Pull or Hook

[Rowen]

So I've managed to cure my dreaded run of the good ol shank and been working on my iron play.

While I believe I have a fair enough understanding of ball flight to understand the my problem, it seems that my problem sits between a hook and pull ( BUT I could be totally wrong). Let me explain

At address, I feel that I'm fairly squared at the target, depending on my intended approach, but most of the time I feel pretty squared up for a straight approach shot.

For the life of me, the ball goes left, its doesn't start of straight and then peel to the left, neither does it shoot of very sharply to the left with indicates pull?. It just goes left in a straight line, looking at the postion after the swing, I'm facing exactly where the ball went, left! and offline my target line.

Strange enough it seems to be with all my irons, just not my shorter ones, I tend to get my 5 / 4 iron straighter but anything up tends to shoot left of the target.

I tried moving the ball further back in my stance, making sure the club isn't slightly closed at impact, even tried placing a marker just in front of the ball to help me swing towards the target...hmmmmmm hasn't helped!

any idea's?

[8.5_Drive]

I struggle with this too.. It may not be PGA certified advice, but to get rid of it i started clearing my hips earlyer.

like a baseball swing, rotate hips earlyer and let the club swing through

[alf174]

What happens if you open your stance and club face just a little bit?

[Rowen]

What happens if you open your stance and club face just a little bit?

Haven't tried that! will let you know on Thursday after the range

[Zeph]

First of all, check your alignment, what you "feel" is no guarantee for being correct.

Either way, if the ball goes straight left, you are swinging over the top with a closed clubface. If the clubface was square at impact, the ball would fade/slice to the right. If it was between your pull and square somewhere, it could start left and fade back to the target. I would suggest you try getting rid of the over the top swingpath.

A video is always useful, if you are able to get one.

[RubxQub]

On a related note, if your shot pattern is that of a draw, are there any tips or drills that one can go through to figure out how far to the right you should aim your body?

My shot pattern has recently changed from a straight to right shaped cone to a straight to left shaped cone, and I'm having trouble gauging (or maybe controlling) just how much draw I'm going to put on the ball. I used to try and shoot straight shots, so I'd always aim straight, but knowing that I'm trying to hit a draw, I need to figure out how much to open up my stance.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Zeph]

Open your stance, hit a shot.

Repeat if necessary.

[RubxQub]

Open your stance, hit a shot.

I had a feeling that was going to be the answer :)

Since I'm new to the draw pattern in general, I suspect my issue is more controlling how much draw I actually put on the ball, which is leading to me having a harder time anticipating how open my stance needs to be. Probably need to work more on creating a repeatable draw pattern than trying to open/close my stance to accomodate for the shot I think I'm about to hit.

[Zeph]

Or rather, close the stance (aim right).

Hit a bunch of shots with a square alignment and see how much the ball draws. You can change the amount of draw by opening the clubface.

[Deryck Griffith]

It is hard to give a legitimate response to your question without a video so a quick band-aid suggestion would be to open the club face when you address the ball. Hopefully the face will return square to the ball vs. closed giving you a fade flight with the path that the club is coming through with.

[alf174]

......

Kinda what i was leading up to.