Symptom
I can't hit a fade
You try to move the ball from left to right and it draws anyway, or it starts left and stays left, so the controlled fade off a tee or into a right-hand pin never comes off.
A ball curves because the face and the path through impact disagree. The flight alone cannot tell you which of the two is out of place, because a face problem and a path problem can produce the same shape, and that is exactly what the questions separate.
Common ways golfers describe this
Can't hit a fade?
Why do I always hit a draw?
Fade it into a pin on the right
Why can't I hit a cut?
My cut shot turns into a draw
- Target line
- Club path
- Clubface
Narrow it to one cause
Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.
A few questions · no account needed
What you will be asked
- When you are trying to fade it, where does the ball start?
- Once it is in the air, which way does the ball bend?
- At address, how many knuckles can you see on your top hand looking down?
- Swing at full speed and hold the finish. Where is your chest pointing?
- Lay a club along your toes, step behind the ball, and look at where it points.
- Where on the face do the fade attempts leave their marks?
Where this can come from
These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.
In-to-out swing path
The club is travelling right of the target line through impact. With the face closed to that path the ball hooks; with the face square to it the ball is pushed straight right and never comes back. It is frequently the residue of an over-applied slice fix, which is why the miss often changes sides rather than disappearing.
Read the fix
Face closed at impact
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.
Read the fix
Grip too strong
The hands sit rotated away from the target on the handle, so the face tends to arrive closed unless something else compensates. A strong grip is not a fault by itself and many good players use one, but paired with a path already moving right it is what turns a draw into a hook.
Read the fix
Body rotation stalls through impact
The chest and hips stop turning before the ball, so the arms and club are left to catch up on their own. Whatever the hands then do decides the shot: held off, the face arrives open and the ball leaks right; thrown at it, the face turns over and the ball dives left. It is a different fault from a slide, where the body keeps moving but travels instead of turning.
Read the fix
Body aimed right of target
Feet, hips or shoulders point right of the ball-to-target line. Right-handed golfers do this far more often than they believe: a square stance runs parallel to the target line, so the feet point at a spot left of the flag, which looks wrong from address. Turning until the feet point at the flag aims the body right. Shots either go right with it or require a compensating move across the ball.
Read the fix
Strike toward the toe
Contact out toward the end of the face produces the dead, hollow feel golfers describe, and twists the head open around its centre of gravity, adding draw-side spin. Distance loss is larger than the miss looks.
Read the fix
Related symptoms
These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.
- Hooking the ballThe ball turns hard left and runs a long way after landing, whether it starts left and dives further left or starts right and crosses back over the target.Shares in-to-out swing path
- Getting stuckOn the way down the club drops too far behind you and the arms feel trapped, so the shot either blocks straight right or flips hard left.Shares in-to-out swing path
- Everything is going leftYour misses all finish left of the target, some flying dead straight on a line left of it and some bending further left as they go.Shares face closed at impact
- The ball curves the opposite way to the shape I playedYou aim off to allow for your usual fade or draw, the ball curves the other way instead, and it finishes about twice as far offline as a straight miss would.Shares face closed at impact
- Divots pointing left or right of the targetThe divot after the ball angles clearly left or right instead of running along the target line, which is the plainest record on the ground of which way the club was travelling.Shares in-to-out swing path
- Everything is going rightYour misses all finish right of the target, some flying dead straight on a line right of it and some bending further right as they go.Shares in-to-out swing path
What this rests on
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
- How to Use Face to Path Data to Improve Your GolfFlightScope, 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
- 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
If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
Discussion
Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.
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