Golf Slice Tips - How to Cure a Chronic Golf Slice

But there is a cure. Before you go nuts from your chronic slice, try focusing on these three simple swing thoughts: alignment, grip, and an outside-in swing plane. Since two of those are actually pre-swing thoughts, the outside-in swing plane is the central part of the swing for you to concentrate on, but let’s begin with alignment and grip. (Note: all of the following is for right-handed golfers; for left-handers, simply reverse all “right” and “left” references.)

Golf Slice Tips: Alignment

The key to proper alignment is ensuring that your feet and shoulders are parallel with your target line. Many chronic slicers tend to aim further and further left to try to over-correct for the expected slice, but that’s the wrong way to go. You must begin with correct alignment.

To accomplish this, first stand behind your ball and identify the line on which you want your ball to fly. Look down in front of your ball, and find something on that imaginary line that stands out—a blade or clump of grass, a little brown spot, a broken tee, anything. That spot will represent your preferred ball flight path.

Next, when you address the ball, set your club down behind your ball, and point your clubhead in the direction of your chosen alignment spot. This ensures that your club is pointed in the correct direction.

Then, as you settle into your stance, make sure your shoulders and feet are parallel with the imaginary line from your ball to your aim spot, and you’ll be aligned properly.

Golf Slice Tips: The Grip

This is another area where slicers often attempt to over-correct for their slice: many tend to close their clubface—or point it leftward—to essentially try to force the ball from going to the right. This slides the left hand further and further under the shaft, which, like the closed clubface, produces a slice. The combination of these two errors creates a slice so curved it’ll make a banana look straight.

To avoid this, check your grip at address. Make sure you can see the knuckles of the index and middle fingers of your left hand. Then check the “V’s” created by the intersection of the thumb and index finger on both hands—both “V’s” should be pointing at your right shoulder or armpit. With proper alignment and grip, you’re now ready to take the club away.

Golf Slice Tips: The Outside-In Swing Plane

For most beginners and many amateurs, the natural way to take the club back away from the ball is on an inside plane, curving away from the ball almost as soon as the takeaway begins. This encourages the slicer’s worst nemesis: the inside-out swing plane, otherwise known as “coming over the top,” which produces left-to-right spin on the ball and ballooning slices.

Instead, focus on taking the club away from the ball on as straight a line as possible for as long as possible, only getting off that straightaway path after several inches, when the natural coil of your body forces the path of the club to begin rotating around the body.

Now that you’ve begun your backswing on this outside path, keep it on that path all the way to the top of your backswing. Practice keeping your arms extended as much as you can for as long as you can during the backswing; both arms eventually bend during the backswing, of course, but keep them more or less straight until the natural curve of the swing causes the bending of the elbows. (Watch PGA touring pros Fred Couples and Kenny Perry for examples of players with long, straight takeaways who almost never hit the ball left to right, unless intentionally.)

If you’ve started your backswing on a straight-back path and your backswing has stayed on an outside plane, it’s practically impossible to come over-the-top and slice.

At the top of your backswing, you should feel as if your hips are powerfully coiled and ready to be unleashed. The uncoiling of the hips begins the downswing—you should feel as if your arms are following the momentum of the uncoiling of your hips. This allows the club to smoothly slide into a path somewhat on the inside of your backswing path; it also allows your hands to move forward before the clubhead, producing a whipping motion that creates power and adds distance.

This type of swing—straight back from the ball as far as possible, hips coiling, downswing on a slightly inside path—will definitely stop the slice, but there is a danger: now you might even hook the ball. The outside-in swing plane produces right-to-left spin on the ball, so you’ll have to work at not swinging too far on the inside downswing path so as not to draw or hook the ball too far left. But if you work on proper alignment, proper grip, a straight-back takeaway, and a slightly outside-in swing plane, you definitely won’t slice. And that’ll feel nice.

Thank you to Scott Nesbitt for this "Golf Slice Tips" article.

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