplish this, your club must approach the ball from inside the "outer gate" and swing through to the left of your "inner gate".
• You'll immediately get a feeling for swinging the clubhead more *down* the target line through impact rather than away from your body and out to the right.

Cause #2: Your Body Rotation Stalls Through Impact

This is arguably the biggest power-killer in the amateur golf game and a primary cause of the push. Many golfers picture the golf swing as an action performed by the arms and hands, with the body just going along for the ride. It's actually the opposite. The swing is a rotational motion powered by your body. The arms are just along for the ride.

A "stalled rotation" means your hips and torso stop turning as you get close to the ball. Think about it: you've coiled your body up in the backswing like a spring. On the downswing, if that coil suddenly stops uncoiling at the ball, all that energy has to go somewhere. Your arms, which were just being carried along, are suddenly left to their own devices and get flung out to the right. It's a completely arm-powered swing with no support from the big muscles in your body, resulting in a weak block to the right.

The Real Reason it Happens

Often, this comes from a subconscious fear of hitting the ball left. Golfers who fight a slice sometimes over-correct by holding off their rotation, mistakenly believing it will keep the face open and prevent a hook. Other times, it's simply a misconception in how the downswing should feel. It should feel like a continuous unwinding motion, not a wind-up and then an arm-swing.

The Fix: The Step-Through Drill

This is one of the best drills to feel what continuous rotation is supposed to be like. It physically forces you to keep turning through the shot.

• Take your normal setup with a 7 or 8-iron.
• Perform your normal backswing.
• As you begin your downswing and move through the impact zone, let your trail foot (your right foot for a right-hander) come off the ground and step forward, "walking" towards the target.
• You should finish in a balanced position, one step ahead of where you started, with your body fully facing the target.
• It's impossible to complete this drill if your body stalls. It forces your hips and chest to keep turning, teaching them what their role in a powerful, efficient swing feels like. Your weak push will quickly be replaced by a feeling of compression.

Cause #3: The Dreaded Early Extension

Remember that athletic setup position we work so hard to achieve? Hips back, slight bend from the waist, chest over the ball. "Early Extension" is when you lose those beautiful angles at the worst possible moment: the start of your downswing. Instead of rotating your hips around and behind you, your hips and pelvis thrust forward, towards the golf ball. Your body stands up.

When your lower body moves closer to the ball, your hands and arms have nowhere to go. To avoid an ugly shank (hitting the ball with the hosel of the club), your brain's last-ditch effort is to throw your arms out and away from your body, resulting in - you guessed it - a massive push to the right. It robs you of all your power and makes consistent contact almost impossible.

The Real Reason it Happens

Early extension can stem from physical limitations like tight hips or a weak core, but more often it's just a faulty movement pattern. Many golfers have an instinct to move *towards* the ball to hit it, instead of rotating *around* a fixed point (their spine).

The Fix: The Back-to-the-Wall Drill

This no-club drill is perfect for learning the correct feeling of rotation without thrusting forward.

• Stand a few inches away from a wall, so that when you get into your golf posture, your rear end is just touching it.
• Fold your arms across your chest and simulate your backswing. Your right hip/glute should turn deeper into the wall.
• Now, simulate the downswing. The goal is to feel your left hip and glute "trace" the wall as they turn back and around. You must keep contact with the wall throughout the entire "swing."
* If you early extend, your rear end will come off the wall immediately. The feeling you want is one of rotating while keeping that butt-on-the-wall posture. This move creates room for your arms to swing down freely on the correct path.

Cause #4: Your Setup and Alignment are Off

Sometimes, the answer is simpler than you think. You might have a perfectly good golf swing, but you're just aiming it in the wrong direction. Many right-handed golfers have a tendency to aim their feet, hips, and shoulders to the right of the target. Then, they make a great swing directly down the line their body is pointing. The ball flies straight, but because the whole apparatus was aimed right, the result is a "push".

Go to any driving range and you'll see it: players think they're aimed at the center flag, but their body is actually pointed toward the right-hand corner of the range. After a few shots that go that way, they start making compensations in their swing to pull the ball back left, adding even more layers to the problem.

The Fix: Train with Alignment Sticks

Don't ever trust your eyes alone. A proper pre-shot routine that establishes alignment is your best friend.

• Lay one alignment stick on the ground, pointing directly at your target. This is your target line.
• Lay a second alignment stick down parallel to the first, just where your feet will go. This is your body line.
• When you practice, always set up with your clubface aligned to the target line stick, and your toes, knees, hips, and shoulders aligned parallel to the body line stick.
• It might feel weird at first - as if you're aiming left - but this process trains your body to recognize what square actually looks and feels like.

Final Thoughts

That weak golf shot drifting off to the right is usually telling you a story about your swing's sequence and path. Whether it's a stalled body rotation, early extension forcing your arms out, an overly in-to-out path, or simply your alignment, the root cause is almost always related to how your body is moving. By focusing on turning through the shot and maintaining your posture, you can fix the path and turn that weak push into a solid strike.

Troubleshooting these issues during a practice session or a round can feel like guesswork, trying one thing after another without really knowing what's going on. This is exactly why we built Caddie AI. When you're struggling on the course with a recurring miss, you can describe the shot you're hitting and get instant analysis on the most likely cause and, even better, a simple drill to work on. It's like having a top coach in your pocket, ready to take the uncertainty out of your game so you can play with more confidence.