Many golfers are devoted Ben Hogan fans — and we count ourselves among them at RotarySwing.com. Hogan was one of the greatest ball strikers ever to play the game, pioneering techniques that were revolutionary and decades ahead of their time.
You've almost certainly heard of Hogan's swing "secrets" — those legendary tips that some claim you can apply to your game and transform your ball striking forever.
For instance, one of Hogan's famous moves was cupping his left wrist at the top of the backswing — a technique that helped him become a far more consistent golfer than his contemporaries.
However, the fact that it worked brilliantly for Hogan doesn't mean you should automatically adopt it. Cupping your left wrist opens the club face, so if you're already hitting slices and you add wrist cupping, you'll only compound the problem. Your slice will get dramatically worse.
Hogan tended to hook the ball excessively early in his career. Cupping the left wrist allowed him to compensate for that hook tendency and straighten out his ball flight — making it a brilliant adjustment for his specific swing. That doesn't make it a universal cure-all for every golfer.
Another of Hogan's celebrated secrets is kicking the right knee inward as you initiate the downswing. It's true that Hogan generated significant lateral shift with this move. However, this aggressive lateral motion can put substantial wear and tear on your left hip.
The left hip comes under considerable strain when it slides too far forward past neutral joint alignment. Over time, this position can cause chronic soreness and structural damage.
Excessive hip slide can also force your upper body to lean backward, creating too much axis tilt away from the ball — which frequently leads to lower back pain.
If you experience pain in your left hip or lower back during your golf swing, or after completing a round, it may be a direct result of sliding too far forward with your lower body during the downswing.
No Magic Bullet, But There Is One Secret Worth Stealing
Every golfer knows there's no single secret move you can apply to magically fix everything wrong with your swing and transform you into a tour-caliber player overnight.
Nobody with a 20 handicap has ever discovered one little secret move that catapulted them onto the PGA Tour. That's simply not how improvement works. The real "secret" is building an entire swing that's fundamentally solid and allows you to perform consistently day after day.
That said, Hogan did possess certain secrets that elevated him far above most of his contemporaries, and there is one that you can absolutely apply to your own game today.
One of Hogan's most powerful strategies was learning to eliminate one side of the golf course. He practiced this discipline religiously, and it's undoubtedly one of the keys that made him such an exceptional course manager.
We're going to show you how to implement this strategy yourself at the end of today's lesson. When you can step onto a hole, identify trouble on one side, and completely eliminate that side from your game plan, making pars becomes dramatically easier — and birdies become far more frequent.
Day 6: Tone Down Your Draw
The primary focus for today is learning to refine and control the shot shaping techniques you developed on Days 1 through 5.
You've already learned how to hit big hooks and slices. You know how to manipulate your hands and body to curve the ball in both directions. Now we're going to show you how to tone those movements down so you can use the same techniques to hit a controlled draw — a nearly straight shot that just falls a few yards to the left.
Your game will become dramatically more consistent and effective because you'll be able to shape shots intentionally and compensate for errors during actual rounds of golf.
Get That Hook Under Control
We'll start with taming the hook.
In the earlier lessons, you learned that swinging the club out to the right starts the ball to the right, and that closing the club face by rolling it left puts right-to-left spin on the ball — curving it back toward the target.
We deliberately had you perform big, exaggerated versions of these movements to produce 20 or 30 yard hooks. That's the correct learning sequence — you start big, then refine. Today you're ready to bring it under control.
The drill setup shown below will help you practice smaller, more controlled draws. You'll need two alignment rods and two foam swimming pool "noodles." The noodles are inexpensive — typically just a couple of dollars wherever pool or beach items are sold.
Slide the noodles over the alignment rods to create highly visible reference lines. If you can't find foam noodles, the drill still works with bare rods — but the noodles make the boundaries much easier to see. With just rods, it's possible to hit outside the corridor without realizing it.
Set up the rods so that a perfectly straight shot aimed at the target would just barely miss the left foam noodle. This establishes your target line boundary.
You can also lay a rod or club on the ground parallel to the target line as a reference for aligning your feet, hips, and shoulders. Position everything so that a perfectly square setup producing a dead-straight shot would barely miss the left noodle.
Adjust Your Stance for Control
When you were learning to hit a hook in the earlier lessons, we had you keep your stance square and manipulate the shot entirely with your hands, arms, and club — swinging exaggeratedly to the right. That approach was ideal for learning the movements, but it changes now that you're developing a controlled draw.
The reason: if you set up square and use your arms and body to create all the inside-out path, the club face tends to work too far behind your body. If you need to swing 20 yards to the right of your alignment, you end up with the club approaching from way inside — forcing you to flip your hands at the bottom. That's not sustainable or repeatable over time.
Instead, we're going to adjust your stance to do most of the work. For a 10-yard draw, simply align your feet approximately 10 yards to the right of the target.
When your feet, hips, and shoulders are all square to this adjusted aim line, you only need to swing very slightly to the right — instead of the dramatic exaggeration you practiced earlier.
The reason this works: the direction your ball starts is controlled approximately 85% by where the club face is pointing at impact.
If you want to play a 5-yard draw, your club head needs to be traveling about 10-12 yards to the right of the ultimate target.
You don't want to manipulate your swing path 10-12 yards right relative to your body alignment. Instead, align your feet about 10 yards right, then swing just barely inside-out — a gentle rightward path through the impact zone. Then close the face slightly with a subtle wrist roll.
Start the drill approximately four or five feet behind the foam noodles and hit five shots. Aim to start them all 10 yards to the right and draw them back so they finish about 5 yards right of the pin.
Keep practicing until you can consistently hit five shots that start to the right of the noodle and draw back toward the target.
Move Back for a Bigger Challenge
Once you've mastered the drill from 4-5 feet, you're going to progressively move farther back from the foam noodles. This dramatically shrinks your margin for error.
The farther back you go, the less room you have to start the ball right of your target while still keeping it between the alignment rods.
When you're close to the rods and your shot barely passes inside the right noodle, that could represent 20-30 yards right of your target — too much curve for a controlled draw.
Move back a bit, and barely missing the right noodle means you're only 10 yards right. A little farther back, and the right noodle represents just 5 yards — a tight, controlled draw.
The farther back you position yourself, the more demanding the drill becomes.
Once you're performing well at 4-5 feet, move to 10-12 feet and hit five more shots. Practice from this distance until you can consistently start the ball right of your target — between the rods — and draw it back to the left.
When you're comfortable at that distance, move back to approximately 15 feet and hit another five.
Your goal: 15 quality shots total — five each from 5, 10, and 15 feet. That completes the Day 6 draw control drills. Want to see how your swing path looks from above? Try a free AI swing analysis to get your personalized GOAT Score and path diagnosis.
Hogan's Secret: Eliminate One Side of the Course
We opened today's lesson by discussing Hogan's strategy of eliminating one side of the golf course — let's put it into practice.
This is genuinely one of the most powerful course management fundamentals you can develop. It transforms how you think about every approach shot.
To implement this strategy, imagine a giant wall starting at the left foam noodle and extending all the way to the target in the distance.
When you're playing a right-to-left draw, consider anything that touches that wall — anything that crosses the target line and finishes left — to be a terrible shot, regardless of how it looked or felt.
Start your shots out to the right and let them draw back. Missing 20 yards to the right is completely acceptable. A big miss to the right is always better than any shot that crosses the target line and finishes left, even by a single yard.
When you're hitting a fade, obviously your imaginary wall is on the right side.
- When you play a right-to-left shot, never let the ball cross the target line to the left.
- When you play a left-to-right shot, never let the ball cross the target line to the right.
If the ball crosses that line, it's a bad shot — count it as a miss, no exceptions.
Practice getting your draw under control while maintaining this discipline: never allow a right-to-left shot to finish left of the target. When you commit to this rule, you'll eliminate the double-miss — the most destructive pattern in golf course management.
As you develop this skill, you'll be amazed at how much simpler the game becomes when you only have to worry about missing on one side. If you want real-time feedback on your shot shape, try a free AI golf lesson that tracks your swing path and face angle live.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Cupping the left wrist opens the club face
Kicking the right knee in can make you lean back
Placing pool noodles on the alignment rods makes them easier to see
Feet are lined up 10 yards to the right
Hitting a draw
Imagine a wall
