Slicing is by far the most common ball flight us instructors see. Over 90% of the golfing population suffer from it, so you’re not alone out there guys.Unfortunately the slice can be caused by many different factors, anything from your shaft type and clubs to the type of golf ball you use. However, the most common cause boils down to improper fundamentals. Below are the top five fundamental flaws that will cause a slice, ranking in order of their frequency.
5) Open Stance / Open Shoulders
Setting up slightly open to your target line is number five on our list. Opening your stance causes your body and shoulders to also align themselves slightly to the left of your target. This will encourage and out to in swing path (over the top). This alone will make squaring the club at impact very difficult, usually resulting in big pull hooks.
4) Ball Position Too Far Back in Your Stance
Proper ball position is extremely important to insuring solid, square contact at impact. If everything else is perfect but your ball position is too far back, the club won’t have yet squared in its natural rotation through impact, resulting in your banana ball. Another problem stemming from poor ball position is that if your body gets ahead of your arms into impact (you’re rushing your lower body into impact), the club face is left wide open at impact, because your wrists have not even begun to rotate yet.
3) Weak Grip
Number three on the list is a weak grip, now remember this has nothing to do with grip pressure, it’s the positioning of your hands on the club. You have a weak grip if your hands are resting on top of the club as shown. The V’s created by the webbing in-between your thumb and index fingers will be pointing to the left of your body. This is quite a common fault, but those V’s should be pointing at your trailing shoulder.
2)Standing to Close to the Ball
Next on the list is standing too closely to the ball; it’s a fault that is very common among women. When you stand too close to the ball, you’re swing is forced to become very upright. This leads to a couple more problems. An upright swing can very easily turn into an over-the-top, out to in swing path which as described above causes a slice. Another problem occurs because the club tends to rest on the toe slightly at address in this position. At impact the toe of the club makes contact with the ground first, slowing it down. The heel then outpaces the toe, opening the clubface, leading to your slice.
1)Gripping the Club Too Tightly
The number one fault that causes a slice is grip pressure. Again and again I see my students literally strangling the club, so much so their knuckles turn white. This is extremely common in very active and muscular guys. They know the clubface is open at impact, so they try and force it square by gripping it tighter. Unfortunately, gripping the club this way reduces wrist hinge and arm movements drastically. Without these natural movements the club face will never square at impact. Your wrists are unable to rotate properly into impact, so the club is left open, and bang… you get your massive ‘cut’.
Hopefully you can take this information to the range and work on fixing the fundamentals that contributed to your slice. Good luck, and let me know how things went.