Best Way to Draw and Fade Your Ball in Golf

This is an article for advanced golfers who, having learnt to hit the ball straight, can then learn to bend the ball slightly from left to right or right to left. The benefit of this is that if you understand how to bend the ball it also teaches you how not to bend the ball if having problems.

Drawing a drive

Being able to bend a ball from right to left with a driver will give you added distance. The ball should touch down and then kick forwards. A drive with any slice-spin will lack run. To draw the ball, tee it up as high as you dare and create the feeling of roundness as though hitting the hall from a side slope. With a ball above your feet you would play it somewhere just ahead of centre in the stance and not right opposite your left heel. Use the same approach with this shot. Hold the clubhead off the ground at address, clubshaft pointing to your navel. Don’t change the grip.

The idea is to bend the ball no more than 5 metres from right to left in the air so don’t over-compensate with the stance. As you move-through impact, allow the clubface to turn over very slightly. At the end of the swing feel your arms squash onto each other with the elbows staying as close together as possible. The feeling should be of the left elbow being under the right one. The followthrough may feel slightly restricted without the wrist loosening. This should allow the clubface to start turning over through and beyond impact. If this should develop into a hook, make the same feeling of hitting from low to high, turning the arms over but with height to the finish. Think of hitting slightly up and over like topspin with a racquet.

Fading a drive

On a narrow fairway, particularly without of bounds down the left, the correct shot for a good player is often to start the ball down the left of the fairway with a little bend from left to right. This may lose length but is a controlled shot that won’t run too far. Do just the opposite from drawing the drive. Tee the ball down lower. Stand taller. Give yourself the illusion of standing on a slope slightly above the ball from which you would feel that the ball would bend away to the right. You need to ensure that the hands don’t work too loosely or freely through impact. Put the right thumb straighter down the front of the club and press with it.

Through impact, keep the hips moving slightly early and quicker in relation to the hands and feel that the hands are a little slower and firmer. This should hold the clubface very slightly open and allow the ball to move 3 or 4 metres left to right. The key is the weight distribution and the feeling of standing above the ball.

Slicing round a tree

To create a big slice may require a change of grip. Keep your left hand well round to the left and the right hand well over. Open the clubface slightly at address and try to hold it open through impact. The key with this shot is to aim sufficiently far left. The ball may even start slightly right of your stance, so make sure you aim in the direction you intend to start the ball. The ball will also usually take up added height and lose length. The feeling of the swing should then be of swinging up and down, in an out-to-in direction, with quick hits and slow hands.

Hooking round a tree

To hook a ball round a tree, use a reasonably straight-faced club. Remember that loft kills side spin; if you take-too much loft, you can’t create the hook. Aim well to the right of your obstacle. Put the right hand very well underneath the club. Have two or three practice swings and feel the clubface turn right over through impact so that it is face down in your followthrough. Start the ball out to the right of your obstacle. It will often start left of your stance. Turn the clubface over through impact with a flat, round the body followthrough.