Diagnosing the Slice
The slice is one of the most common and stubborn problems for the amateur golfer, especially the right-handed golfer. But a persistent slice doesn’t have to ruin your game, and the sooner you diagnose the reasons for the error and correct your swing, the easier it will be to head off ingrained bad habits and flaws in positioning.
First, what is a slice? For right handed golfers, a slice occurs when the ball flies far to the left of the target and then curves in the air, missing the target and landing far off the to the right. In the air, the arc of the ball forms a gentle C shape, like a banana.
Golf is a game of subtlety, and very minor misalignments in your position or swing may be to blame for your slice. Consider the following.
Before the Swing:
Check your grip.
Take a look at your left hand. Imagine a golf instructor telling you that hand is turned too far to the left, because it probably is. Rotate it slightly to the right to compensate, and see if that makes a difference.
Adjust your body alignment.
Now take a look at your shoulders and feet. They should be aligned with the target, but because of the way our depth-perception works, many right handers stand too far to the left. This may seem more natural but try nudging your alignment to the right and see what happens.
Check the ball position.
If the ball is placed too far forward in your stance, it won’t absorb the full impact of your body weight, and it won’t make square and true contact with the face of the golf club. Bring the ball back an inch relative to your stance.
During the Swing:
Diagnose you backswing.
You do not want your club to twist clockwise during your backswing. You also want to make sure that the end of the golf club does not point left at the top. These two elements of the backswing are likely suspects when you’re dealing with a persistent slice.
Now check your downswing.
Ideally, you want to golf club to strike the ball in perfect alignment with the target line. The three points of club, ball, and target should form a straight line. If the club is pushed away from you during the swing, or if it approaches the ball from outside the target line, the line between the three points is not straight, and in the air, the ball will illustrate a magnified version of the error: a slice.
To keep from pushing the club away from you, monitor your right shoulder. Instead of moving out, the right shoulder should drop down. If you’re having trouble observing this motion in your swing and you don’t have a golf instructor available, try to consciously move the right shoulder down instead of out, and see how the results of your golf swing change.