by Andre Sanchez

Knowing how to fix a golf slice is a great skill to have, and something that many golfers would die for – well, not literally, but you get the drift.  A slice is the bane of many golfers’ lives and many have given the game up because of it.  To be able to fix it as soon as you recognize it is a great skill.

The more you known about the cause of a golf slice, then the easier you will find a cure for it. There is only one cause for a slice, but many ways of achieving it.  A golf ball slices because it is rotating clockwise after it has been hit. It’s that rotation that cause unequal drag and air resistance between the two sides of the ball, and while it might seem to be heading straight for the target, after a hundred yards or less it will start that dreaded curve that gets worse and worse the longer the ball is in the air.

You are willing it to drop, but it just keeps sailing off in that banana curve that takes it off-center by up to seven yards in every 200 yards for every degree it curves.  A bad slice can end up 40 – 50 yards off target, and that can take it into the next fairway – if you are lucky!  At least from there you might have a decent second shot!

So, why should you put that spin on the ball?  There are many reasons, but that is not the purpose of this article.  It might be because you are swinging over the ball, your chest is rotating too fast or your grip is all wrong.  It doesn’t matter. The effect is the same. However, you can look at closer at what is happening between the golf club and the golf at the moment of impact so that it is made to spin, and then what can be done to counter that.

A golf ball spins clockwise because the club is not straight onto it at the moment of impact.  What that means is that a line across the face of the club is not at 90 degrees to a line from the ball to the target.  If the clubface is turned back from the ball when it strikes it, so that the heel is in front of the toe, then you will slice it.  If the toe is leading the heel, then you will hook it.  That is incontrovertible.  As Scottie would say, “You canna change the laws ’o physics”.

Therefore, if you are slicing the ball regularly, you have a problem, but it can be resolved temporarily until you can get a permanent fix.  The Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcias of this world know these quick fixes, and here they are for you.

The objective is to get the club straight to the ball when you hit it.  So don’t try to solve your main problem now by changing your swing, or slowing down your shoulder rotation.  For now, you can do one of two things.  But first what NOT to do.  Don’t aim left of the target (for a left hander it is obviously the opposite) since by doing that you might end up on the fairway, but with a lot of lost distance and little or no accuracy. Now for what you should do.

The first is to adjust your stance a bit.  Move your feet until they are pointing more to the left of the target. Then swing as normal. Since you are spinning the ball because your clubface is not straightening up quick enough, this will give it more time to do so.  You will drive the ball before your club straightens out towards the direction of your stance, and will hit it straight to the target.  Does that make sense?

The second way to make sure that the club is straight on to the ball when you strike it is to move your hands a bit to the right (clockwise) on your club grip, and then play as normal.  This will turn the clubface round quicker, and hit the ball straighter on.  The name for this is to strengthen your grip.  Not to hold it tighter, but to hold it further clockwise.

Both of these actions will sort your problem out temporarily.  They need fine tuned, but you can hardly do that on-course.  However, if you want to apply either of those as desperate permanent cures for your slice, then practice them on the driving range until you have the adjustments perfectly tuned.

That is how to fix a golf slice on a temporary basis, and perhaps even permanently if they work for you, though the real cure is to have the root cause identified and sorted.  But that is another article.

How to Fix a Golf Slice was originally published at http://www.golfplayernow.com