I have left my mark on many golf courses over the years. Not in the way the greats do. There are no plaques, no trophies, no commemorative flags. No assigned parking spaces. My legacy is more subtle.
There is a golf ball with my initials markered onto it, embedded in the stucco of a townhome located on a suburban golf course, in what shall remain a nameless town in the midwest, that belongs to me. It was there for years. For all I know it’s still there. A permanent monument to one man’s relationship with his driver and his complete inability to keep the ball in the same area code as the fairway.
I had a slice. A magnificent, awe-inspiring, structurally damaging slice that could bend a golf ball around corners like a boomerang with a grudge. And if you’re reading this there’s a reasonable chance you know exactly what I’m talking about.
So let’s fix it. Or at least make it slightly less catastrophic. Your playing partners will thank you. Passing motorists will breath easier. The stucco guy may be pissed but he’ll find work on another course.
Why You’re Slicing
The simple truth about a slice is that your clubface is open at impact relative to your swing path. That’s it. The ball starts left and curves hard right (opposite directions for lefties, like me!) because the face is pointing right while the club is moving left. The spin this creates turns your ball into a heat-seeking missile aimed at the nearest hazard, tree line, or occupied building.
Most hackers make it worse by trying to aim further left to compensate. This actually increases the slice because it steepens the swing path making the open face even more dramatic. You aim left, it goes further right, you aim further left. It’s a beautiful spiral of destruction.
The Fixes — Keep It Simple
Check your grip first.
A weak grip, or hands rotated too far to the left on the club, makes it nearly impossible to square the face at impact. Try strengthening your grip slightly by rotating both hands a touch to the right until you can see two or three knuckles on your left hand at address. This alone fixes, or at least greatly reduces the slice for a lot of recreational golfers and costs exactly nothing.
Slow down.
The harder you swing the more the face opens through impact. Your slice is not a power problem. It’s a timing problem that gets worse the faster you swing. Take ten percent off your swing speed and watch the ball start going straighter. Your ego will survive. The townhomes in your vicinity will thank you.
Swing more from the inside.
Without getting too technical, mostly because I’m not truly capable of it, try feeling like you’re swinging the club out to right field rather than across your body. This changes your swing path and gives the face a fighting chance to be square at impact. A good drill is to put a headcover just outside the ball and practice swinging without hitting it. This forces you to approach from the inside automatically.
Strengthen your lead hand through impact.
Feel like your lead hand, left hand for right handers, is rotating over your trail hand through the hitting zone. Most slicers have the opposite happening. The trail hand never releases and the face stays open. Practice slow motion swings focusing on that rotation and the ball will start to draw rather than slice.
The Bottom Line
The slice is golf’s most common and most demoralizing shot shape. It has ended rounds, broken spirits, mangled marriages, and in at least one documented case embedded itself permanently in residential stucco.
You may never fully eliminate it. But with a stronger grip, a slower swing, and a slightly different path you can turn that banana ball into something that at least stays on the golf course.
Your playing partners will notice. The townhome residents will sleep easier. And somewhere in a sleepy little town in the midwest, a section of stucco will finally be safe.
For more golf tips that won’t fix your game (no miracles here) but might cut a stroke or two, subscribe to Wormburner Weekly here. It’s FREE every Tuesday. My kind of deaI.