Releasing the club through impact is imperative in creating distance, spin and creating solid square contact. Many players who suffer from a slice tend to have issues in releasing the club properly through impact. A good way to catch yourself resisting the release is to check the position of your lead elbow post impact. If your lead elbow is away from your body and pointing towards the target, your in the classic chicken wing follow-through position, and you’re wrists didn’t rotate properly.
You may recall a previous post on follow-through releasing drills. Here are some more to try if these didn’t work.
Split Grip Drill
This is one of the best drills around in helping you feel what a proper release feels like. By splitting your hands, you’re forced to rotate them properly as you swing. Have a look at this video for more details, but just grab any club, split your hands on the grip by a few inches and start swinging, you’ll feel the proper wrist release motion immediately. Incorporate this into the real swing, and you should start seeing a straighter ball flight with more distance.
Use Swing Weights
Whether you have professional swing weight, swing two clubs at once, or even tie a towel to the end of your club, it doesn’t matter for this drill. Simply take some time swinging a weighted club of some sort – the added weight will make resisting the natural wrist rotation of a golf swing rather difficult, and should help instill the proper swing motion and wrist rotation were looking for.
Swing Only with the Lead Hand
This drill has a similar concept as the swing weight one, as you swing only with your left hand (right-handed players) your wrists will be forced to rotate through impact. Perform a couple of swings only with this hand, then consider adding your right hand again to club, but really focus on continuing the full rotational motion of the wrists as you swing through impact.
Swing Cross-Handed
Have you ever tried to perform a full-swing with a cross-handed grip? The only way you can make a full swing is to ensure your lead elbow is tight to your leading side right after impact. This is exactly the move you need to perform to avoid a poor release. Swing cross-handed a couple of times, then flip your hands around and swing normally. Really focus on ensuring your lead elbow is tucked close to your body on the follow-through – this will keep you from performing the flying elbow on the follow-through and help encourage proper wrist rotation.
Give any one of those drills a try and you should begin to find a solution to not only your slice, but to increased distance, control and power. Give it a shot!