High To Low Hook Drill

Golf Monthly Top 25 Coach Ged Walters explains his high to low hook drill to help you straighten out your ball flight and hit more fairways

High to low hook drill checklist * Make sure only two knuckles are showing in your upper hand * Turn the right side of your chest to the target through impact * Feel like the club moves from high to low on the downswing

Watch: back to basics on the hook with GM Top 25 Coach Clive Tucker...

 1) Where most hooks come from The hook really hurts a lot of golfers whether from fairway or tee, and it often comes from an obsession with wanting to hit a draw – golf’s Holy Grail that we all dream of. But in our desire to hit the draw, we often go a bit too far and get the club travelling too much out towards the right-hand side, but with the clubface looking too much the other way.

It’s easy then to over-rotate the face through impact, and by the time you look up it’s veering away sharply left and you need to reload.

Watch: more hook causes and cures from GM Top 25 Coach Andrew Reynolds...

2) Check your torso It can be difficult to avoid the path being too much to the inside if your torso is tilted away from the target, so try to feel the right side of your chest turning towards the target through impact, so the positions of the centre of your shoulders and the centre of your hips don’t get too far apart.

3) High to low hook drill Ideally, you need to learn how to neutralise things such that you can still hit a draw, but with a swing that feels like it’s going to generate a massive slice or fade. You’ve got to take it to extremes the other way to then be able to control the shot and hit that little baby draw off the 1^st rather than hitting it OOB left.

I know it sounds strange, but bear with me on this and dedicate some practice to this new move. The feeling you really need to get from the top of the backswing is the clubhead forward of the hands, and moving from high, down across the body a bit, to low with the face holding its position pointing at the target.

You need to get the feeling that you’ve blocked it with the back of your lead hand before going through to your finish.

Watch: GM Top 25 Coach explains how to hit a draw shot in golf...

4) The grip holds the key The reason I want you to do this is that a lot of hookers have a super-strong grip, with the right-hand tucked underneath the club because they want to get the face to rotate.

I want you to actually weaken that hand off – I want to see two knuckles in the upper hand, so the back of the lead hand mirrors the clubface much more. The feeling that the back of the hand is then blocking towards the target at impact means the hands can’t then over-release.

If you can get the feeling of clubhead forward of the hands from the high to low hook drill, then you definitely won’t hit the golf ball left!