It makes sense to learn how to shape your shots as your skill levels improve and you strike your golf ball consistently. It enhances your control over every shot and enables you to maneuver out of sticky situations. In this post, I explain how to hit a draw in golf.
Learning how to play this shot often helped me escape sticky situations on the golf course. As a right-handed golfer, it helped when I could generate right to left movement and shape my ball around a tree. Or, on one occasion, a mobile phone tower.
Besides teaching you how to play the shot, I have also provided tips and drills to help you develop a consistent draw.
What Is A Draw In Golf?
A draw occurs when your ball starts right of your target and gently curves back. Obviously, if you are a left-hander, your golf ball begins left of the target and softly shapes back towards the intended mark.
How To Induce Draw Ball Flight
The most important part of inducing draw ball flight is ensuring that your club face is closed to the swing path through impact. That prompts the club face to produce right to left spin for right-handers, leading to a draw.
However, I have provided 5 steps below to give you the best chance of positioning your club face for a solid impact.
One point to keep in mind is your equipment. Those using game improvement clubs may struggle to generate sufficient side spin required for a draw. These drivers and irons are typically offset and combat sidespin. But, they are highly forgiving and consistent for mid and high handicappers.
Step 1 – Aim Right Of Your Target Line
The first step for right-handed players to hit a draw is to aim right of their target line. Lefties need to aim to the left of their bullseye. This position encourages an outward downswing path and prompts the required spin accounts for an intended draw.
You can place a club at your feet to help you ensure that you are aiming to the right of your intended mark. However, a more effective approach is to use alignment sticks.
Setup two alignment sticks. The first one should point along your starting line, right of the target. The second rod should meet the first at a diagonal angle and face towards your target. Whether that be the pin or the fairway.
Your feet should follow the line of the first rod, while your clubface must align with the second stick. If you don’t have alignment rods, they are super affordable and can be used for various training exercises. I even use them for my short game and putting drills.
An effective budget option is the GoSports Training Sticks which includes three rods. That enables you to work on alignment, ball position, and path simultaneously.
Set your ball down a few inches behind the intersecting point of the rods, and prepare for step 2. The fellas at Me and My Golf offer a simple method for how to hit a draw.
Step 2 – Position Your Golf Ball Back In Your Stance
Once you are satisfied with your alignment, you must ensure that your ball is positioned correctly in your stance. I have found that placing the ball slightly back in my stance helps me execute an inside-out golf swing and hit a draw.
A back ball position promotes an in to out path and induces a draw. When your golf ball is back in your stance, it encourages an outside swing path. Therefore, you start your ball right of the target if you are a right-handed player, inducing draw ball flight.
If you are struggling to produce an inside-out swing path, it may help if you stand marginally back from the ball. That gives you the space to open your body on the downswing to get the clubface on an in-to-out path while keeping it closed at impact.
Step 3 – Align The Club Face With Your Target
Although many refer to the importance of an inside-out swing path, your clubface position through impact matters the most. If your clubface strikes the ball with a marginally closed face, you generate side spin, which prompts a draw shape.
If your ball is back in your stance, it helps you position your hands ahead of the ball and the shaft closer to the target. Your club face should point to the flag or the middle of the fairway, setting you up to finish in that position at impact.
Set up to the right of your intended landing area, with a closed club face relative to your path. In addition, your club must stay open to the fairway or pin.
I have seen numerous amateur golfers close their club face excessively at address, which is a recipe for disaster. It causes you to generate excess draw sidespin, leading to a duck hook.
I am well-versed in this disastrous shot. Trust me, it is tough to recover from the woods or the fescue with the memory of the previous duff fresh in your mind.
Step 4 – Take Your Club Inside On The Backswing
I already mentioned that an in-to-out golf swing doesn’t necessarily enable you to hit a draw. However, it encourages your hands, body, and clubface to fall into the desired position through the golf swing.
Step 5 – Follow An Outside Club Path To Impact
You need to send the clubhead along an outside path from the top of your backswing. This propels the clubface to strike the ball closed to the swing path and generates right to left sidespin. As a result, you allow ball flight laws to take over and watch your round dimples draw towards your target.
Optimizing your hip rotation on the downswing helps you send your clubhead on an outside line. However, failing to produce sufficient rotation may cause you to hook your shot instead of drawing it.
Conversely, clearing your hips too early may lead to an open clubface through impact, causing you to push or slice your shot. The other alternative is that you receive no draw leading to a straight shot. That means that your ball will finish right of your target.
How Do You Hit A Draw With Your Driver?
To hit a draw with your driver, you need to follow the above steps. However, you need to focus on ball positioning.
The ability to draw or fade with a driver can seriously boost your golf game. It enables you to achieve superior positioning on dogleg holes. In some instances, you can even shorten the hole.
The main difference between hitting a draw with your driver and irons is the ball positioning in your stance. For a tee shot, you should place your golf ball to the back of your lead foot. If you are left-handed, that would be your right foot. The opposite goes for right-handed players.
Ensure that your target line is right of the landing zone and that your clubface is aiming at the flag or fairway. Next, induce an in to out path and ensure that the club face is closed relative to the swing path through impact.
Golf coach Mark Crossfield provides insightful tips on how to hit a draw with your driver, which I will share below. It helps to understand where your club face should be at every point during your swing.
RELATED: Best golf swing aids
How Do You Hit A Draw With Your Irons?
Hitting a draw with your irons requires a back ball position. As Clay Ballard explained, you set the ball back in your stance. However, the alignment and clubface path through impact remains the same.
Golf Drills To Help You Hit A Draw Shot
1. Alignment
The alignment golf instruction helps you better hit a draw. If you do not set it up correctly, you will produce inaccurate results. To draw the ball back towards your target, you need to aim a few yards right of your target if you are a right-hander.
I suggest using two alignment aids, as you saw in the video from Me and My Golf. Set one rod down along your target line and the other pointing to the flag or fairway. Your feet should be parallel to the target line, while your ball and clubface look to the target.
2. 10 O’Clock, 4 O’Clock
This is a simple drill to consistently hit a draw by optimizing your club path. Sam Vosler from Sanford Power Golf Academy offers a brief overview of this exercise in the video below. However, it is so simple that you don’t even need to see it to understand it.
Look at your body as a clock. Your head is 12, and your feet represent six. The golf ball sits at 4, and you need to reach 10 at the top of your golf swing. Focus on taking your club back to 10 and through to 4.
When you reach 10 at the top of your swing, pause and feel the position. From there, swing down to 4, and strike the ball. Even if the shot is weak, you should generate right to left spin.
By repeating this exercise, you become used to the motion of swinging in to out and will start to see more consistency in your draw shots.
3. Inside The Stick
Inside the stick is an exercise teaching professionals use to prompt an inwards takeaway. You lie a rod on the ground parallel to your target and place your ball 2-inches ahead of the stick. This alignment aid ensures that your clubface is lined up with your intended landing zone.
Stick the second alignment rod into the ground, at the back of the first stick, and angle it parallel to your shaft.
The idea is to take your club inside on your backswing and never touch the stick. If your clubhead bashes into it, you have taken the head too far outside or straight back. It is challenging for most golfers to correct their path at the top of their swing to prompt outside movement.
That is why coaches fixate on following a formula to make it easier for many golfers to boost their shot repertoire.
4. Around The Stick
Keep the setup from inside the stick drill if you own three alignment sticks. Then, place the third stick into the ground vertically. It should be 3-yards in front of your ball and in line with your target.
Your mission is to start the ball on the desired side of the stick and draw it back to your target. For example, left-handers need to start the ball left of the rod and curve it left to right. Conversely, right-handers start the ball right of the target stick.
This exercise combines your alignment and swing path training to produce your desired launch and ball flight.
How To Hit A Draw In Golf FAQs
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What is the easiest way to hit a draw in golf?
The easiest way for the average golfer to hit a draw is to align your feet right of the target, swing from in to out, and ensure the clubface is open to the target line through impact. Left-handed players should follow the same process, except they should line up left of the landing zone.
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How do you hit a draw every time?
If you feel that a draw is an ideal shape for your game, this is how you do it:
1. Point your feet right of your target (for right-handers)
2. Line up your club face with the bullseye
3. Induce an in to out path
4. Guide the clubface to strike the ball with a slightly closed or square clubface. -
What is the key to hitting a draw?
The key to hitting a draw is the position of your club face relative to your swing path. It should be square or slightly closed through impact. However, you should send the clubhead on an outwards line on your downswing.
That path combined with clubface angle through impact prompts the rotation required to execute a draw. Right-handers will see their ball curve moderately from right to left, and lefties the opposite.
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How do you hit a draw off the tee?
If you have the recipe to draw with your irons, you can use it to your advantage off the tee. Align your shoulders and feet to the right of your target and tee the ball up in line with the back heel of your lead leg.
When you are in position, commence your inside-out golf swing, and strike the ball with a square face. The motion should propel your ball to fly high and draw.
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Can you hit a draw with an open stance?
Yes, you can hit a draw with an open stance because the shape depends on your path through impact. However, getting your clubface into position to deliver a draw requires optimal rotation and wrist movement.
It also leaves the average golfer open to the issue of missing their target left for right-handers.
You can hook your shot left of the target if you fail to get your clubface in the correct position through impact. However, you will most likely leave your clubface open to the path and push your shot.
Final Thoughts
After reviewing the formula for how to hit a draw, it is clear that your clubface positions matter most. If it is square or slightly closed through contact and traveling on an outwards path, you should generate the sidespin needed for a draw shape.
I recommend mid and low handicappers work on this shot. It helps you escape trouble and makes easier work of doglegs. If you have alignment sticks, you can get working on this immediately. However, those without this aid should consider the GoSports Training Sticks.
Can you hit a draw? I would love to know what drills have worked to help you achieve this shape.
