Drills to Stop Hooking the Golf Ball

By Ben Jarratt •  Updated: 07/14/23 •  6 min read

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links. If you buy anything through these links I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Becoming consistent can be difficult when you are always hooking the golf ball. Hooking is a shot that will make it harder for you to hit your golf ball into the fairway consistently. Learning how to stop hooking the ball takes time and lots of practice, but some drills can help ease this process for you. In this article, we will talk about what drills to stop hooking the golf ball. 

4 Reasons You’re Hooking Golf Balls

drills to stop hooking the golf ball - Reasons You're Hooking Golf Balls

1. You’re taking your eyes off of the ball  

You need to keep your eyes on the golf ball for as long as possible to establish a good address position with the correct stance. 

Keeping your head down and not looking at the ball will lead you to have a steep angle of attack, which will make you try and slice into a hooked shot. 

Looking at the wrong time can cause this problem too because it may be harder to make solid contact with the ball when you look late.

2. You don’t know where to swing through for better results 

Your path should line up so that your clubface strikes right around your hands through impact, but if it is too narrow or open, then you will hook every shot until you make contact in the correct place and swing through properly. 

3. Your weight is out of position in relation to the golf ball

Drills to Stop Hooking the Golf Ball - weight is out of position

If you are leaning too far forward, then this will make you try to hook your shot, and if you’re leaning back too much, then this will cause a slice or pull as well. 

Make sure that your weight is centered between your feet so that you strike it cleanly every time. Otherwise, this could continue for a while before you figure out what’s going on.

4. You mis-hit the golf ball 

If your clubface isn’t opening up enough at impact with a hook because there won’t be any spin put onto the ball, making it curve off to the side towards which way you’re facing.

Drills to Stop Hooking the Golf Ball

man doing drills

Rotate your hands

This drill will help you control the rotation of your hands throughout the swing.

Hooking golf balls commonly occurs from a swing path that is too focused on to outline. This means that your hands will want to rotate the club more than your body swing, causing the clubface to open and therefore hook the ball towards the outside of your target.

Take a few swings with regular grip, then move your entire bottom hand so that it’s pointing at an angle similar to that of an overhand baseball bat or bowler hatchet, or have your right forearm pointing straight up from your elbow. Now take a few more swings. 

You should feel this drill is rotating your hands less at impact if you do it correctly because of that slight offset between them and the angle they are on when you strike. 

Leading with hips

This drill will help you stop hooking the golf ball because it will basically turn your body into a slingshot, which is what many people do incorrectly when trying to figure out how to stop hooking.

The correct way to use your hips is to thrust them forward at impact with each and every swing. This will not only help give you more of an advantage for gaining speed, but it will also help add some stability as well. 

It’s very easy for you to sway off-balance if you don’t know how to use your hips correctly because they’re so flexible, so try this drill if that often happens for you. You’ll really feel your hips helping stabilize things after just a couple of repetitions of this drill!

Top hand lead

This drill will also help you stop hooking the golf ball. Putting too much emphasis on your top hand eventually leads to an open face at impact, which then enables it to kick in and cause a severe hook. 

Spend some time before your next practice session, working on stepping up with your left foot instead, taking longer back-swing strides, and using more power from hips than arms while you 

This can lead to other problems such as slicing or pulling, so take this into account when trying to get out of a bad groove in order to conquer your nerves! Swing down through the ball.

It may be difficult for some people to take their heels off the ground during swings, but keep trying this drill until it becomes easier. It will help you get a better feel for the proper way to swing, and it can also help you stop hooking the golf ball!

As an added bonus tip, try to widen your stance into a full-facing position by straightening out each foot as far behind you as possible so that you’re not just in between them while swinging through. 

This drill is helpful because it allows more weight to be distributed from rear foot to front at impact, which helps make putting easier and swing smoother overall. Another boost of confidence comes from knowing that you are less likely to hook the ball this way as well!

Grip down

When trying to control erratic shots such as hooks or slices, it’s always good to grip down on the handle just a little bit until you feel like you’re in control of your golf swing again. You will feel the club rotating in your hands, but once you get used to it, try going back to regular form and see if this helps at all.

Swing path

So long as your swing path is in a good position, you will hit the ball accurately. A proper swing path will be straight back and through without any deviations from the inside or outside the target line.

 If you are bending your wrist too much, this could cause hooks and slices because it takes away a little bit of power and makes it harder to make solid contact with the golf ball. 

The same goes for if you’re making too big of an arc around your body; once again, you’ll lose some power which not only means that you won’t be hitting it as far but also that there’s less chance that it will curve towards the direction where you want to go.

Drills to Stop Hooking The Golf Ball – Conclusion

These are just a few drills to stop hooking the golf ball that you can learn.

But there are practice options available that can help turn a hook into a fade or vice versa, so don’t think that there’s no way out of hitting off-line shots. 

There are plenty of ways to make corrections until you get the hang of things, and staying focused is more important than anything else. Practice makes perfect.

Keep Reading