Duck hook can sound like a funny term for someone who is new to golf or someone who does not follow or play golf, but to those of us who do play, duck hook is a real pain in the butt. Duck hook is the term for a shot that hooks (hence the name) left of your intended target if you are a right-handed golfer, and vice versa. It doesn’t sound so bad, but it can cause problems with your score, your ball will go off course and even land in some difficult terrain to get yourself back into the game. Luckily, solving your duck hook issue with your swing is not the worst situation you can be in! In fact, many experts believe that addressing duck hook in your swing is the last barrier before a well rounded swinging technique.
With that being said, here are the causes of duck hook and how you can fix it.
Causes of Duck Hook
Since we’re trying to fix a duck hook, we might as well start off talking about how it is caused. There are two primary reasons why duck hook happens, and they’re both easy to spot. The first cause of duck hook is that your golf clubs face (or head) is closed at impact, and your swing path is aimed inwards. This means that the club face is forcing the ball inside causing it to veer off a straight path. For reference, an open clubface would do the opposite, and square is a dead-center hit. The second cause is that the clubface is very/extremely closed at impact and the swing path is too far inside or too far outside. This will cause what most people refer to as a hooked shot, which is the ball curving outside.
Adjust your grip
Alright, now that we know the causes for duck hook, we can start figuring out how to fix it. The first thing you should consider is how you are gripping the club. While this seems like such a small part of your overall swing, how you are gripping the club will determine how much power and accuracy you can generate. Turning your hand around the grip so you can see your knuckles from your non-dominant hand, and forming a V shape between your thumb and index that points towards you is a good Duck Hook Strategy that will help your swing. Handling the club is your first step towards an improved shot!
Stance and foot position
Stance and foot position is the second aspect of improving your shot and avoiding duck hook. While accuracy comes from your grip, and a little bit of power too, your stance is where most of the impact will come from. Golf is similar to baseball in the sense that your strength goes from the feet to hips to shoulders.
By now you probably know how you like to stand with some bend to your knees and crouching with your hips. The next part is your foot stance. Try lining up your foot that corresponds with your non-dominant hand, to the ball, and turn your other foot at a 45-degree angle. This will help you force your body to square up to the ball so that it doesn’t do the closing in our out with the club that causes the ball to curve too much inside or outside on your shot. People are often surprised at how much difference a simple turn of the foot can be when correcting a shot.
Ball position
As a last little bit of advice, try considering how far away you place the ball when you put it on the tee. This relates a lot to foot placement and stance, but sometimes just putting the ball slightly farther or closer can alter how your club will make contact with it. Remember the feet position that helps, but test out whether extending your arms helps you avoid hooking it inside and vice versa.
While duck hook can be an annoying problem to encounter when it comes to your golf game, it’s a really easy problem to fix. Consider some of the ways you have been hitting the ball. What your stance is like, how your feet face, and the grip you use in your club. Just by adjusting a few of these common parts of your game, you can avoid the issue of duck hook on your swing.
