by David Ireland

Created on: August 23, 2007

As I explained to my club pro when after twenty plus years of effecting a chronic but manageable slice on every shot. "Gerry, I really want to hit it straight". After hitting thirty or so balls, and don't you save some of the worst that you've ever hit for the pro's analysis? I went to watch the video.

"Not a lot wrong with this Dave" Gerry observed, not so much to my relief but to my utter amazement. "I think we'll just try to settle the left leg down a bit on the take-away and try to work on avoiding starting the body so early" then he added "you've got a bit of a loop at the top that makes you swing from outside to in."

Like training a dog to change the tone of his bark I thought as we re-visited the driving range. BUT lo and behold! There it was, the elusive straight ball and long. "Just keep working on that," Gerry offered as he made his way back to the pro-shop.

Over the next weeks, I hit bucket after bucket of balls with rarely a slice among them. A couple of re-enforcing lessons and I was on my way. I did notice however, that I was capable of hitting a DRAW! I can't tell you how pleased I was with myself.
After a while I could hit the draw on command, my handicap was coming down and even the putting was improving because I wasn't placing as much pressure on it.

What happened next was almost as dreaded as the shank! I started to hit the odd duck hook or snap hook or some other adjective hook depending upon how articulate you are.

Try as I might, the hook seemed to have become an integral part of my game, to the point that when there was trouble on the left, I was aiming so far right that a good shot would put me in a worse place than my old slice.

I resorted to consulting Gerry the pro again but of course, I couldn't replicate the hook for him. The real crunch came when I was having one of those rounds that you can dine out on for months. Eighteenth a longish, uphill right to left dogleg, out of bounds on the left. Not one but two hooked straight out and the third just in.

I was morose for weeks, analyzing everything, checking the take-away, fiddling with the stance and the grip then on my favorite par three, I achieved the awakening that I sought. I had hooked a nine iron left of the left trap and stomped off fuming with a five.

Why had I hooked the nine iron so badly? By every measure, everything seemed to be in my favor: wind was behind, I was hitting the club at about eighty percent, hands were light. I realized that for me, the major causes of the duck hook are twofold:

When trying to hit a "gentle" shot I often don't fully complete the back-swing which means that the body and hands want to work way to early. AND when I really want the draw I tend to work the club back on a plane that is too flat and this inhibits shoulder rotation and again causes the hands to become too busy.

Well, I still have the odd duck hook but at least I know what causes it for me. I am just an average fourteen handicapper and I'm sure that a more clinical analysis might show up many more issues in my swing of too many moving parts. One thing that I am confident of is that there are many average golfers out there who might benefit from my experience.

Happy golfing.

Learn more about this author, David Ireland.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.