Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

One of the most common problem shots for golfers is when they are hitting a slice and a slice golf shot is where the ball starts left of the target and then it swings left to right in the air and finishes on the right of the target missing the intended target. And it is one of the most common issues that golfers face in learning how to correct this. So with this swing tip we are going to have a look at the three best fixes to help you with a slice if you are experiencing it, so as I said before a slice happens when the ball starts on the left of the target and it swings left to right in the air so let’s initially look at what’s causing that to happen. If I take an alignment pole and just place it on the floor here and we use that as the target line, what’s happening if you slice the ball is that the club face is aiming to the left of the target as you are connecting with the ball.

The club face is responsible for 85% of why you would hit the ball in a particular direction, so if the ball starts in left we know that the club face is aiming left at the target, so the club face is aiming left at the target, but the actual path that the club is traveling on is more left than that. So club face is aiming left of the target but the club head is swinging from the outside of the target line, that’s the far side and then it’s coming across to the inside of the target line, but the club face is pointing to the right of that direction of movement. And that’s giving us the slice, the more difference there is between where the club face is aiming and the direction of travel of the club head, the more deviation between those two things, the more tilted axis spin will be put onto the golf ball and it’s this tilted axis spin which makes the ball curve in the air and that’s what produces your slice.

So in order to correct it we just need to get the club head travelling along the target line with the club face pointing down the target line and you’ll hit straight to shots. So here are three really simple ways to help you do that. Initially I’ve set up a channel of six golf balls so all I’ve done is put my target line in the middle of those balls and I’ve placed two balls a couple of inches on either sides of that channel maybe four inches, so I’ve got one about a foot to the left of where I’m going the ball from one pair of balls where I’m hitting the ball from and one pair of balls a foot to the right. What I’m going to do is when I hit my golf shot, is I’m going to make sure that I don’t strike any of the golf balls so I know my club head is travelling directly down the target line and then I can just work on keeping my club face aiming in that direction of travel and I’ll hit a nice straight shot.

So if I would have hit any of the other golf balls, it will show me that my club head is not travelling directly down the target line. So that’s a really good way to improve your swing path and your club face position, the second way we can do that is if we use an alignment pole, if we place the alignment pole into the basket and just put that on the right hand side of us, so the alignment pole is in line with the target line but it’s tilted back towards me above 45 degrees, you are hitting a slice as you swing back, when you swing in you’ll swing in from over the top of that pole. So your club head’s gone on to the far side of the target line for you to pull across it, so simply work on swinging back and making sure that as you come back down to the ball you are only on the side of that alignment pole and that will help you swing directly down the target line.

You could also do that with your golf bag if you didn’t have an alignment pole, just pop your golf bag into position, work on just making sure that you are swinging up the angle of the bag, put down the angle of the bag rather than over the top of it. And the third way we can correct your slice is by just working on as you swing through, that you keep you forearms really close together so they feel like they are touching so as you hit the ball, rather than pulling your left arm, open your left elbow buckling and pointing upwards, work on keeping the forearms together as you swing through. And so they are going to touch and allow your right forearm to rotate over your left, that’s going to close the club face to more for you and get you away from having that open club face. So work on those three tips, you should see you hitting much straighter shots in no time.