How Can I cure my Pull Slice Shot? (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
How Can I cure my Pull Slice Shot? (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

This is a question I probably get asked three, four times every single day, is how can I cure my slice? How can I cure my pull slice would be a better definition of the question, because most golfers that slice the ball actually pull slice it. They pull it down the left hand side then it curves from left to right and finishes away down the right hand side of the fairway, and that by definition is the pull slice.

To hit the pull slice, the club face must be close to the target, and then the swing path must be even more out in than the face angle. So if the face angle is aiming three degrees left, and the line of the swing path is 10 degrees left, that ball will pull slice. It will start left and cut back round to the right. And correcting a pull slice is not a particularly easy job, because generally when you are going through the correction process, you may actually hit the ball worse. Now you need a bit of confidence in your coach or the information that I’m telling you if you go through this process, you are hitting the ball worse, you think, “Well, that’s not working, I’ll stop doing that complete and I’ll get back to square one.” But in that respect, you’ll never get any better. You’ve got to take a little bit of pain, then you’ll get the gain at the end of it. The majority of the hard work you need to do here is going to be based on the driving range. Please don’t try this on the golf course because I can say you’ll hit some bad shots then I get the blame for those bad shots. So the first thing we need to do for understanding what’s causing a pull slice is we need to correct the swing path. Your swing path currently will be very aggressively from out to in. Your club will be up, over the top and back across your body, swinging quite violently to the left of target for the right-handed golfer. But we need to change that. We need to get your swing path to be more right to left – sorry to shape the ball more from right to left, from more in to out. So as I’m setting up to the golf ball here, I want to bring the club more down behind me and swing from in to out, as I come through the golf ball, so the inside line is over here, the outside line is over here. So we want to practice bringing the club down and hitting out to the right. Now that can be very counter intuitive to a golfer, particularly if that pull slicing. They are hitting shots that finish to the right hand side and there is me telling you to hit more to the right hand side. That’s not going to look particularly pretty to start with, particularly because you may still have the club face open to your swing path line, which you have always had. I’ve just now got your swing path line hitting more to the right. The next thing you need to do, is to make sure that club face doesn’t stay open to your swing path line, but actually needs to come slightly left of your swing path line. You notice I’m not saying left of your target line, it’s left of your swing path line. So if you are swinging out to the right hand side, the club face needs to aim left of that. And the way you would do that is, you would let your hands and arms release the clubs slightly more, get the club face aiming more left down the swing path. It can actually still aim right at the target line, and that would still produce a nice draw. So let’s use some numbers here, if you are swinging to the right, let’s say six degrees using a Trackman or a Flightscope, you can get this data, you can get these numbers. You are swinging to the right at six degrees, with the club face that’s aiming three degrees right, that club is three degrees left of the swing path line. That produces some nice draw. That’s going to stop the ball pull slicing. You’ll see straighter shots, maybe even start to draw the ball back in. So the basic premise of a pull slice is the face is aiming left, you are swinging very left. What we need to do to draw the golf ball or to reduce the pull slice is swing more rightwards, where the face is aiming slightly more leftwards than the path. And if you can achieve that you’ll reduce your pull slices, you’ll hit much straighter golf shots with a smile on your face. 2014-05-08

This is a question I probably get asked three, four times every single day, is how can I cure my slice? How can I cure my pull slice would be a better definition of the question, because most golfers that slice the ball actually pull slice it. They pull it down the left hand side then it curves from left to right and finishes away down the right hand side of the fairway, and that by definition is the pull slice.

To hit the pull slice, the club face must be close to the target, and then the swing path must be even more out in than the face angle. So if the face angle is aiming three degrees left, and the line of the swing path is 10 degrees left, that ball will pull slice. It will start left and cut back round to the right.

And correcting a pull slice is not a particularly easy job, because generally when you are going through the correction process, you may actually hit the ball worse. Now you need a bit of confidence in your coach or the information that I’m telling you if you go through this process, you are hitting the ball worse, you think, “Well, that’s not working, I’ll stop doing that complete and I’ll get back to square one.” But in that respect, you’ll never get any better. You’ve got to take a little bit of pain, then you’ll get the gain at the end of it.

The majority of the hard work you need to do here is going to be based on the driving range. Please don’t try this on the golf course because I can say you’ll hit some bad shots then I get the blame for those bad shots. So the first thing we need to do for understanding what’s causing a pull slice is we need to correct the swing path. Your swing path currently will be very aggressively from out to in. Your club will be up, over the top and back across your body, swinging quite violently to the left of target for the right-handed golfer.

But we need to change that. We need to get your swing path to be more right to left – sorry to shape the ball more from right to left, from more in to out. So as I’m setting up to the golf ball here, I want to bring the club more down behind me and swing from in to out, as I come through the golf ball, so the inside line is over here, the outside line is over here. So we want to practice bringing the club down and hitting out to the right. Now that can be very counter intuitive to a golfer, particularly if that pull slicing. They are hitting shots that finish to the right hand side and there is me telling you to hit more to the right hand side. That’s not going to look particularly pretty to start with, particularly because you may still have the club face open to your swing path line, which you have always had. I’ve just now got your swing path line hitting more to the right.

The next thing you need to do, is to make sure that club face doesn’t stay open to your swing path line, but actually needs to come slightly left of your swing path line. You notice I’m not saying left of your target line, it’s left of your swing path line. So if you are swinging out to the right hand side, the club face needs to aim left of that. And the way you would do that is, you would let your hands and arms release the clubs slightly more, get the club face aiming more left down the swing path. It can actually still aim right at the target line, and that would still produce a nice draw.

So let’s use some numbers here, if you are swinging to the right, let’s say six degrees using a Trackman or a Flightscope, you can get this data, you can get these numbers. You are swinging to the right at six degrees, with the club face that’s aiming three degrees right, that club is three degrees left of the swing path line. That produces some nice draw. That’s going to stop the ball pull slicing. You’ll see straighter shots, maybe even start to draw the ball back in.

So the basic premise of a pull slice is the face is aiming left, you are swinging very left. What we need to do to draw the golf ball or to reduce the pull slice is swing more rightwards, where the face is aiming slightly more leftwards than the path. And if you can achieve that you’ll reduce your pull slices, you’ll hit much straighter golf shots with a smile on your face.