How to fix your golf slice

How to Fix your Golf Slice!

If you are you struggling with a slice, you are not alone. Slice, when the ball curves to the right, is far more common than its sibling – the hook. A hook is when the ball curves to the left and often not as much as that of a slice. A slice is also a bit more tricky to get rid of, but keep the faith!

How should you then go ahead and cure it? I, myself, have actually struggled with a slice and both from the experience with curing my own and with the experience of helping others the problem nearly always comes down to the grip.

More specifically, the position of the grip with your right hand (the one above) and the pressure of the left hand (the one underneath).

How to fix you Golf Hook

Usually, your right hand ends up far too much underneath the golf handle thus getting something that is usually called “a weak grip”. To change a grip is challenging, and the first swings will feel totally unnatural and you will not get the result that you’d like.

But hang in there as it will give in! 

If you instead struggle with a hook, read our guide on “How to fix your Golf Hook

5 easy steps on how to cure your golf slice

1. The position of your grip.

When you take your golf stance and adjust your grip, you should see 2-3 knuckles on your left hand. A tip here would be to “overdo” it just to end up somewhere in the middle. By doing this, your grip will be stronger without adding any pressure. The difficult part here is that it will feel like you are bending your wrist too much, but it will give in.

The next thing is that you should have your thumb on your right hand pointing from the middle of your belt down at the ball. This might require you to turn the right hand a little bit to the left.

Why would you need such a straight right-hand thumb? This is to secure that you do not have your right hand underneath the grip gripping with the thumb around the grip.

2. The pressure of your grip

If you are struggling with a slice, you probably have had some problems with your grip and are holding the club too tight. When adjusting your grip as pointed out in (1), try to relieve the pressure since the new grip alone will give you a stronger grip.

If 1 is really soft grip and if 5 is a really hard grip, try to have 2 on your left hand and between 3-4 on your right hand. A correct grip with your left hand would allow you to swing a wedge with the left arm/hand alone without any trouble.

Having a stronger grip with your right hand than your left hand will give you more speed in the club and decrease the need to use more pure strength.

Try step 1 and 2 the next time you are at the practice range!

“One of the most common struggles is the slice with the driver”

3. Address with your hip!

Especially when slicing from the tee. Since the driver is the common go-to club when teeing off and since it’s the club with the most distance, a slice is more prone to punish you. When you have your grip in order, how you hit the ball is next up.

What you want to do is not to hit the ball from the outside in and thus create a right turn spin. One way to deal with this problem is to move your left hip ever so slightly to the left while keeping your upper body slightly leaning to the right. This automatically creates more of an inside-out swing path.

4. Increase speed, not strength!

This is more of an “all around fixer”. When trying to get the most distance a lot of golfers try to compensate by adding strength.

Say it with me: “It is more important to hit your drivers straight than hitting them long”

Once you get a hold of your grip, swing path and stance and you get your tee-shots in the middle of the fairway you can focus on adding distance.

5. Your club face should be “closed”!

Another kind off “blurry” golf term. But this one is really important. If you have done 1-4 your clubface should be closed by now. A good test is to do half a back-swing so that the club is 90 degrees to the ground (such as the picture) and see if you can or can not see your clubface.

Therefore, you should not see your clubface or just barely see it. If you can see the whole surface of your driver you will keep slicing those tee shots!

A great tip is to “overdo” it in the beginning. Close it enough to even hit a few hooks! Then, eventually you will find your middle ground.

What not to do to fix your slice?

1. Not trying to cure your slice and aim to the left on purpose!

Have you ever played a four-ball and notice someone aiming out over that big pond when the fairway is to the right of it? This is the worst “common” fix that we come across.  A slice not only reduces your ability to aim, but it also reduces the length of your golf shots drastically.

2. Adjusting your clubs!

Using new technology to adjust the weights in i.e. your driver and hope that that it will magically fix the slice is wrong. This will only make the slice worse and will not improve you as a golfer.

What is a Golf Slice?

A golf slice is usually when the face of the club hits the ball traveling “outside and in” and creating a left to right spin of the ball. This also makes the distance of the golf ball to drastically decrease and end up to the right of the golf tee.

What causes Golf Slice?

The golf slice is usually caused by the golf grip and takes some practice to get rid of. Another reason why you are suffering from a slice is a bad swing path which causes the face of the club to hit the ball from the outside in. Some people experience a slice when they use too much hands in the downswing without the support of the hip movement.

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