Hank Haney
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Articles by Hank Haney
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How to Hit a Golf Ball Over Trees
If you’re in a situation where you’re caught in the trees, there are only a few ways out. You can go under, you can go around them, or you can go over them. If you’re going over, it’s usually a more risky shot. Make sure you have a good lie, that’s the first thing you have to take into consideration. Because if the lie is bad, you’re going to have to go under or around. But if you got a good lie and you’ve got an opening in the trees going over is not a bad play if you’ve got the golf swing to do it.
The Right Way to Start Your Downswing
Without a doubt, the most asked question is, 'How do you start the downswing?' Well that question takes a lot for granted because golf is so much action and reaction. If you don’t have a good backswing you probably will not be able to start the downswing. I am going to give you some tips on how to start the downswing that might just help you. When you get the golf club back to the top of the swing the first move down is the transferring of your weight.
The Correct Golf Backswing From Start to Finish
To paraphrase a popular saying in tournament golf, you can’t win a tournament on the first day, but you can lose it. That exact principle applies to each and every golf swing, your backswing in particular. You can’t guarantee a good shot in your backswing, but you can guarantee a bad one. Here’s how to make a great golf backswing, and repeat it every time. An easy way to illustrate the proper wrist hinge is to isolate the action.
How to Stop Hitting Fat Golf Shots
One of the worst shots in golf is the fat shot. The thin shot usually finds the front of the green, but the fat shot goes right in the lake in front of you. There are a couple of different causes. One is called the steep fat where your club is coming in too steep and your angle of approach is too sharp into the ground. It digs into the ground too deep and you hit it fat. Another one is what we call a shallow fat.
Learn the Proper Backswing Club Position
This golf club is laid off, it is laid off my arm, and that is a position that you would see players in who have a tendency to leave the face open and slice to the right. This golf club is considered across the line, it is across the line of my arms and that club will tend to hit too much from the inside and the golfer would tend to hook the golf ball. So ideally your left arm, left wrist and clubface should be on the same plane on the top.
How to Fix Your Stance to Hit the Ball Above Your Feet
Rather than take my normal posture where I would be bent over and into the hill, I stand up a little taller, flex my knees a little more, and get just a little closer to the golf ball. What this is going to do is, make my golf swing a little bit flatter and more around my body, and I need that because the ball is sitting up so much.
3-Step Golf Technique to Hit On a Downhill Lie
Well luckily my ball has avoided the fairway bunker. But unfortunately I'm left with the most difficult uneven lie that you can have, the downhill lie.The reason this shot is so difficult is because obviously the down hill lie decreases the loft of the club and most people will have trouble getting the ball up in the air. The first thing you want to make sure of is take enough club. Don't try to go for the green if you have a such a difficult lie just get the ball in play.
How to Chip with a 3-Wood Golf Club
A variation of that is to use a three-wood. It is a shot that Tiger Woods has used a lot and many other people have been trying with quite a bit of success. You hit this shot just as if you were putting. Grip down on the club so that that your hands are all the way down to the shaft at the bottom of the grip; Stand close to the ball and upright with the club; and Hit the three-wood just as you would your putter.
How to Fix Your Stance to Hit the Ball Below Your Feet
The uneven lies that you face on the golf course are one of the things that makes golf a really difficult game. This lie where the balls below your feet is one of the more difficult of the uneven lies. The reason being is that most people will bend with their knees more to get down to the ball and then when they come through they straighten up just enough to top the shot. That’s the most common mistake that I see with golfers that are trying to play this lie where the balls below your feet.
When to Play a Texas Wedge (and How to Do It)
Mastering the Texas wedge is a great way to simplify your short game, save some strokes, and earn some style points with your playing partners. A Texas wedge is a shot from off the green that, if all goes according to plan, rolls up onto the green and close to the hole. Most people think of hitting a putter from the fringe or a few yards from the green as a Texas wedge, but you can also hit a Texas wedge with other clubs, and from much farther away.
14 books every self-respecting golfer should read
If you really love the game, you appreciate a good read, and not just the kind your caddie gives you. Here they are: 14 golf books that belong in every golfer’s library. 1. Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf By Ben Hogan Hogan looked for answers in the dirt. Then he wrote them down in this sharply focused volume, laying out the fundamentals of golf’s most famously repeatable swing. Do exactly as he tells you. Then do it again, several million times. 2.
Haney’s LPGA comments cause outrage
Perhaps he thought he was being funny. He wasn’t. Maybe he was trying to be controversial. It was, but certainly not in the way he might have intended. Whatever he thought he was doing, Hank Haney’s comments on his Sirius XM radio program on Wednesday were racist, insensitive and ignorant. When informed by his co-host Steve Johnson that the U.S. Women’s Open was being held this week, Haney appeared surprised. “Oh is it?” he stated.
Improve Your Game From Tee To Green With These Easy Tweaks
Everybody wants to improve their skills. You want a better swing, the ability to hit more short-game shots and a pretty putting stroke—I get it. But if I was riding in your cart and coaching you the next time you played, I'd cut at least five shots off your score by fixing things that don't have all that much to do with your swing mechanics. I'd focus on simpler stuff—the things that cause most players to bleed strokes over and over.
What Causes Hooking the Golf Ball, and How to Stop it
If you're a player who tends to hit a hook, first count yourself fortunate. A hook is the last stop on the road to a good golf swing, and you're very close to hitting consistent, powerful shots. But it's still a ball-flight problem you need to take care of to make that next step and become a scratch or near-scratch player. A strong grip is by far the most common error I see with players who curve the ball too much from right to left.
Stop Losing Shots To The Left
If you're a player who tends to hit a hook, first count yourself fortunate. A hook is the last stop on the road to a good golf swing, and you're very close to hitting consistent, powerful shots. But it's still a ball-flight problem you need to take care of to make that next step and become a scratch or near-scratch player. A strong grip is by far the most common error I see with players who curve the ball too much from right to left.
Breaking Down Tiger Woods' New Swing
Everybody has a take on Tiger Woods’ swing, and how it looks after his comeback from spinal fusion surgery. But there’s nobody in the game who has seen more of Woods' swings up close than Hank Haney—which gives his analysis formidable weight. Haney taught Tiger from 2004 and 2010, and the stretch from July 2006 to November 2009 produced results that speak for themselves: A win rate of 51 percent, four majors and six WGC titles.
Winterize Your Golf Game
You're not into skiing; you can't skate; you built your last snowman 27 years ago, and that whole dusk at 4:25 p.m. thing really gets you down. We get it. Winter sucks. For those of us who don't have a nourishing cold-weather activity to pass the time between golf seasons, the "dark months" are brutal. Even worse, as we peek out the window, wondering if it will ever be playable again, our golf games turn to crap. By the time spring rolls around, we're struggling just to put the ball in play. ?
How Good Can You Get? - Golf Digest
Play your natural shot shape away from trouble, even if that means hitting it in the rough. Long grass is always a better option than a penalty shot. Do you know why you shoot the scores you do? Thanks to the PGA Tour's ShotLink--which measures every shot hit week in and week out--tour players know. When they see where their shots are going, they know which parts of their games need improvement. Nobody is charting every ball you hit, but you can still use statistics to improve.
Tips on teeing up
There's a reason they let you tee up the ball only 18 times a round: It's easier to hit a shot that way. When you do get the chance to put the ball on a tee, take advantage of it, and always on par 3s. When you tee up a ball for an iron or hybrid shot, you're keeping grass from getting between the clubface and the ball, which gives you more control over distance and direction.
Your 5-Minute Slice Fix
There's one simple fact about shot shape: On the road you take to playing good golf, nowhere is there a slice. You can go from hooking to good golf, but if you don't learn how to stop hitting shots with an open clubface, you won't get very far. The unfortunate reality is that a large majority of players--maybe 90 percent--struggle with a slice. They don't have a good grip, they make a steep swing into the ball, and they don't understand how the hands work in a good release.
Stop Giving Away Shots: Tighten Your Game From Tee To Green
The difference between a good round and a bad one is how well you avoid the three biggest shot-wasters in golf: (1) Penalty strokes when hitting longer clubs; (2) Needing two short-game shots to get the ball on the green; (3) Three-putting. To avoid these mistakes, I'll first get your chipping and pitching sorted out. When you're in close, you've got to get the ball on the green—anywhere on the green—with your first attempt. That's why you need basic, reliable low and high shots.
Get Your Swing On Plane
No matter how long or short your swing, one fundamental you need to apply is keeping your arms "connected" to your body as you swing back and through. If you do it right, you're making it way easier to have good timing during the swing and to move the club on the correct plane. It's easy to see when your lead arm "disconnects" by moving away from your body on the backswing. But the trail arm pulling back behind you causes just as many problems.
Change Your Shot Shape By Changing Your Finish - Golf Digest
Thinking about your swing from beginning to end is natural, working from address to backswing to downswing to finish. But starting from the opposite end—the finish—can help influence the way you curve shots. How your swing ends says a lot about the motion you made to get there.
14 books every golfer should read
If you really love the game, you appreciate a good read, and not just the kind your caddie gives you. Here they are: 14 golf books that belong in every golfer’s library. 1. Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf By Ben Hogan Hogan looked for answers in the dirt. Then he wrote them down in this sharply focused volume, laying out the fundamentals of golf’s most famously repeatable swing. Do exactly as he tells you. Then do it again, several million times. 2.
Five Big Misses, And How To Fix Them - Golf Digest
If you want to play better golf and lower your handicap, you need a plan. A goal without a plan is just a dream, and that's where most people end up with their games. They're dreaming. Instead, how about taking action and figuring out what it's going to take to improve? That process starts with identifying your biggest miss—the one that causes the worst problems round after round. Unless you address that issue now, you're going to be pretty much the same golfer next summer as you are today.
This Guy Can Play
Michael Phelps might be the greatest athlete in history. When you win 18 Olympic gold medals—and set a bunch of world records—you're in rare air, with legends like Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky. Phelps left the pool after the London Olympics last summer with nothing more to prove as a swimmer. At 27 years old and in top physical condition, he was looking for a new challenge to take on.
What the Pros Know: Don't Cheat Your Finish
A big key to getting the bottom of your swing in the right place—which is how you make solid contact—is to complete your turn through the shot. That means getting your belt buckle to move around and point to the target. You can try to fake it and flip your arms up and around after impact, but to do it right, you need to keep turning and shift your weight to your front leg. Your back leg is a kickstand for balance. What happens if you don't get all the way there?
What The Pros Know: Learn To Pitch With Your Sand Wedge
If you want to be a better player, copy what better players do. When tour pros need to hit a greenside shot that stops quickly, they almost always grab a club with a lot of loft. They make the ball stop by hitting it high more than trying to spin it. You might be nervous about the idea of using your sand wedge outside the bunkers, but it's easier than you probably think. The sand wedge is the heaviest club in your bag, so it can power through thick lies.
Make a Tour-quality Divot
Divots are part of golf, especially out on tour. Pros swing with more speed, and they're usually hitting shorter clubs into the greens from really tight fairways, so it's always raining clumps of turf. But not all divots are created equal. If you're at your course trying to copy what Patrick Reed is doing here but hit an inch behind the ball, you're not producing backspin, like Reed is. You're just slowing down your swing.
Hank Haney: Sharpen Your Aim
Golf is hard. Don't make it any harder by turning good swings into bad results because you're not aiming properly. Looking back at the great players, you see lots of different swings. But virtually all of these players aimed the same way, starting behind the ball and picturing where and how they wanted it to fly. Many amateurs get in their stance first, then look up, see some trouble and move their feet around to try to aim away from it.
How To Video Your Swing
What are the things I get asked the most about on Twitter? Tiger Woods and your golf swing. We'll save Tiger for another day, but if you want help with your swing, here are a few tips for shooting it that will help me—or whoever's looking—provide useful advice. The two main ways to look at the swing are face-on (directly across from the player) and down the line (aiming the camera downrange). Both angles have their advantages.
Hank Haney: Beating Blocks and Hooks
Commentators analyzing tour pros have a phrase they use to describe a certain good-player mistake: They call it "getting stuck." It's a colorful term, but I'm not sure if regular golfers—like those I go back and forth with on Twitter—know what it means. The easiest way to picture it is to compare it to the opposite problem: a slicer coming over the top. In that move, the player swings the club down from the outside on a steep angle. Getting stuck is coming from too far inside and behind the body.
How Tiger Got The Yips
From the time Tiger Woods started showing serious short-game issues at the Hero World Challenge late last year, there's been a lot of talk about what the problem might be. He's making a swing change. He's rusty after taking time off to recover from back surgery. He's stuck between an old short-game release pattern and a new one.
Stay In Posture To Hit It Pure
Even the best address position can get derailed by a common backswing mistake sent to me on Twitter all the time. When you set up, you establish a certain amount of forward bend from your hips, which creates an angle between your spine and lower body. If you want to hit the ground in the right spot and get the right amount of it—two keys to hitting solid shots—you need to retain the posture you set at address all the way through impact.
One Move To Better Impact : Golf Digest
March 2015 The snapshots I get on Twitter don't show dynamic motion, but the comments tell the story. People want to hit it farther and straighter. The main way to do that is to improve your impact. Good footwork is a place to start. You want your upper body to be tilted slightly back from where it was at address and your lower body slightly forward (below, right). This happens with proper foot action: Start the downswing by pushing off with the inside of your back foot, which moves the hips forward.
Hank Haney: Alternate Ending
Twitter is a great way to see lots of swings every week, but a single photo tells only part of the story. I'll get a request to critique finish positions like the ones above, but my answer would be different depending on the kind of shot the player normally hits. Generally, good shots come when the timing between the body and the hands and arms is working. If your hands and arms are too fast relative to your body, you'll probably close the clubface and miss left.
Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 29, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending April 14, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Combined Hardcover & Paperback Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 29, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending April 14, 2012. Lists are published early online.
E-Book Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 22, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending April 7, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Combined Hardcover & Paperback Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 22, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending April 7, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Hardcover Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 22, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending April 7, 2012. Lists are published early online.
E-Book Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 15, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending March 31, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Hardcover Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 15, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending March 31, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Combined Hardcover & Paperback Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 15, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending March 31, 2012. Lists are published early online.
Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction
When you purchase an independently ranked book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. Best Sellers Methodology A version of this list appears in the April 15, 2012 issue of The New York Times Book Review. Rankings on weekly lists reflect sales for the week ending March 31, 2012. Lists are published early online.
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