The fix for Contact on the hosel

Fixing a shank off the hosel

What is actually happening

The ball meets the rounded hosel instead of the face, so it leaves at an extreme angle with almost none of the speed the swing produced. Whatever move caused it, the fault itself is purely a question of where the club met the ball.

Your strike
Face centre
Offset from centre
Centred strike

Bring heel marks back to centre

The fix

The ball is missing the face and meeting the hosel, the rounded neck where the shaft joins the head. On an iron the grooves stop only a short way from that neck, so a strike already sitting on the heel needs very little more to reach it. That is why a shank so often seems to come from nowhere. It is a heel strike at its most severe, and the only real difference is that the ball has left the face altogether. Whatever move produced it, the fault itself is a question of where the club met the ball.

The shape of the hosel explains the flight. Start direction follows where the striking surface points at impact, and a clubface is flat and pointed close to the target. The hosel is round, and the part of it that meets the ball faces well right of the target. So the ball leaves low and sharply right, sometimes close to sideways, carrying almost none of the speed the swing produced, because it has missed the part of the club built to send it forward. Left-handers mirror every direction on this page.

The flight is hard to mistake, but check the club as well. Spray the face and the neck with foot powder, or colour them with a dry-erase marker, and hit ten balls with a wedge. A mark on the neck confirms it. The shots that did not shank matter just as much: marks creeping toward the heel mean the strike is drifting that way even on the good ones. Around the green, notice whether the shanks follow an opened face. Turning the face open swings the toe back and leaves the hosel leading the face toward the ball. Then film one swing from behind, phone on your target line at hip height. If the butt of the grip is further from your body at impact than it was at address, the club has moved out toward the ball.

Hosel contact sits at the far end of a line that starts at the heel. A heel strike still finds the face: the ball comes off a little weak, and with a driver it tends to curve left to right, but it goes roughly where you aimed. A strike scattered all over the face can throw in the odd shank, and when the other marks run from heel to toe, tightening that spread is the job. A strike high on the face is a different direction entirely and does not lead toward the hosel. The setup and movements that take the club out to the ball, standing too close or the hips moving toward it, have their own pages. The work here moves the strike back onto the face whichever of them started it.

The change happens at address and in where the handle travels through impact. At address, sole the club with the ball opposite the middle of the face, not its heel side, and your weight over the middle of your feet. For greenside shots, open the face first, take your grip on the opened club, and then set the ball opposite the middle of the face as it now sits, not where it sat before you turned it. Through the strike, the butt of the grip should pass your lead thigh about as far from it as it started. When the handle stays on that line, the club comes back to the ball where it began instead of out beyond it.

The reflexes after a shank make the next one more likely. Aiming left and steering the ball away from trouble tends to throw the hands out toward the ball early in the downswing, and hands that move out take the hosel with them. A big step back feels like more room, but reaching tips your weight toward your toes, and a body falling toward the ball carries the club out too. Trying to hold the face open through the ball keeps the toe trailing and the neck in front. Stand where your hanging arms put you, and let the drills move the strike.

Drills

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

Two balls, hit the near one
Set two balls on the ground side by side, level with each other and a ball's width apart, with the second ball on the far side of the first. Address the ball nearer you with a wedge as though the far ball were not there. Hit ten half-swing pitches striking only the near ball. If the club moves out toward the ball through impact, it clips the far ball and both go. Success is ten in a row with the far ball untouched. Then close the gap to half a ball's width and repeat, and move to three-quarter swings once you clear that ten times running.
Needs A second ball
Toe strikes on purpose
Mark the face of a wedge and address a ball opposite the toe side of the grooves. Hit twenty short pitches trying to catch every one toward the toe, reading the mark after each. Success is fifteen of the twenty toward the toe and none on the neck, which proves you can move the strike away from the hosel on purpose. Then address the ball opposite the middle of the face, hit twenty more, and move to full swings once those marks sit in the middle.
Needs Foot powder spray or a dry-erase marker
Towel under both arms
Lay a small towel across your chest so it sits under both armpits, and hold it there lightly with your upper arms. Hit twenty short chips and pitches with a wedge. If the arms and handle move out toward the ball, the towel drops. Success is twenty shots with the towel still in place and no marks on the neck of a marked club. Then hit ten half-swing pitches with the towel and ten without it, and move to longer shots once both sets leave marks in the middle of the face.
Needs A small towel and foot powder spray or a dry-erase marker
Open first, grip second
Take your most lofted wedge and mark the face and neck. Sole it behind the ball, turn the face open with your fingers, then take your grip on the opened club and set the ball opposite the middle of the face as it now sits. Hit ten short, high chips, reading the mark after each. Success is ten marks in the middle of the face and nothing on the neck. Repeat the routine from scratch before every ball, and once ten in a row pass, use the same order on every open-faced shot around the green.
Needs Foot powder spray or a dry-erase marker

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.

Marks from the shots that do not shank sit in the middle of the face, not creeping toward the heel.
After a session, the neck of the club carries no powder or marker smudge.
On down-the-line film, the butt of the grip passes the lead thigh at impact about as far away as it was at address, not further out.
Around the green, the face is opened before the grip is taken, and the ball sits opposite the middle of the opened face.
After the shot, your weight is over the middle of your feet rather than tipped onto your toes.

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 handle brushes past your lead pocket on the way through, closer to you than it went back.
You are trying to catch the ball out on the toe.
Your weight sits back toward your heels as the club reaches the ball.

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
What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026
Experimental study of the gear effect in ball collisionsRod Cross, University of Sydney, and Alan M. Nathan, University of Illinois, 2007
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
The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001

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