UPDATE > locking any future replies to this post as it's essentially a duplicate and the replay feature is gone. If you happen to land on this thread go here for the replays and stuff
Soo hooks and slices.. you may or may not know they exist in this game, but I did some testing after I hit that damn tree in Congressional #4 with left-to-right wind for the 1000th time.
First off it works driving from the tee, the 3W behaves similarly to an extent and I have no idea about hybrids... but some old forum post mentions it working for all clubs and that is incorrect: with irons and wedges it mostly alters your starting path, you don't get anything remotely similar to the curve with the driver.
To get an aggressive curve you have to hit the sweetspot between the last 1/5th or so of the dark blue bar and the line that separates dark blue from black. The problem is there's a ton of variance in that area, every tiny bit closer you get to that line makes the curve substantially sharper and if you manage to hit it right on that line it turns like crazy. Anything less does pretty much nothing, the progressive deviation that you may have experienced when you miss early or late.. and obviously if you make it into the black zone it's a duffed shot into whatever happens to be in front of the tees.
Worth mentioning that I expected a massive drop in overall distance and carry but there was virtually none compared to any other shot that didn't hit the ding. Also the ball stats don't really influence hooks/slices, you'll get a wider curve with long/spinny balls but that's because of the higher+longer trajectory.
So the max curve slice/hook that comes from hitting the line between dark blue and black is a very difficult shot to pull off, with horrible consequences if you miss and potentially useful in very few holes :) That said, if you aim for that last 1/5th or so of dark blue you still get a very decent and functional draw/fade curve and have plenty of room to hit it..similar to a regular shot if you picture the ding and a couple ding-lengths to either side of it.
That said, when you get it right on that line it's a stunningly beautiful shot from the front-side view... so with some practice you could use it to style on someone if you're confident enough. I'm kinda sad they never really developed the "shot-shaping" concept in this game.
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EDIT: Thought I'd tidy up the post for anyone who checks it down the line.
Meter: I got the reconnect glitch pop-up after one of the slice attempts so I decided to screenshot the meter, you might need to zoom in and it's dark because of the pop-up but it'll do:
Basically what I'm trying to hit is that "ding" line slightly to the right of where I hit this one, mirrored on the other side for hooks. In this case, you'd get a nice slice curve but still noticeably smaller than the one on the replay... small differences in this area change the outcome of the shot drastically.
Replays:
Slice
Hook
Fade against heavy sidewind
Draw against heavy sidewind
*The sharpness of the curve and the difference between starting path vs landing spot can be best appreciated from camera 1
P.S. If I'm on your team in an Alternate Shot and we are playing a course with anything but straight fairways... you should probably run =^)
Cheers!