The fix for Face closed at impact

Fixing a closed clubface at impact

What is actually happening

The face points left of where the club is travelling. The ball starts left of the path and keeps turning left, and because a closed face also removes loft, the flight is usually lower and more diving than the golfer expected. The same closed face that produces a playable draw produces a hook once it outruns the path by enough.

Target line
Start line
Your flight
Ordinary height

Starts left, turns left, flies low

The fix

At impact the clubface is pointing left of the direction the club is travelling. For a right-handed golfer the face has turned past square by the time it meets the ball; left-handers should mirror every direction on this page. None of that needs a bad path. The club can be travelling straight down the target line and the face alone can send the ball left.

Where the face points at impact mostly decides where the ball starts, so a face aimed left of the target starts the ball left. The gap between face and path decides the curve, so a face closed to the path turns the ball further left as it flies. Closing the face also takes loft off the club, which is why the flight comes out lower than that club normally gives and the ball drops out of the air instead of landing softly. A face a little closed to the path gives a small, playable draw. Closed by more, the same pattern becomes a hook, so this fault is as much about how far as which way.

Two other patterns hook the ball, and the start line tells them apart. An in-to-out path with the face closed to it usually starts the ball right of the target and curves it back left, and the divots point right. A closed face on a path that is already reasonable starts the ball left and keeps it going left, with divots at or near the target. If the face already points left when you sole the club at address, the fault is aim rather than delivery, and it has its own page. If the ball goes left one swing and right the next, the face is varying rather than staying closed, which is a different fix.

To confirm it, hit ten balls with a mid-iron and watch the first few metres of each flight. Most of them starting left and turning further left is the pattern. Check the divots from the same shots: pointing at the target or close to it rules out a path travelling well to the right. Then film from behind, down the target line, and pause where the shaft is level with the ground after impact. A toe already pointing at the ground there, with the face turned down, is a face that closed too soon. Last, look down at your grip: three or more knuckles showing on the top hand is a strong grip, which makes a closed face the default and has its own page.

For most golfers a closed face at impact comes from one of two places. The first is the grip: a top hand turned well away from the target, or a trail hand sitting underneath the handle, sets the face up to shut. The second is what happens through the ball. When the body stops turning, the hands carry on and turn the face over. When the chest keeps rotating toward the target, the hands travel with it and the face has less reason to shut. So the change lives in the downswing: keep the body turning and let the hands stay quiet.

The instinctive fix is to aim further right to leave room for the hook. The path tends to follow the body, so aiming right swings the club more to the right, and a face that still closes now sits even more closed to that path. The ball starts nearer the target and hooks harder. The other instinct is to hold the face open with the hands through impact. That works when the timing happens to be right and sends the ball straight right when it is not, which turns a one-way miss into a two-way miss. Aim square and change what the body does, rather than what the hands do at the last moment.

As the face stops closing, expect a higher flight that lands more softly before the curve disappears, because loft is coming back to the strike. An occasional ball that starts right and fades means the face has moved past square the other way. Ease off the feel when that happens rather than abandoning it.

Drills

Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.

Hold the half finish
With a mid-iron, make half swings that stop when the shaft is level with the ground past the ball, and freeze there. Look at the toe: it should point roughly at the sky. If it points at the ground, the hands have turned the face over. Make ten rehearsals without a ball, then hit ten half shots holding each finish for two seconds. Success is the toe up at every finish and the ball starting at the target with little curve. When eight of ten do that, go to three-quarter swings, then full ones.
Needs nothing but a club
Trail thumb and forefinger off
Take your normal grip, then lift the thumb and forefinger of your trail hand off the handle so only the other three fingers hold on. Hit half shots with a mid-iron off a low tee. Without the thumb and forefinger, the trail hand cannot easily flip the face shut, so the body has to swing the club. Hit fifteen, then five with the full grip and the same light trail hand. Success is the full-grip shots starting at the target as often as the drill shots. Move to full swings once they do.
Needs A tee
Chest to the target
Hit three-quarter shots with a mid-iron and hold the finish until the ball lands, chest facing the target and weight on the lead foot. If your chest is still facing where the ball was when you stop, the body stalled and the hands finished the swing. Hit ten and score the finish, not the shot. Success is ten finishes in a row with the chest at the target. Then add speed in steps, dropping back a step whenever a finish slips.
Needs nothing but a club
Start-line gate
Push two alignment sticks upright into the ground about ten paces ahead, either side of your target line and two paces apart. Hit twenty three-quarter shots with a mid-iron and count how many start through the gap. Anything starting left of the left-hand stick is the closed face still showing. Success is fifteen of twenty through the gap. When you reach it, narrow the gap by half a pace; once you clear that, take the gate to full swings and then to longer clubs.
Needs Two alignment sticks

Browse every drill on the site

Practice plan and log

Practise this fix, day by day

Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.

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Or turn this fix into a practice plan

With a free account, the drills above become a 14-day plan: the setup checks and the first drill for three days, then the next drill, a rest day every fourth day, and a re-test on the last day that sends you back through the questions. Each day is a short list to tick off at the range, with reminders by email or in your calendar if you want them.

How the 14 days run

Day 1Ten balls as a baseline, then the setup checks and the first drill
Days 2 to 3The first drill again, one checkpoint and one feel a day
Day 4Rest, as are days 8 and 12
Days 5 to 11The next drills in turn, each warmed up by the one before
Day 13Every drill once, then every checkpoint
Day 14Re-test: the baseline again and the questions for your symptom

Checkpoints

What to look for to know whether the change has taken.

At address, checked from behind the ball before you take your stance, the leading edge sits square to the target line rather than turned in toward it.
Looking down at address you can see about two knuckles on your top hand, and the trail hand sits on the side of the handle rather than underneath it.
Filmed from behind, the toe points roughly up when the shaft is level with the ground after impact, rather than pointing at the ground.
At the finish your chest faces the target and your weight is on your lead foot.
The ball starts at the target and flies at a normal height instead of starting left and dropping out of the air.

Feels

A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.

The back of your lead hand keeps looking at the target through the strike instead of turning down to the ground.
Your chest, not your hands, carries the club past the ball.
The hands feel lazy, almost late, while the body keeps turning.

Symptoms that lead here

Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.

If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots

What this rests on

40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
The Influence of Face Angle and Club Path on the Resultant Launch Angle of a Golf BallPaul Wood, Erik Henrikson, Chris Broadie, 2018
How to Use Face to Path Data to Improve Your GolfFlightScope, accessed 2026
Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968

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