Instruction
How to hit big hooks and slices (on purpose)
For as long as I can remember, my buddies and I would go to the practice tee, get bored quickly, and end up seeing who could curve the ball the most with whatever club we were hitting. While some people dismiss this as wasting valuable practice time, I say it’s just the opposite. Doing so helps golfers understand how to curve the ball and how to change their mechanics in order to do so.
With Trackman, we now know that the ball begins mostly in the direction of the club face at impact and curves away from the path with a centered hit. This is one of the major keys you must remember if you want to curve it and have it actually end up in play.
In order to illustrate the correct way to curve the ball, I hit my stock shot, a left-to-right fade, on Trackman. You can see the results below.
As we examine the data, you can see that my face angle was -0.8 degrees left of my target at impact and the ball launched -1.5 degrees left as well. I wanted the shot to curve back to the pin, so I made sure my path was more left than my face at impact. As you can see, my path was 2.7 degrees left of my club face, and because of this my ball curved back to the right, which is what I like to see.
Now back to curving the ball as much as you can. Here are the keys:
1. Club head speed: Without speed, it’s tougher to curve the golf ball. That’s the reason your grandmother hasn’t missed a fairway since 1972. This does not mean that you can’t curve it if you don’t have a lot of speed, but if you don’t you must use more club to help make up for this fact.
Why? See the second key below.
2. Use a lower-lofted club: Using a lower-lofted club makes curving the ball easier, because it reduces something called spin loft. To understand this, you must understand what spin loft is and what it does does.
Spin loft is the difference between the angle of attack and the dynamic loft of the club at impact. Think of this angle like an ice cream cone with the point as the ball and the actual “cone” part as the vectors of attack angle (bottom of the cone) and dynamic loft (top of the cone). The wider the cone is, the less the ball will curve and vice-versa. So in order to make the ball curve more, you must do one of two things:
- Reduce spin loft to make the cone smaller.
- Increase the face-to-path relationship.
3. A bigger face-to-path ratio, coupled with a lower spin loft: This allows for what’s called the “D-plane” to tilt more aggressively, creating more curvature.
Remember that ice cream cone? As spin loft decreases, the cone gets smaller at the target end, which means that a 1-degree difference in face-to-path will curve the ball more than it would if the cone was larger. This happens because whe spin loft decreases, it tilts the axis of the golf ball more aggressively. So more loft reduces the maximum amount of curvature possible with the same face-to-path relationship. That’s the reason why your driver slices more than your wedges, all other things being equal.
4. A proper starting direction: What good is curving the ball if you don’t begin the ball on the right line? Too many players focus only on curvature and forget about starting direction. It leads to many players short siding themselves, making up-and-downs more difficult.
Golfers used to be taught to aim their body in the direction they wanted the ball to start, and then aim their club face where they wanted the ball to finish when they wanted to curve the ball. So what happens if you try to hit Mr. Big Ol’ Curve the old way without monitoring your starting direction?
In the Trackman screenshot above, I aligned my body to the right of my target and aimed my face at the pin. Here’s what happened:
- My path was 1.1 degrees from inside to outside, yet my ball started left of the target before curving away from it.
- You can see that my ball launched -1.8 degrees left of my target because my face was pointing well left of the target during impact (-2.6 degrees).
- So the -3.7 face-to-path ratio caused the ball to curve, but it didn’t start in the correct direction, so I would have missed the green well left.
So how can golfers ensure that when they hit the big curveball their shots begin where they’d like? Simply go to the practice facility and set up a bucket directly in line between the ball and the pin and practice curving the ball around the bucket. Curving shots around any object, imaginary or real, will help you understand the feel you need to create big slices and hooks. If you’re using a real object, just make sure it’s safe (and affordable) to hit it!
To hit the hook shot pictured, golfers will need to aim their body to the right as shown by the sticks on the ground to some degree (keep in mind that golfers need different amounts because of their club head speed and other factors), as this helps to shift the players’ path farther right, while helping to widen the face-to-path relationship. But make sure your face is square to your alignments as shown above.
Why?
Golfers need to begin the ball RIGHT of their target, in this case, before hooking the ball back toward the pin. What I have found is that this position helps people to “feel” like they can release the club through impact to hook the ball without the it moving too far to the left from the start.
The key is to make sure that your club face, at impact, is a few degrees right of the bucket and the path is way out into right field. As the gap widens between your face and path, the ball will curve progressively more.
Enjoy hitting the big curves and don’t be scared to practice like a kid again!
There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” on RG.org each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more Tips!
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