Fix Your Golf Slice - For Real This Time

Finally Fix Your Slice … Yes, For Real This Time

I get it… everyone says you can fix your slice with their tips and easy changes but they rarely work. And, I am not offering magic beans here, but rather, if you have struggled with a slice for some time and nothing seems to help, here are a couple of ideas that maybe you haven’t considered.

First, we need to define that a slice is a ball that curves too much away from the golfer, a right-handed golfer’s slice will curve to the right and a left-handed golfer’s slice will curve to the left. This ball flight is caused by a club face that is open to the club path. So, we need to change the open club face and the outside in club path.

Trail Hip
Many golfers know they’re supposed to turn during their golf swing, but they often apply that technique in their downswing only, which leads to the trail shoulder going out and over the top. If the trail hip does not rotate enough in the backswing, or stays locked in place, it can block your club path in the downswing. Meaning you’re forced to swing the club “over the top” because otherwise your hands would run into your hip.

The first step is to try to rotate that trail hip open by imagining you are turning your belt buckle away from the target. This will create space in your backswing to allow the club to swing from the inside of the golf ball. If the club face is still open when you do this, you will hit the ball too far to the right (for right-handed golfer) but it is a necessary step to correcting the slice.

Next, if you’re trying but unable to turn the trail hip, double check that you don’t have too much knee bend in your address position. It is common, especially for athletic golfers, to load the legs for power by bending their knees too much. This can actually limit mobility in your lower half making it hard to rotate the trail hip. You don’t want straight legs but try standing a little taller to help rotate that trail hip!

Close the Face
A slice most definitely means the club face is open, so no matter what else you do, if you don’t change that, you will struggle. Some people try to rotate their forearms or twist their wrists, but let’s make sure your grip isn’t what’s opening the face. The term is “strengthening” your grip, this doesn’t mean tighter, or more power, it just means rotating your lead palm (left hand for right-handed golfer) toward your body.

The hard part with is you might start hitting big pulls with this change, but that can actually be a good thing because you will now have a reason to adjust your swing path to the inside to correct the pull. Nobody wants to get worse before they get better, but sometimes hitting bad shots can lead to the changes you ultimately desire.

Slices Are Not Always Bad
Depending on your goals, a slice might not be worth fixing at all, it is just one ball flight option you have. If you are hitting the ball solidly and not hitting it out of bounds or missing every green, a slice probably isn’t what is causing you to lose shots. We don’t want to over curve the ball, but if you’re getting around most greens in regulation, you might just want to play the curve and focus on short game and course management, as changing your swing can be very challenging!

For more tips, follow the Superstition Mountain blog and our private golf club members can login to their membership page – or contact with Golf Shop team –  and schedule a lesson with Dan or join one of his popular clinics.