Golf Coaching Lessons: Hook, slice, draw and fade
Unintentionally hooking or slicing the ball is a huge frustration for many golfers and one of the most common faults addressed during golf coaching lessons, but being able to shape the ball at will is a vital skill if you are to lower your score. Often you’ll find yourself in the situation where the hole you are playing dog-legs left or right and to be able to go at the green you will need to draw or fade the ball, or you may have gotten out of position and have something obstructing your line to the hole and you need to shape the ball around the obstruction.
Lets first look at what differentiates between a hook and draw, and a slice and a fade (I’ll be describing things from a right-handers perspective).
A hook is a pronounced right to left movement/swing of the golf ball caused by excessive side spin being placed on the golf ball. The flight of the ball often starts to the right of the target before swinging significantly to the left. A slice is the opposite of this. The ball starts at the target of to the left before swinging significantly to the right. A draw and fade is a milder, controlled form of hook and slice, with a small deviation of the ball to the left (draw) or right (fade). Generally speaking a draw adds extra run to the ball so is often desired on longer shots such as the drive, whilst the fade checks up quicker and is therefore more desirable when attacking the green.
A hook is caused by striking the ball with a closed face imparting anti-clockwise swing on the ball; whilst slicing is caused by striking the ball with an open face putting clockwise spin on the ball. The fade and draw are more moderate versions on the hook and slice.
The cause of the hook and slice is generally caused by poor golf grip. With a hook, the player will have a ’strong’ grip, whilst the slicer generally has a ‘weak’ grip. In a neutral grip, when holding the club at address, you should only be able to see two knuckles on your left hand; the strong grip you will be able to see three knuckles, whilst weak grip you’ll only see one knuckle on the left hand. So correcting this is often simply fixing your grip.
The aim of Golf Coaching Lessons is to provide handy, useful tips to fix these problems. Many golf instructionals will have complicated explanations for the golf grip, telling you to align your hands so that the ‘Vs’ point in specific directions. I find this confusing and subjective so here’s is my tip on how to easily establish a good golf grip.
The easiest way to get a neutral golf grip is start with the arms hanging naturally at your sides. You will notice the the hands naturally angle inwards. Keeping this natural position, now hold a golf club with the club resting naturally on the ground, in front of your hand (the club should be perpendicular to your body/aiming at the target and the club outside your front foot); i.e. you are now standing with your arms hanging naturally at your side, with a golf club in your hand, with the club resting naturally on the gound. This should feel pretty comfortable. If you were to now move the club (without changing your grip) to the address position, your left hand will be in the correct position.
For the right hand, place it on the club so that if your left and right hand were open, the palms would be facing each other. You can use which ever grip suits you, personally, I like the interlocked grip.
Hopefully now with a correct grip, your hook and/or slice will be a thing of the past.
Earlier, I mentioned that whilst a hook and slice are (generally) unwanted, a draw and fade are very useful and being able to each hit each at will will help take strokes off your score. As explained, in order to impart the necessary side-spin on the ball to hit a draw or fade, generally the grip will control this. However, I always think that having a correct golf grip is so fundamental, that I don’t like messing with it once I’ve got it right. You can still impart this side spin to the ball however, if you hit the ball from inside (draw), or outside (fade) the target line. Again, I’d rather not deliberately fiddle with how I take the club back, but there is an easy solution.
To hit a draw, set up as you normally would, with the club aiming at your target (remember you are trying to deliberately move the ball from right to left so you should be aiming to the right of the target). To promote an inside angle of attack, take a closed stance aim your feet to the right of where the club is pointing. Now swing away normally and you’ll hit the ball with a draw.
To hit a fade do exactly the opposite. Set up as normal,with the club head pointing at the target. Now open up your stance so the the feet are pointing to the left of your target. Take a normal golf swing and because your feet are aimed left, you will naturally hit the ball from outside the line, hitting the ball with fade spin.
I hope this helps, so until next time, happy golfing!
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