Golf Tip: How To Fix Your Slice
Hitting a slice into the trees or a water hazard might be one of the worst feelings in all of sports. Whether you are swinging too hard or have a major swing path issue, a perpetual golf slice can make any player want to throw their clubs in the lake. If you’re one of those players, a big part of the reason might be that you’re “coming over the top” in your swing.
Golf Tip: How To Fix Your Golf Slice | Omaha Golf Course
Let’s start by making sure you’re clear on the type of impact that causes the golf slice. When the ball is slicing to the right, that means it’s curving in a left-to-right motion across the sky. For the ball to do this, it must be spinning in a clockwise direction.
Imagine that the ball is on a peg, and that all it can do is spin one way or another. To spin the ball clockwise, the club has to swing more to the left with the club-face pointing slightly to the right. In a golf shot, this is exactly what happens to make the ball curve across the sky as a slice. This can often be confirmed by looking at the divot. On the course, the divot produced by a slice swing is often pointing well left with the ball ending up well right of the divot’s direction. This is a classic slice.
Slicing and the Golfer’s Stance
It certainly seems logical that if a golfer is missing often to the right, then before too long he or she would aim more to the left to compensate. With slicers this is, in fact, the case. But aiming to the left will cause the swing’s circle to be too far to the left, exacerbating the slicing motion.
Double-check that your aim is not too far to the left, especially with your shoulders. You can lay a club on the ground, parallel to your target line, to check your aim. Or you can have a friend check your alignment. Just make sure that your feet, knees, hips and shoulders are parallel to that club on the ground and to your target line.
Slice Causes in the Backswing
There are numerous backswing issues that can affect your impact position. For slicing, the two basic flaws are a backswing that is going too much up (too steep), or a clockwise twisting of the shaft, or both.
If your back-swing is too much up and not enough around, then the club is going to approach the ball on an angle that is too steep. In other words, too sharply toward the ground. A properly squaring clubface would then create an impact that is hitting the ground too hard. In an effort to hit the ground a bit lighter, the golfer with this problem often opens the face on the way through, causing a slice.
To fix this issue, take a look at your backswing at the top. Make sure the shaft is over your shoulder at the top, not over your head. To achieve this position, you may have to feel your left arm cross your chest just a bit, creating a flatter or more rounded backswing. You may feel a bigger turn this way too. Good! Engaging those bigger muscles will only help you generate more power.
The next important element of the backswing will be the club-face position. One of the biggest mistakes slicers make is to turn the club clockwise to begin the backswing (immediately opening the club-face on the takeaway, in other words). This movement feels like the club is going around properly, creating a good turn. Unfortunately, this opening of the club simply creates an open face at impact. True, the club-face should “open” on the backswing, relative to the target line. However, this natural opening is done with the turning of the shoulders and torso, not because of a twist in the hands.
Outside Loop
In the Outside Loop swing, the takeaway is exaggerated to the outside, so that there’s no place for the golf club to go at the top but to the inside. The most notable example of someone who does this on tour is of course Jim Furyk. Furyk takes the club back outside to get to a comfortable inside position on his downswing, and it obviously has worked quite well! Another example of a great up and coming golfer who uses the Outside Loop is recent NCAA champion Matthew Wolff. Matthew’s swing is certainly unorthodox but taking it far outside like that absolutely prevents him from coming over the top. When you can establish a consistent strike from an inside position, you will improve every facet of your game.
To ensure that you’re doing the Outside Loop correctly, record your swing! There are some great golf swing recording products out there where with just an alignment stick and a cell-phone clip, you can check to make sure you’re getting the club outside to in on the takeaway, and inside to out on the follow through.
Bent Tree Golf Course Omaha & Council Bluffs | Fix Your Golf Slice Swing
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