Fix Your Slice With a Stronger Golf Grip - (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Fix Your Slice With a Stronger Golf Grip - (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

So a very common shot that will often plague a lot of people at some point in their golfing career would be a slice. Slice is a ball that’s described as spinning from left to right for the right-handed golfer and opposite for the left-handed golfer. Now the reason often why that ball will spin out to the right hand side is the club face is open to the swing path.

So open for the right handed player is pointing to the right, in relation to the path that the club is traveling as you hit the golf ball. If we can get that club face to be squarer to the swing path, we can reduce the amount of sidespin on the ball and actually help the ball fly a little bit in a straighter direction.

Now, squaring the club face up to the swing path is often the job that the hands need to do to release the golf club and rotate the golf club into a good position. And if you’re struggling to do that, one of the reasons maybe that your grip is actually a very weak grip and we could strengthen your grip up a little bit to encourage you to do the right job. So let me just explain a strong and a weak group.

If we take an addressed position and we have the grip here and looking down onto the grip, if you can see two knuckles on the back of your front handle top hand that would be a good position. Two knuckles is a neutral grip. However, if you can only see one knuckle or no knuckles around here, this is the big knuckles on the back of your hand, if you can’t see a knuckle around that, that’s going to be a very weak position causing the club face to open slightly if you hit it. Conversely, three knuckles, four knuckles might be too strong, likewise the right hand, bottom hand, if this comes too far over this way because my left hand is here, my right hand falls over this way, it’s a very weak grip, and it’s going to result in a club face opening.

Likewise, too far around with strong position, throw the right hand or the bottom hand underneath too much, that gets me in a very strong position, that’s going to produce probably a big hook. But if you’re struggling with a slice and you’ve tried a few things to correct that you’ve tried releasing your hands faster and it’s still drifting from left to right for the right hander, you could experiment with strengthening your grip slightly, so going more to a deliberately three-knuckle left hand position, placing the right hand slightly more underneath the golf club.

This now wants to turn back to there to get my hands in a neutral position. So my hands will always try and find their way back to neutral and you can see that this would actually turn to neutral, it would close the club face.

So if you’re struggling with an open club face, making a stronger grip would encourage your hands to turn back to a neutral position and hopefully hit the ball a little bit straighter. But just a word of warning, don’t do it too much or you could end up with a big pull hook because your hands will overreact too far. And really, if you’re experimenting with things like this, I would encourage you to go and get some good professional advice to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with your golf swing that’s causing the problem.

So have a little experimentation of the stronger grip and if that helps, great. If that doesn’t help and it just turns into a big pull hook, go and seek out your local PJ golf professional and ask for their advice on this as well.

 2012-05-23

So a very common shot that will often plague a lot of people at some point in their golfing career would be a slice. Slice is a ball that’s described as spinning from left to right for the right-handed golfer and opposite for the left-handed golfer. Now the reason often why that ball will spin out to the right hand side is the club face is open to the swing path.

So open for the right handed player is pointing to the right, in relation to the path that the club is traveling as you hit the golf ball. If we can get that club face to be squarer to the swing path, we can reduce the amount of sidespin on the ball and actually help the ball fly a little bit in a straighter direction.

Now, squaring the club face up to the swing path is often the job that the hands need to do to release the golf club and rotate the golf club into a good position. And if you’re struggling to do that, one of the reasons maybe that your grip is actually a very weak grip and we could strengthen your grip up a little bit to encourage you to do the right job. So let me just explain a strong and a weak group.

If we take an addressed position and we have the grip here and looking down onto the grip, if you can see two knuckles on the back of your front handle top hand that would be a good position. Two knuckles is a neutral grip. However, if you can only see one knuckle or no knuckles around here, this is the big knuckles on the back of your hand, if you can’t see a knuckle around that, that’s going to be a very weak position causing the club face to open slightly if you hit it. Conversely, three knuckles, four knuckles might be too strong, likewise the right hand, bottom hand, if this comes too far over this way because my left hand is here, my right hand falls over this way, it’s a very weak grip, and it’s going to result in a club face opening.

Likewise, too far around with strong position, throw the right hand or the bottom hand underneath too much, that gets me in a very strong position, that’s going to produce probably a big hook. But if you’re struggling with a slice and you’ve tried a few things to correct that you’ve tried releasing your hands faster and it’s still drifting from left to right for the right hander, you could experiment with strengthening your grip slightly, so going more to a deliberately three-knuckle left hand position, placing the right hand slightly more underneath the golf club.

This now wants to turn back to there to get my hands in a neutral position. So my hands will always try and find their way back to neutral and you can see that this would actually turn to neutral, it would close the club face.

So if you’re struggling with an open club face, making a stronger grip would encourage your hands to turn back to a neutral position and hopefully hit the ball a little bit straighter. But just a word of warning, don’t do it too much or you could end up with a big pull hook because your hands will overreact too far. And really, if you’re experimenting with things like this, I would encourage you to go and get some good professional advice to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with your golf swing that’s causing the problem.

So have a little experimentation of the stronger grip and if that helps, great. If that doesn’t help and it just turns into a big pull hook, go and seek out your local PJ golf professional and ask for their advice on this as well.