The γ-γ perturbed angular correlation (PAC) technique probes the electric field gradient (EFG) at the site of the nucleus of a probe atom surrounded by other atoms of a solid. Due to the quick drop of the EFG with distance the PAC technique is particularly well suited to study the lattice vicinity of suitable PAC probe atoms in solids on a sub-nanometer scale. Here, it is employed to investigate the short-range order in amorphous ZrBaF glasses using 181Hf as a probe. The results show that long before standard characterisation techniques like X-ray diffraction measurements detect the onset of crystallisation, the PAC results indicate a short-range order and allow the identification of crystalline precursors already present in the amorphous state.