Stop Hooking Your Driver
GET A GRIP ON YOUR TEE SHOTS…
When you are hooking your driver the one thing you have to keep in mind is the clubface is CLOSED at impact. That is what a hook is, a golf ball with right to left spin on it. During this lesson you can not loose focus of what we are trying to accomplish. There are at least 10 reasons why you hook a tee shot. Today we are going to focus on two of them and yes they are related. GRIP and GRIP PRESSURE.
You have heard me say this before “the grip is the steering wheel of the golf swing”. It is the only part of your body that touches the club and it plays a hugh roll in what the clubface does throughout the entire swing. Not degress but let’s spend some time talking about how to grip the club correctly.
#1. The grip should feel like you have the club more in the fingers/palm of the left hand. The club rests against the bottom of the thumb. As you grip the club with the right hand it will naturally feel as thou you grip it more with the fingers and less with the palm. The bottom of the right thumb should cover the left thumb.
#2. Now let’s move on to what the grip should look like when you look down at it. When Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods look down they see the top of one knuckle of the left hand. The reason for this grip is to make sure the clubface is square at impact. The speed of their swing has the club head arriving at the golf ball quicker than you and I. However, if you are hooking your tee shots your grip should look more like theirs. There is one huge problem. When I teach slicers most of the time I have them move their grip further to the right. They fall in love with me in three swings. When you take a slicer and move their grip, it is usually the first time in their life that the clubface returns square. On the other hand: when I teach golfers who hook the golf ball I have to move their grip to the LEFT and they DO NOT fallen in love with me immediately. For that matter it might take a few months. The reason is simple, comfort. When you move your grip from the right to the left it feels as thou you can’t even swing the golf club back away from the golf ball.
#2. With that being said then next step is vitally important. The palms MUST face each other. You can not have the left hand over to the left and the right hand over to the right. When you look down you have to see no more than one knuckle of the left hand and then you have to place the right hand on the golf club matching the palm of the left. This is VERY uncomfortable for some time. It will work, I guarantee it.
#3. I have a theory, if it works I don’t care how uncomfortable I am, as long as it works. Let’s get right into the second reason. Grip pressure. For those of you that hook the golf ball keep this in mind. You are probably gripping the club in your left hand to LIGHLTY. I want you to grip the left hand twice as tight as you normally do. When you grip the club tighter in the left hand you will slow the toe down in the downswing and the golf ball will fly straighter.
There you have it. Weaken your grip and hold on tighter with the left. As soon as you stop the hook you start drawing the golf ball.
Join me tomorrow with a lesson on fat iron shots.
Golfingly yours,
Bobby
