Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

We are going to look during this tip at what a pull slice golf shot is and what that exactly means, the cause of it and then to give you some really good drills and tips to help you cure it, so that you are not struggling with that shot again. So if we look at what a pull slice is, technically a pull slice is a ball where, a ball stops flying left of the target and then it curves to the right and finishes on the right of the target. And we have got to understand what's going on with the club and the movement in the club and the clubface to understand what's producing that. So ball fly is dictated by two areas, first of all, it’s dictated by the area of the clubface and where the clubface is aiming as you strike the golf ball, that’s 85% responsible for why you see the ball flight that you see.

The second thing that affects ball flight is the direction that the club head is traveling in or the club swing path as you strike the ball. So if we are thinking about a pull slice and the ball starting on the left of the target, the clubface is aiming left of the target as you start your golf shots. The reason that you get in the pull slice, so the ball starts left of target, the club head is also instead of moving straight along the target line, the club head is also moving to the left of the target. Now if the clubface was pointing in the same direction as that movement, you would just hit a straight shot, left, a pull. But a pull slice sees that a divergence between where the clubface is aiming and the swing path is traveling, so the club head is traveling to the left of the target on the inside of that target line, but the clubface is pointing more to the right of that direction, but left of the target.

So that’s now going to impart tilted access spin on to your golf shot and you are going to see the ball curving from the left over to the right and it’s going to finish on the right. So now we understand that, we are going to look at how to correct it, so join your golf swing, you have a swing where the club head is swinging from an out-to-in swing path and the clubface is open to that swing path. If we look at how to correct that, we need to get you swinging straighter down the target line with the clubface aiming down that target line. So first of all, I would double check your alignment, because one of the main reasons that you maybe hitting this shot is you may actually be aiming your body alignment to the left. Again, if we look from this position, to correct aim your body, you should stand so that your toes, your feet, your knees and your shoulders and hips are all parallel to that target line. If you have got the toes, the knees, the hips and the shoulders parallel to that target line, you have got a really good opportunity for your swing path to move along that target line.

The chances are that you are aligned over to the left instead of at the target line and parallel to it and this would cause you to swing club head from the far side of the target line, the outside across the target line to the inside. If you a quite a good player though, you are going to know that you need to hold the clubface towards the target. So that will then result in you swinging this way, but turning the clubface towards the target as you are trying to get the ball to go to the target and there you have your situation where you are going to hit your pull slice. So work hard on your alignment, what I would suggest you do is before you hit the shot, stand behind the ball and draw a line back from the target to the ball and then pick out an object, it could be a twig, a leaf anything that’s on that line about two feet in front of the ball. Now go to place the club next to the ball, so the clubface is going to allow the ball to be hit over that spot that you have picked out.

And once you are happy that the clubface is aiming at that spot, work on getting your feet together and absolutely parallel to the clubface, parallel to the grooves on that clubface. So that you are not rotated to the right or rotated to the left, once you are happy that your feet are parallel to that clubface and the grooves and that’s in the middle of those feet, then take your stance up. And that will now allow you to stand, so that you are standing with your toes, your knees, your hips and your shoulders parallel to the target line. You have got a great chance to hit a straight shot from there, if you are still struggling with your ball flight from there, then your pull slice could be caused by an over the top action.

And all that, that means is that as you are swinging the club down, on your downswing, the club head is moving over the top of your hands. As the club moves over the top of your hands, the club head will go to the far side of target line and so your action to get back to the ball will have to be one of pulling it across the target line, giving you that out-to-in-swing path. So in order to correct that, what we do is just take a range basket, place it next to the ball on the right hand side, about a foot to the right of the ball, but so that it’s on the far side of that target line. So you can make your takeaway, the club head is not hitting the basket, but if you are making an over top action, you are going to click the basket as you swing back in. So just work on swinging away and swinging back from inside that basket, that I will now have you swing in on a much straighter swing path down the target line and then all you have got to do is keep your clubface aiming at the target, you will be hitting straight shots.