Learn How to Hit a Draw With Ease: Top Tips to Shape Your Shots

how to hit a draw
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Most golfers want to play a soft draw, but very few actually make it happen.

Instead, most of us struggle with the opposite shot, the dreaded slice. While a soft cut is fine, no golfer loves seeing a slice. It kills distance, reduces top spin, and just isn’t helpful for your game.

The good news is that if you want to learn how to hit a draw, you can make it happen. It actually doesn’t even need to be that complicated, either.

Too many golfers try to change their swing, when in reality, most of it comes down to setting up properly. In this post, I’ll take you through the steps that you need to start hitting draws on command.

How to Hit a Draw Without Swing Changes

Hitting a draw is great because it will:

  • Build confidence.
  • Help you get out of trouble.
  • Impress your playing partners.
  • Carry and roll out farther than a cut.
  • Give you shorter approach shots so you can be more aggressive.

And more. Luckily, you don’t need to do a swing overhaul to make the draw happen. Instead, make these adjustments before your backswing to make it easy to play a draw.

Start With Setup

The longer I play this game, the more I realize that almost everything comes down to setup. It’s why the best players in the world work so hard on getting their setup right every single swing. Because if your setup doesn’t match your intended shot, it’s nearly impossible to pull it off.

For example, if you want to hit it high but have the ball in the back of your stance, it just won’t happen. Or, if you want to hit a cut but have a super strong grip with both hands, it’s nearly impossible.

Everything starts with a solid setup so you can hit any shot you want. For a draw, you want to look at grip, alignment, and clubface at setup.

Adjust Your Grip

The grip is arguably the biggest part of hitting a draw.

You need a neutral or strong grip so you don’t have to make a ton of changes to your swing. If you have one or both hands in a “weak” position, it’s very difficult and depend too much on flipping your wrists at impact. This can lead to some big misses!

Start by checking your grip position with both hands. Ideally, you want the “V’s” of your thumb and index finger pointed at your armpits. Plus, a neutral grip makes it easier to shape any shot and add extra distance if you have a weak grip currently.

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Change Your Alignment

The second thing you need to do is adjust your alignment to allow you to hit a draw. 

You need to make sure your feet, hips, and shoulders are aimed right of your target. The key here is to make sure all three are parallel.

So many golfers only have one or two aligned properly, but that’s not enough. 

For example, a lot of players will aim their feet and hips right, but their shoulders are open. When your shoulders are open, it is easy to make an over the top move which produces an over the top pull cut, not a draw.  

A slightly closed stance will make it easy to drop the club in on the downswing so that you can hit the draw. For a driver, you can also choose to drop your right foot back 1-2 inches as well to promote a swing path that will help yield a draw. 

Adjust The Clubface 

Finally, don’t forget about the clubface too. 

As Tiger Woods said in his book, How I Play Golf, “I aim my body lines (feet, hips, shoulders) at a point where I want the ball to start and I am the clubface where I want the ball to finish. That simplifies the manipulation of the clubface.”

I’ve found this is helpful when you need more of a hook shot to escape trouble, but recommend experimenting on the range. 

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More Tips to Hit a Draw

Here are some more helpful tips to help you make the right to left shot automatic. 

Tee Up Accordingly

To hit a draw from the tee box, make sure you make two adjustments. 

First, with a driver, you want to tee it up slightly higher than normal. This will allow you to hit up on the ball with speed.

The second thing to adjust is your position on the tee box itself. Make sure you tee up in the left or middle side of the box so you have plenty of room to aim right. 

Add More Speed

Another tip I learned from this Tiger Woods video to hit a draw is to make sure you have a little extra speed to produce a draw. Since a draw has more tumbling spin, more speed will help your hands turn over and get the ball in the air easier. 

Final Step: Keep Practicing 

Knowing how to set up and make the draw motion in your swing is the first step. But knowing isn’t enough, you need to spend quality time at the driving range to make it happen. Do not read this post and start trying to hit draws in the middle of your next round.

Always start by working on the range so that you can gain confidence. Then, when you can execute the draw shot on the range, test it out on the course.  

To get started, first take a video of your swing on your phone from down the line and face on. This will help you establish your starting point and then you can adjust your setup as needed. 

As you continue to hone this shot, make sure to keep taking regular videos too. It’s a great way to see how far your game has grown and save it in the future in case you seem to lose the shot. 

Wrapping Up 

At this point, you have everything you need to start curving the golf ball from right to left. Knowing how to hit a draw is a great tool to add to your game and can do wonders once you get the hang of it. 

The biggest thing to remember is that most of this stuff happens before you ever swing the club. Your setup plays a massive role in any shot that you hit (or want to hit). If your setup is incorrect, it’s nearly impossible to hit a draw.

Do you prefer to play a draw or a cut? If a draw, do you feel confident with this shot on the course?

Let us know down below in the comments! 

Michael Leonard

Michael Leonard

Michael Leonard is a full-time writer, author, creator of Wicked Smart Golf and +1 handicap amateur golfer. He left his corporate, national sales career in 2017 to pursue entrepreneurship and professional golf; since then, he’s competed in 160+ tournament days and went to Q-school in 2019.

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