The slice is the most common ball flight seen amongst amateur golfers… most of which have a no clue why it’s happening in the first place. They blame their clubs, their lack of talent, or some other technical detail without actually understanding the physics behind a slice.
A slice occurs when you hit the ball with an open clubface. The question is… Why was it open? And if you’ve browsed my site looking for slice cures, I’m sure you've found more than a couple causes for this problem.
Commonly, a slice is caused by a player fanning the clubface open on the backswing to forcibly initiate your wrist rotation. First of all, your wrists should move naturally with the movement of your arms, there doesn’t need to be a conscious effort into manipulating your wrists during the swing. This fault is quite common can be easily checked through this simple drill.
As you swing back to your 9:00 position, stop and take a look at which way your clubface is pointing. If your clubface is pointing the ground, you have under-rotated your wrists, probably because you thought it was important to have the club face the ball as long as possibly on the backswing (a common myth). If it’s facing towards the sky, you’ve over-rotated and purposely fanned the club open (a common position for slicers).
Ideally the toe of the club should be facing the sky, this means your wrists are rotating properly and are in position. Professional Mike Weir, is a good example of a player who uses this drill with every swing he makes.