What To Do When You Absolutely Can't Miss Left

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Standing on the tee of that long, dogleg left par 5 makes a lot of players want to hit a hard draw for optimum positioning.

But what happens if there's out-of-bounds left?

Hooks can happen when you try to hit it harder -- and when you're facing a pressure situation and the hands get more active than they should.

The trick to hitting a failsafe non-left shot is keeping the path of the club slightly left of the clubface at impact, says top Georgia teacher Mike Granato. "It doesn't take a massive adjustment, like some big change in your stance or fanning the clubface way open to hit a cut," Granato says.

In fact, you do what might be counterintuitive -- aim the face left of the target, while swinging along a path just slightly left of where you aim the face. "Because the face will be open relative to the path -- not the target, the path -- the ball will drift slightly to the right," says Granato. "You'll hit a hard, relatively straight ball with maybe just a hint of fade. It lets you still make an aggressive swing, but without worrying about the big miss to the left."