During this next section we’re going to talk about pushing the golf ball. The first thing you need to understand with the push is what it is, but also what it isn’t. A pushed golf shot for the right-handed golfer is a ball that finishes to the right-hand side of the intended target, possibly to the right and in trouble. But it’s the shot that flew there in a relatively straight direction. So my intended target is the red flag down the middle here, but my push shot would go at the red flag over on the right-hand side, but it would fly relatively straight there, and into the semi-rough, the rough, or out of bounds. So what the push shot is not is a slice. A slice is a shot that starts off straighter or even left, and then curves out to the right-hand side. Both shots might finish in exactly the same position, but it would take two very different routes to get there.

Now the reason why I’m making such a labored point about what the difference between a push and a slice is, is because they’re caused by two completely different things. And therefore your corrections are two completely different things as well. So if you’ve got a slice and you’re watching the push corrections then I’m sorry, it’s not going to help you; it’s going to get worse. Because a push and a slice are caused by two completely different things, therefore the corrections are different as well. So a push, a ball that starts right and stays right, and goes down this right-hand side, generally caused by a swing path that’s too much from the inside, and a club face that is square to the swing path. That hits the golf ball and imparts not much curving spin, so normally sidespin effectively, imparts backspin, and hits the ball relatively straight, but not towards the intended target.

So now we’ve established exactly what a push is, and also what it isn’t, now let’s look at little bit further at how we can help improve your pushed golf shots.