What Is the Heel of a Golf Club?

The heel of a golf club is the part of the clubhead right where the shaft enters, and making frequent contact with it can lead to some of the most frustrating shots in golf. Understanding what the heel is, why you're hitting your shots there, and how to fix it is a direct path to more solid strikes and greater confidence. This guide will walk you through the anatomy of your club, diagnose the common causes of heel shots, and give you practical drills to start finding the sweet spot again.

A Quick Anatomy Lesson: Heel, Hosel, and Toe

Before we can fix a problem, we need to speak the same language. When looking down at your iron, you’ll see a few distinct areas on the clubhead. Getting a handle on these parts is the first step.

• The Heel: This is the part of the clubhead closest to you. Specifically, it's the section of the face that sits right next to where the head connects to the Hosel. Think of it as the inner third of the clubface.
• The Hosel: This is one of the most important - and notorious - parts of a golf club. It’s the socket-like piece where the bottom of the shaft is glued into the clubhead. It’s cylindrical and sits right next to the heel. When you hear a golfer yell "shank!" they've just hit the ball on the rounded surface of the hosel, not the flat clubface.
• The Toe: This is the opposite end of the clubhead, the point furthest away from you. Shots hit on the toe often feel weak and can create some interesting slice spin.
• The Sweet Spot: This isn't a physical marking, but a location. It's the center of the clubface. When you hit the ball here, you get the maximum energy transfer, the best feel, and the straightest ball flight. Our goal is to train your swing to find this spot consistently.

The difference between the heel and the hosel is tiny but has massive implications. A shot slightly on the heel feels bad and loses distance. A shot on the hosel is a catastrophic miss, a "hosel rocket" or shank that shoots off nearly 90 degrees to the right (for a righty). Because these two parts are direct neighbors, the swing flaws that cause heeled shots are often the very same ones that lead to an occasional shank.

What Causes You to Hit the Heel?

Hitting the heel of the club isn't random, it's a direct result of the clubhead being further away from your body at impact than it was at address. Your body is a remarkable machine that will try to make contact with the ball, and if your swing path moves outwards, the heel or hosel is what gets presented to the ball. Here are the most common reasons why this happens.

1. Standing Too Close to the Ball

This is the simplest cause to check. If you set up with your hands and club too near your body, you leave yourself no room to swing. Your body will instinctively make space during the downswing by pushing the club outwards, putting the heel right in the line of fire. A good setup check is to hinge at your hips, let your arms hang straight down from your shoulders naturally, and grip the club there. If you have to reach or feel cramped, something is off.

2. "Over the Top" Swing Path

This is arguably the most common flaw in amateur golf. An "over the top" move is when your shoulders and arms initiate the downswing aggressively, pushing the club *outward* and away from your body, causing it to travel on a steep, out-to-in swing path. Imagine a plane of glass angled from the ball up through your shoulders. A good swing stays under that plane. An over-the-top swing breaks through the glass on the way down, putting the heel and hosel in a prime position to meet the ball.

3. Early Extension

If you've ever heard someone say you're “standing up” in your swing, they’re talking about early extension. This happens when your hips and pelvis, instead of rotating to open up for the club, thrust *towards* the golf ball during the downswing. This forward hip movement forces your hands and the club further away from your body, narrowing the space you created at address. The result? You're forced to make contact with the heel.

How to Stop Hitting the Heel (And Cure the Shanks)

Fixing heel strikes revolves around one core concept: training your swing to deliver the clubhead back to the ball along the same path it started. We need to create a feeling of the club swinging more from the inside and finding the center of the face. Here are some effective drills you can take to the driving range.

Drill #1: The Gateway Drill

This provides immediate, undeniable feedback on your swing path. It's fantastic for retraining your brain to deliver the club from the inside.

1. Set up to your golf ball as you normally would.
2. Place a headcover (or a water bottle, or another ball) just outside the toe of your clubhead, about an inch or two away.
3. Place a second headcover (or tee) just inside the heel of the clubhead, also about an inch or two away.
4. Your goal is to make a swing that hits the ball cleanly without striking either headcover.

If you have an over-the-top move, you'll immediately hit that outside headcover. If you bring the club too far from the inside and get "stuck," you might hit the inside object. This drill forces you to find the perfect path - the "gateway" - to the back of the golf ball.

Drill #2: Address the Toe

This is a mental and physical trick that can provide an instant fix on the course or at the range. It works by forcing you to adjust for your miss without overthinking it.

1. Take your normal setup to the ball.
2. Now, consciously address the ball toward the toe of your club. It will feel strange, as if you're setting up to miss the ball on the inside.
3. Take your normal swing.

For golfers who consistently produce heel shots, this one small adjustment naturally reroutes the club. Your subconscious will make a micro-correction and guide the club path just enough to the inside, often resulting in a perfectly flush, centered strike. If you find contact getting better, you know your tendency is to move the club outwards at impact.

Drill #3: The Wall and Rotate (Curing Early Extension)

Early extension is a habit that needs a specific feel to fix. This drill helps you learn what correct lower-body rotation feels like, instead of that destructive forward thrust.

1. Find a wall or a golf bag you can stand up.
2. Take your address position without a club, with your backside just barely touching the wall or bag.
3. Simulate your backswing. Your right glute (for a righty) should maintain or increase pressure on the wall.
4. Now simulate your downswing. The goal is to keep your backside in contact with the wall as your left glute rotates back and touches it.

If you extend early, your hips will immediately lunge forward, and you’ll lose contact with the wall. Practicing this motion creates the muscle memory for proper rotation, which keeps your posture and creates space for your arms and club to swing freely.

Final Thoughts

Pinpointing the heel of the club and knowing the swing faults that lead to hitting it are the first big steps toward improvement. By checking your setup and working on practical drills like the gateway, you can train your swing to stop moving outwards and start finding the sweet spot, leading to better ball striking and, honestly, a much more enjoyable experience on the course.

Sometimes, it’s tough to self-diagnose what's going wrong in the middle of a round. With all the swing thoughts in our heads, figuring out why that last shot went off the heel can feel impossible. That's why we built our app, Caddie AI. If you're on the course and struggling with shanks or heeled shots, you can snap a picture of your a ball and its surroundings and get immediate, actionable advice on what to feel or focus on to get your strike back on track. It guides you away from the big mistakes by giving you a clear adjustment, helping you find the center of the clubface right when you need it most.