What would your game look like if you could hit the ball straighter every time? Amazing right? Well, the good news is that the secret to hitting a straight golf shot is no secret at all.
In our series on how to fix a slice, we’ve already looked at how setup and swing path affect your golf. In this post we take a closer look at the importance of club face through the ball. One of the most common reasons a SLICE will occur is an open club face through the ball. This means that instead of having the centre point of the club face to your target line you have adjusted your body/hands to move the centre of the club face now pointing right of our target. It looks like this:
Drill to correct an open club face
Here’s a drill to correct an open club face set up.
Grab two alignment sticks. Set up square to an imaginary or real target. Get the centre of your club face pointing directly to that target. Now just create a small swing length ½ metre back and through the ball. See your hands return to the same position through impact that they were at set up, keeping the clubface now square through the ball.
Once you get comfortable with the alignment sticks you can start to hit some shots making sure you don’t hit either alignment stick. The alignment sticks may start at least a foot apart and move closer together as we get more comfortable about where our swing path and club face is returning.
Drill to keep your club face square through to target line
Now try another over correcting method where you extend your swing to see your club face move through the ball closing to your target line (this may feel like the centre point of your club face is now exiting to the left side for right hands and right hand for left handers). This is a POSITIVE CHANGE we need to implement.
Make sure that you feel the connection through your hands to now your arms, watch your right forearm (for right handers and left arm for left handers) rotate through the ball tucking the lead arm under.
Now feel the difference between this movement from when your club face would be open through the ball. When you slice, your lead arm becomes dominant through the shot and your trail arm holds back. The result is no rotation in your body, hands or club face to target.
Return to that positive new position – tucking the lead arm under to create rotation. Keep practising that to cement the positive change before we move on to talk about swing path, which is step 3 to fixing that SLICE.
Coming up next:
We’ve looked at how your set up (body position and club grip), swing path and clubface through to target can all work together to set you on a path to fix that slice.