Hosel Rockets

For the last few seasons I have been battling the laterals on and off. I can break 80 a couple times a year and because of the pitch outs I can close in on 100. I believe this to be the most debilitating shot in the game and can turn the most confident players on the course into a shell of themselves. Many would tell me it was in my head. I just felt I battled it to often to just be in my head. This year I promised myself to end them now. I had read all the faults and fixes and know what causes it but some how it became grooved and a part of my swing. They had plagued me so bad I had been debating quitting the game, which the thought of pained me as I love the game and have been playing since I was 9. I'm sure there are others on here with this issue so I will give you my findings on beating them and maybe it may help someone. I think they started after regularly hitting balls off mats. Mats are difficult to hit down on and generally require more of a picking clean shot which is hard with a wedge. So somehow my hands started to get more even with the ball rather than in front at address to try and pick it clean off the mat. I also noticed that the laterals seemed to happen regularly on days where I drove the ball exceptionally well, which is like salt in the wound. I developed a little flip at the ball from inside to out with driver throwing the club head at the ball hitting the ball with an ascending blow. My miss would be a snipe or a crushing draw. Hitting a full wedge this way led to hosel rockets. Also I have small hands and struggle keeping my grip together at times at the top. Played overlap most my years, tried interlocking but this made it harder to square up the toe worsening the laterals, so I went to 10 finger grip. That extra finger of the right hand has proven to be very beneficial at prevention of loosening of the grip at the top. Finally, I generally played all clubs with square stance and have moved to an open stance with wedge to 8 iron. My swing thought has become more of a pulling the left arm through the ball with right hand guiding club but no throwing clup head at the ball. These changes in my swing in keping left elbow straight from backswing to impact have proven to more impact out toward the toe, which is a welcome change. Lastly, I starated playing the ball back of center with wedges promoting descending blow. Previously I had been playing everything off left heel alla Hogan/Nicklaus. I generally, have tried or followed hogans book for swing training. Read all of Harvey Penicks book and most of his advice is solid. The best advice I realized is I'm not Hogan. It has been a battle, but the hosel rockets have caused me to fine tune my swing faults all through out the swing. With continued effort and practice I feel like I have developed control over the issue and if I hit one it doesn't debilitate my confidence. So if you are having this issue, stay strong and keep at it. Funny how it takes real work to find your swing, but only takes a couple bad shots to groove a bad fault.

yeah man, it's my miss too. best thing i do when it gets bad is to put a headcover just off the ball, and hit the ball without hitting the headcover. take smooth swings, don't rush things, just hit the ball without hitting the headcover. seems to help.


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I do this regularly as well and it does help. I've learned that the worst thing to do is machine gun one after the other on the driving range, but it is extremely hard and important to fight that urge. The more you hit them, the more you groove them. I know I am not over them, but I feel like I have some ability to prevent hitting them regularly now while playing a round. A firmer left wrist at impact has helped as well preventing the little flip at the bottom that I believe was causing a whole set of issues.

Links75 said:

I do this regularly as well and it does help. I've learned that the worst thing to do is machine gun one after the other on the driving range, but it is extremely hard and important to fight that urge. The more you hit them, the more you groove them. I know I am not over them, but I feel like I have some ability to prevent hitting them regularly now while playing a round. A firmer left wrist at impact has helped as well preventing the little flip at the bottom that I believe was causing a whole set of issues.

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I'm a big range machine gunner. It's so counter productive.

About a year ago, I was warming up for a tournament. The range is to the left of the putting green at the course I was at and, out of nowhere, I began catching the hosel with only my wedges and spraying balls towards the putting green. I freaked out because I COULD NOT stop. It was the third time in about 15 months that I had that happen and, as has been said... it was pretty debilitating.

One of my buddies stood behind me and told me to swing. He noticed that I was all arms. Told me to put the club down and take swings with nothing in my hands but to make sure that I was turning my belt buckle at my target. After I did that 10 times or so, he told me to pick up the club and do the same thing.

I started hitting the ball properly with wedges again. I've hit a few off the hosel since then and I always go back to that thought and it straightens me out.

- Chuck

I refuse to hit off mats anymore, not necessarily for what you describe, but for health reasons. My swing plane on the course creates a huge divot naturally. Imagine how after 3 or 4 buckets at the range in a row how my pecs starting hurting something fierce. I quit hitting off mats and the pain in my pecs goes away.

So yeah, unless it's a grass range, I don't hit range balls...well, at least no iron shots. I may crack a few drivers to get loose, but nothing more than that off of a mat.

When I got back into the game 2 1/2 years ago I had a variety of hosel rockets coming at all sorts of random times. What cured it for me was lots of practice and lots of play. That and getting rid of a few clubs that seemed to produce this shot too many times. Yeah, I know it's not the arrow, but the Indian, but when the arrow keeps producing that shot, a fresh arrow can't hurt. Can't honestly remember the last hosel rocket I hit. It's been over a year or so since, I think.

Damn, now I probably jinxed myself.

When I start banging El Hosel into the golf ball I've found doing two things helps.
First, turn the hips and get weight to the left side. If that doesn't work I just stand so far away from the ball at address that it's not physically possible to hit the hosel and then slowly work my way back in to a normal position.

I just wanted to say that I love the title - Hosel Rockets !!!!

ArmyGolf said:

When I start banging El Hosel into the golf ball I've found doing two things helps.
First, turn the hips and get weight to the left side. If that doesn't work I just stand so far away from the ball at address that it's not physically possible to hit the hosel and then slowly work my way back in to a normal position.

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I don't know if you remember or not, but day 2 of our Hogan event, our first time on the range with the new clubs, I was hitting 90% of my shots on the hosel. I tried almost every club and couldn't stop hitting the hosel. I was SO NERVOUS going to the 1st tee, just knew I was going to be shanking shots all day long. Then a strange thing happened; I didn't shank a single shot all weekend. I have no idea what I was doing to shank, and no idea how I corrected it. Weird!