Four Steps Toward Hitting the Golf Ball Straight

The key to playing good recreational golf is to hit the ball straight. Distance is fine, but hole in, hole out, straight is the goal. Hit into the fairway, and onto the green, and you can shoot lots of good scores.

Hitting straight is not easy. It takes dedicated practice to become a straight hitter. I want to give you four points to work on that will take you a long way in that direction. If you put these points into your swing, I guarantee good things will happen.

1. Grip. The main factor that governs the curve of the ball, either to the right or left, is your grip. We’re trying to hit a straight ball, one that does not curve, or curves minimally. If your hands are too much on top of the club, you will tend to slice. If they are too far under the club, you will tend to hook.

Go to the range and experiment with rotating your entire grip to different places. When the ball goes straight, with no curvature, that’s where you want to place your hands on the club.

2. Aim. You can’t hit the ball north if you’re facing east. Most of you aim to the slice side of the target. Here’s how to aim correctly. Stand behind the ball and imagine a line on the ground just in front of the ball, aimed at the target. Put the club down behind the ball so the grooves on the clubface are at a right angle to this line. Now turn your head to look at the target, and while you’re looking, step into your stance. That’s it.

To check your aim, take a practice swing and hold your finish. The place where you’re looking is the place where you’re aimed.

3. Backswing. Your backswing is too long. If you were to pound a nail into a board, you would take the hammer back only so far as you kept a sense of the hammer head and nail being “connected.” Do the same with the golf club. Take it back only so far as you feel the clubhead still “connected’ to the ball.

You might be surprised at how short this backswing is. It will, however, allow you to meet the ball with the center of the clubhead, which is the way you hit straight shots that go a long way.

4. Aim. In step 2, you aimed your body. Now you have to aim your swing. This means you must imagine that after the ball has been struck, the clubhead will chase down the ball-target line. It doesn’t really do that, but if you imagine it does, your clubhead will be going in that direction when it meets the ball, and that’s what counts.

Watch my YouTube video to see all this in action.