Symptom
Everything is going left
Your 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.
Where a shot starts is governed almost entirely by where the clubface is pointing when it meets the ball. That is the relationship this symptom sits on, so the questions work back from the start line rather than from anything about your swing.
Common ways golfers describe this
I keep hitting it left
Everything goes left
All my shots go left
Can't stop going left?
My misses are all left
- 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
- Watch a few of the left misses all the way down. Which describes them best?
- Set up to a target, lay a club along your toes, then step behind the ball and look down that club. Where does it point?
- At address, how many knuckles can you see on your top hand when you look down?
- Mark the face and hit five shots with the club that goes left most. Where do the marks gather?
- With a mid-iron, where does the ball sit between your feet?
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.
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
Body aimed left of target
Feet, hips or shoulders point left of the ball-to-target line. It usually starts when the shoulders swivel open to follow the eyes toward the target, or when a golfer aims left on purpose to allow for a slice. The path tends to follow the body, so aiming further left to allow for a slice reliably makes the slice worse.
Read the fix
Out-to-in swing path
The club is travelling left of the target line through impact for a right-handed golfer. Curvature is produced by the difference between face and path, so a path moving left with a face that lags behind it opens the face relative to the path and bends the ball right. The same path with a face square to it produces a straight pull instead.
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
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
Ball too far forward in the stance
The ball sits ahead of where the swing arc reaches its lowest point. With an iron off turf this means the club is already climbing at contact. It also encourages the shoulders to aim left at address, which pulls the path further left and adds curve to the miss.
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.
- 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
- Chips and pitches start left or right of the targetThe strike and the distance are fine, but the ball sets off to one side of the flag, pulled left or pushed right, and finishes wide of the hole or off the green.Shares face closed at impact
- 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 face closed at impact
- I can't hit a fadeYou 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.Shares face closed at impact
- Coming over the topSomeone has told you, or the camera has shown you, that the club swings out and across the ball from the top, and your shots pull left, slice right, or do both.Shares out-to-in swing path
- 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 out-to-in swing path
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
- The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001
- 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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