Sensible Tips To Correct Your Slice

You're lucky if you're a golfer and you haven't heard of the word "slice". Or perhaps, you're just new to the game and you haven't been around long enough to know what a slice is.

When a shot moves aggressively from the left to the right, that's called a slice. It's different from a fade, because in a fade, the ball is moving softly from left to right. You can hit the ball to the center of the fairway and it moves a little to the right, but it still stays on the fairway. That's a fade. However, a slice is when the ball heads to the middle of the fairway, but moves to the right aggressively. How aggressively? Well, let's just say it's heading straight for the trees, or even to the window of a house.

If you're hell bent on fixing that nasty slice, you have to be aware that there are two things usually causing this phenomenon. One, is your grip. Two, is club face and impact. Fix these two things, and you're ready to kiss that slice good bye.

Grip - Basically, what you need to do here is to pay attention to the way your hand is positioned. Take a pen or a pencil and grip it like you would a golf club. Notice that between your thumb and index finger is an inverted V. When holding the pen, make sure the tip of the V is pointing towards your right shoulder, not your chin or left shoulder.

Second, is the club face and impact. When your club face is very open, you're most likely to hit a slice. For the right-handed golfer, your club's heel and toe would probably be pointing at 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock position. In this instance, the severe slice is caused as the heel beats the toe to the impact. To rectify that occurrence, a short practice exercise has been developed for you to take notice of your club face.

Here's the drill!

Practice this drill about 10-15 minutes before you start your game. What you need to do is practice making small swings at about three quarter lengths. It would be best to use a 7 or 8 iron for this. Make sure your left arm does not go parallel to the ground. This drill will make you see what goes on with your club face as you hit. This will also help you notice how the toe should pass the heel. Your goal here is to see how much rotation the club face needs to get to have a square position. Mastering this will let you notice the difference as you see that ball traveling more leftwards than right.

Practice this enough until you get a lot of swings that travel to the left. Once you achieve 10 in a row, you may move on to longer clubs such as the 5 or 6 iron. Using these clubs, you can practice taking longer swings. Once those slices start coming again, go back to your 7 or 8 iron. Make that 10 in a row happen again before moving on the 5 and 6.

This practice exercise will let you notice how your ball moves in a different way from what it used to. This understanding will help boost your confidence as you attain more control of your shots. You may practice your grip at the office or at home, and do take the time to practice the drill. When you do all that, you'll definitely be able to kiss that slice goodbye.