Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

Here we are going to look at what a push slice golf shot is, what the cause of that ball flight is and then how to correct it for you, so there is no longer a problem. So first of all let's look at what a push slice is. A push slice golf shot is a shot where the ball starts to the right of the target and then swings in the air to the right, finishing even further right of the target, so that’s what a push slice is. If we look at what causes it, if we use the alignment pole to represent the target line, as you are swinging through, you’ve taken your backswing and the clubface is coming in aiming to the right and the club head is traveling from an in to out swing path. So that means that the club head is on the inside of that target line and moving across it and the clubface is open to the target as you are doing this, okay.

So the ball will start on the right, the reason that you get the ball swinging in the air and curving in the air, is there is a difference between how much the clubface is aiming to the right and the direction of travel of that club head. If you are swinging, and the club head swings in from the inside to the outside and the club head is aiming to the right, but it’s in line with the direction of travel, you would actually just hit a straight shot to the right. So when you are hitting a push slice, the clubface is more open than the direction of travel and that gets the ball starting to the right, because there is a difference between the clubface angle and the direction that the club head is traveling in, this imparts tilted axis spin onto the golf ball and that tilted axis spin makes the ball spin further right, even more left or right in the air, finishing more to the right of the target.

So now we now what is causing that golf shot, let's look at how to fix it. With this drill, what I would do is take an alignment pole or use your golf club, place it onto the range, or the driving range map there to represent that’s the line you want to swing down. Okay, if we imagine where your golf ball is going to be on that line, what we want to do is we want to take two more balls and put one on the outside of the target line and on the inside, just by a few inches, so that as you address the ball, you are going to be able to swing back without hitting either of those of the two balls. We want to then do that, about a foot to the left, one on the outside and one on the inside and we also want to do that a foot to the right. One on the outside and one on the inside, so basically, we have created a channel with the golf balls that we have and that’s going to help us, to correct the movement of the club head through the impact position, to get you moving more down the target line and then we can just work on keeping the clubface aiming at the target as we do that.

So if you are hitting a push slice, what you would find is as you swing back, you will want to hit this golf ball first here, this, the right hand one on the inside. You want to take that one out, hit your golf ball and then hit the far left one as well. So we have got to work on getting the club to swing straighter down this channel, but don’t forget as you do that, you need to be making sure that the clubface is pointing at the target as you do that. If you can achieve that, you are going to hit a nice straight golf shot. So work on using the channel, so that you can see, I didn’t take any of the golf balls out there, I know my club head is swinging straight down the target line, because it’s not taking any of those balls out. And I have hit a straight shot because I kept the clubface aiming down that direction of movement, aiming at the target as I did that. If you work on that drill, you will be hitting straighter golf shots in no time.