How to drive straight!!!

[cuttingstrokes]

I have been golfing for about three months now and have finally learned to consistantly make contact with the ball. My problem is a bad right hook. How can I correct this and drive staright down the fairway. I'm getting good distance, but that doesn't help when it ends up either in the trees or another fairway

[snowman]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

Are you left or right-handed? If you are right-handed then a curve ball to the right is actually a slice and not a hook. Do a search for "slice" or "out-to-in" and you'll find a bunch of suggestions.

[cuttingstrokes]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

Thanks man, I'll do that. I am right handed

[snowman]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

Most slices occur from out-to-in (i.e. outside the target line to inside the target line) swings, cutting across the ball and imparting unwanted slice spin. An open clubface can also be a source of this problem. I would tackle the clubhead path first and try to swing along an in-to-out path. There is a good drill called the "three ball drill" that is mentioned in another recent thread.

http://www.golf-tuition-online.com/g...-one-many.html

Briefly, you place your ball on a tee and then place another two balls, one 10in behind you ball and 3in outside your target line and the other 10in infront of your ball and 3in inside the target line. Now address the ball on the tee and try to swing along an in-to-out path, if you hit either of the two other balls you are swinging out-to-in.

If you manage an in-to-out swing and the ball goes straight-right then your clubface is open to the target line (and square to your path) and you are pushing the ball. Simply strengthen your grip by turning both hands (and not the club) slightly to the right.

Have fun

Snowman

[TourPro]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

Good advice from snowman. I would also check your club head during take away and at the top of your swing. Many golfers allow the clubface to rotate open on the backswing making it very difficult to square it again through impact. This is easy to check in a mirror by standing sideways and slowly taking the club back. Check for a square clubface at the mid point when your club is parallel to the ground the again at the top of your backswing. Practice this along with the drill snowman mentioned above and you should be able to straighten out you shots.

[lgskywalker37]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

Good advice from snowman. I would also check your club head during take away and at the top of your swing. Many golfers allow the clubface to rotate open on the backswing making it very difficult to square it again through impact. This is easy to check in a mirror by standing sideways and slowly taking the club back. Check for a square clubface at the mid point when your club is parallel to the ground the again at the top of your backswing. Practice this along with the drill snowman mentioned above and you should be able to straighten out you shots.

not sure withour seeing your swing, but one thing that might help you not fan the club open at adress is to have your first move be the cuping of the right wrist. and you want to hold that cup through impact

theese drills might help http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/GolfLessons.htm look at the impact drill and the right hand drill.....and the 9laws

keeping the cup through impact will give your dead strait shots if done coerrectly

[msklar92]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

1) have someone make sure you have a proper grip
2) aim for the inside quarter of the ball. you are hitting the ball on the outside quarter.

[lgskywalker37]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

not sure who gave the the bad repetation mark on that post i gave for "too much cutting and pasting". But i don't have all day to post replies and i do my best to help people based on what helped me. I do what i can while i can. And I think people should look at previuos post becuaes they will usually find a answer to their problem if they did. The reason i cut and paste is because i don not have all day to type something out over and over again especially whien it has already been said so well before. If someone gives me good advise i am not going to pass it off as my own work, i am going to refer you to thier advise, which helped me and i thought that would help you

maybe i give a lot of the same advise, but that is because it works for a lot of people. i don't like to give band-aid fixes, i like to fix the whole method of the swing and fix future problems in that process. not only will that link i posted fix your problem and give you great accuracy if done correctly, but it will also give a ton more power and fix most other problems you have.

[1stDownRBrown]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

hey man I'm the same experience level as you with the same problem.

The biggest thing that has helped me is the concept of Rhythm/Tempo. Leadbetter recommends two drills for improving tempo of your swing. The first is to take a club and switch ends, practice swinging your driver holding onto the clubhead end and "swishing" the grip end like you were hiting something. The other he recommends (at least in the book i have) is kind of like doing a little dance, picking up your left leg during the backswing, then stepping forward on the downswing. Personally I've done the first one some, a little help nothing magical. haven't really done the second one, i'll have to remember to try it next time I'm out on the range.. alone..haha. But I mean, you know what smoothness is as much as anyone else.. if you do a real slow and methodical backswing and then let loose with everything you got on the downswing like I did you might want to try speeding up your backswing a tad and slowing down your downswing a bunch to create a nice controlled flow, it has really helped me.

[davy999]

Re: How to drive straight!!!

I saw somewhere online a few weeks ago ( maybe on this site ) a small video clip to improve swing, and I followed it and it changed my game drastically.
I have only been playing since about April and my game was near pathetic ( I suppose it is how we all start ) I was getting no distance and I was slicing the ball so much it thought it was made of salami !!

The lesson said to put a tee in the normal position, put another in front of the tee and behind at approximately arms length from the tee, so that you end with 3 tees in the ground.
Another tee is then inserted into the end of the club out of the handle end so that it points at you when you address the ball.
The practicing was to swing the club 3/4 of the way back so that the club was pointing straight up and your arms parrallel to the ground and then swing 3/4 of the way forward so that the club is again straight up and arms parralel to the ground.
When you swing what you are trying to do is to aim the tee in the club against the furthest back tee on the ground at the height of your backswing, then swing through past the middle tee ( don't put a ball on for now ) and on the end of your stroke make the tee point down to the front tee.
This exercise seemed to help me hold the club further away from me during the backswing and follow through which I believe stopped me from bringing the club towards my body during backswing and then fish it about anywhere during the actual impact.
This also made me release my wrists and use my wrists / arms to accelerate the club head during impact rather than using every muscle in my body which was forcing my body to sway and my arms to flap about aimlessley during the stroke.
My club head speed increased massively immediately and "most" of my tee shots went much much straighter with only the occasional slice, which has not been anywhere near as terrible a it used to be.
I now have much better accuracy down the fairway and so much more distance and I believe that this drill was a major part of a sudden change in my game, it seems to suddenly be simpler as the club travel and body motion is much more controlled, and without having to overstress most muscles to try to smack the ball down the fairway it was so much easier and comfortable to play.
I feel I flick the ball off the tee rather than trying to murder it into submission and it feels so much better.
I am a very new golfer so maybe this increase is short lived but I would recommend you try this drill and see if it can help you too.

Dave