Why Do You Pull Golf Shots?

Nothing can be more frustrating than hitting a perfect feeling shot, only to look up and see it soaring directly left of your target. A pulled shot isn't a slice or a hook, it's a straight-line error that sends the ball offline from the very start. This article will break down exactly why you pull golf shots, from simple setup mistakes to bigger issues in your swing's sequence. Most importantly, we'll give you clear, actionable drills to get your ball flying toward the pin again.

First, What Exactly Is a Pulled Shot?

Before we can fix it, we have to be sure we understand the problem. For a right-handed golfer, a pulled shot is one that starts left of the target line and flies relatively straight on that incorrect starting line. A pull-hook is a little different - it starts left and then curves even more left. The nemesis of most amatuer golfers, the slice, is the opposite, a ball that curves sharply from left to right. Your pulled shot is a simpler miss, but just as damaging to your score.

What’s happening at impact to cause this? A pulled shot is the product of two specific factors working together:

1. Your club path is moving "outside-to-in." This is the big one. Instead of the club approaching the ball from the inside and moving out towards the target, it's swinging across the target line from the outside. Think of it as a cutting motion across the ball.
2. Your clubface is square (or closed) to that out-to-in path. This is why the ball flies straight on a leftward line. At the moment of impact, your clubface is pointing left of the target. Because the face angle is matching your swing path, an outside-to-in path just produces a straight shot - just in the wrong direction.

Essentially, your entire swing has been re-routed left of your target. Our job is to figure out why and get it straightened out.

The Main Cause: An "Over-the-Top" Swing Path

The term most golfers use for an outside-to-in path is "coming over the top." It’s an accurate description. This happens when the downswing is initiated impatiently by the upper body - the shoulders, arms, and hands - instead of the lower body.

Imagine your backswing finishes with your hands up and behind your right shoulder. An "over-the-top" move is when your first move down is to throw your right shoulder and hands outward, toward the ball. This forces the club onto a steep, downward, out-to-in path. You’re essentially chopping down on the ball rather than sweeping it away with a rotational swing.

The correct feeling should be that the club "drops" onto a path from the inside as your lower body begins to unwind. When the shoulders dominate, that inside path gets cut off, and your only option is to chop across the ball. Think of throwing a baseball. You'd never start the throw with just your arm leading the way. Your hips would rotate first, creating power that works its way up your body and finally to your arm. The golf swing works the same way - when it's out of order, you run into problems like the pull.

Dissecting the Root Causes: Let's Check Your Fundamentals

An over-the-top move is a symptom. The real causes are often found in your setup and your basic understanding of the swing sequence. Let’s look at the most common culprits.

1. Your Alignment is Misleading You

This is probably the most common and overlooked cause of a pull. Many golfers who fight an over-the-top swing are actually aiming their body far to the right of the target. Why? Usually, it's a leftover compensation from the days they used to slice the ball. To account for a slice, they'd aim their whole body left.

Now, let's say you're doing the opposite. If your feet, hips, and shoulders are aimed far to the right, your brain knows your target is actually to the left. So, to get the club squared up and moving towards the target, it forces an over-the-top move to desperately "pull" the shot back online. It’s a compensation that has become part of your swing.

How to Check It: The Railroad Track Test

Lay two alignment sticks (or golf clubs) on the ground.

• Place the outside stick so it's pointing directly at your target. This is your ball-to-target line.
• Place the inside stick parallel to the first one, where your feet will go. This is your body line.

When you take your stance, your toes, knees, hips, and shoulders should all be parallel to the target line, not pointing at the target. This feel is very foreign to golfers who are used to aiming their body to the right. Getting truly square is the first step to eliminating the need for any in-swing compensations.

2. Your Ball Position is Incorrect

The golf swing is an arc. As your club moves through the impact zone, it travels from inside, to square, an then back to the inside. a "P" on its side. If your ball position is too far forward in your stance for the club you're hitting, you are asking to pull it. By the time the club reaches the ball, it's already on the "back-to-the-inside" part of the arc. An out-to-in path is the only way to to find impact.

For an iron shot, a ball that's even an inch or two ahead of center can dramatically change your path. Your body will feel this and make an adjustment by lunging forward to try and reach the ball, contributing to that over-the-top move.

How to Correct It: Simple Guidelines

• Wedges to 8-iron: Place the ball directly in the center of your stance, right underneath the buttons on your shirt.
• 7-iron to 5-iron: Move the ball about an inch forward of center.
• Hybrids and Fairway Woods: Position the ball about two to three inches inside your front heel.
• Driver: Place the ball off the inside of your lead heel.

Having a consistent and correct ball position for each type of club sets the foundation for a repeatable, on-plane swing.

3. The Engine is Firing in the Wrong Order

Your golf swing gets its power from the ground up. The feeling of a powerful, efficient downswing starts with a shift in pressure to your lead foot, followed by the unwinding of your hips. This rotation pulls your torso around, which in turn pulls your arms and the club down into the "slot" on an inside path.

A pull happens when that sequence is reversed. The golfer gets to the top of the swing and their first thought is "hit the ball!" This triggers the hands and shoulders to fire first, throwing the club out and over the proper swing plane. Pull golfers almost never "shallow" the club correctly in the transition from backswing to downswing. They skip that whole chain of events by simply throwing their hands out on whatever path will eventually make contact with the ball, out of a sheer desire to hit HARD.

You have to learn to be patient in the transition. The lower body's rotation needs a fraction of a second to start the unwinding process and create that inside path. If you rush it, your upper body will always win - and you'll always pull it.

Actionable Drills to Stop Pulling Shots

Understanding the "why" is important, but true change happens on the range. Here are three simple drills designed to retrain your swing and promote a natural inside-out path.

Drill 1: The Headcover Blocker

This is the most direct way to get instant feedback on your club path.

1. Set up to a ball on the driving range as you normally would.
2. Take your driver headcover (or a towel, or even an empty range basket turned on its side) and place it on the ground about six inches outside and six inches behind your ball.
3. Now, try to hit the ball a few times with a 7 iron at about 70 percent effort.

If you're making an over-the-top, outside-in swing, you will strike the headcover on your downswing. The goal is to swing without fear of hitting it. To do that, your body will have to learn an alternate path into the ball - one where you feel your hands and the clubhead "drop" down behind you and approach the ball from the inside. This drill provides an excellent visualization to feel this move we would otherwise talk about conceptually about "shallowing" the club.

Drill 2: The Feet-Together Drill

This drill is exceptional for fixing your rotational sequence and overall balance. An aggressive lunge from your upper body is nearly impossible when your core is forced to be stable in this way you are required to be with a very narrow stance.

1. Take a short iron like an 8-iron or 9-iron and address the a teed-up ball up with your feet touching each other.
2. Take smooth, easy half-swings focusing on making solid contact.

With such a narrow base, you’ll be incredibly unstable. You simply cannot make a violent lunge with your shoulders without falling over - you will be almost forced to to rotate your body in a balanced, centered way. It synchronizes your arms and body to work together as a single unit and stops you rush from the top that is typical of higher handicap players afflicted by 'over the top" swing flaws with this feel. It teaches your body the sensation of quiet efficiency over brute force.

Drill 3: The Step Drill

This is for our Kinesthetic learners. If you have been pulling shots for a while, its helpful feel a physically exagerrated move that will force your bad habits out of you forever because it's impossible to continue with the mistakes with some of these movements. This classic sequencing drill is fantasic at training the feel fo this by perfectly ingraining the "ground-up" downswing motion.

1. Start with your feet together, holding a mid-iron.
2. As you make your backswing, take a small step forward toward the target with your lead foot (your left foot for a right-handed player), planting it around what would be your normal stance width by the time you reach the top.
3. From there, push off that planted lead foot and swing through.

The act of stepping forward ensures your lower body initiates the downswing. You learn to connect to the ground and start the unwind with your left 'hip bump', as some players all it. If your upper body were to fire first, your sequence would be completely jumbled and you’d have zero power or balance. It's a fantastic drill for feeling the right 'flow" from backswing, to 'transition', into a powerful strike delivered at the apex of all this kinetic energy to your body is providing.

Final Thoughts

A pulled golf shot is almost always the result of a chain reaction that starts with a flawed idea of your setup or body is trying to make a big swing in a poor sequence, and creating an out-to-in swing path. By checking your alignment and ball position, paying more attention in our transition in your golf swing from backsing to the forward delivery, you will train feel of the real cause for your bad shots, so that we can ultimately get to the root of the problem once and for all.

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