Hi, I'm Johnny Miles, head golf professional at the Lake Powell National Golf Course in Page, Arizona. And I'm going to show you how to cure your hook. Now, you've probably heard about the Happy Hooker, well, there aren't any in golf. When you start hooking a ball, that means it's going to curve violently to the left. We're not talking about a draw, we're talking about a hook. And trust me, on almost every golf course, there's not many good things left to the fairway. Now, first thing you have to realize is that, when you hook a golf ball. The club face is closed in the impact area. Which means that it's going to impart a spin, that makes the ball curve to the left. The more close it is, the more violent the shot becomes. When I'm working with my pupils, I do two things right off the back. First thing, I check their grip. If their grip is too strong, which means it's curved way over to the right. That means that the club face is going to rotate shut, so quickly. That the ball is going to hook to the left. So, what I do is, I take their grip, I put it in their fingers, and I weaken it. I rotate it back to the left, so it's a little bit more neutral. Again, I take the right hand and I mold it to the left, so they work as a unit. If the hands don't work as a unit, again, you're in trouble. I see a lot of players get the left hand, on right. And then, they get the right hand underneath. And again, that helps the club face rotate too quickly, again, you're going to hit hooks. So, weaken the left hand, mold the right hand to the left hand. Just like this, you're going to hit the ball a little straighter. The second thing is, I check their ball position. And to give you an example, if the ball is too far forward, the club head is going to be going to inside and closing. And you're going to hit a violent pull hook. By the same token, if the ball's too far back in your stance and the grip's too strong and it's closing. You're going to hit, what is more known as a push hook. That's really no much, it's not much better than a pull hook, o.k. So, I like to see a little bit more neutral grip, for the person who hooks, and I like to see a little bit more neutral ball position. Now, after we've accomplished those two things, the grip and the ball position. I actually show my players, how to keep the club face square and not closing. See, for a lot of really good players. What happens is, they setup and then, when they swing the club back, they close the club face. So they've hooked the golf ball and they're only halfway into their back swing. Now, watch, if I setup here, that's square, that's square. So for the hooker, after I've adjusted the grip and adjusted the ball position. We work on getting the club toe-up right there. Now, it's square to my target. So, if I have the right grip, right ball position and my club head is square, right here. The odds are, I'm not going to hook it, I might hit a slide draw, I might hit a slide fade or I might hit a dead-straight. But I'm not going to hit that violent shot to the left. Because remember, there are no happy hookers in golf, I'm Johnny Miles.
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