Cure my Slice

tommyhayes1989

Hello all, I am at my wits end. I've been playing golf on off now for 12 years and during that time I've developed a horrendous slice. I took a break from the game for about a year and a half and I've returned because I wanted to make a go of it. I've read watched a lot of stuff but nothing seems to go through. Obviously the solution would be lessons but I'm hoping you guys could shed some light first. I've attached links to three videos I made recently at the range.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKBAiYbxtQc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7thUdXCOag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJHnjjotyac

I can figure I'm cutting across the ball because my pitch marks are almost 45 degrees to the left of the swing plane.

Golfgraffix

I am no expert but have come from where you are now. My real brief points

1/ stand a little taller
2/ let the hands clear before your body
3/ Weaken the grip a little, it looks very strong on the right hand
4/ don't be afraid to aim right to go left, aiming left with a slice just exaggerates it.

J

Letree

At impact you start to pull away from the ball. Try and change your follow through so that you are staying on plane. A teaching pro should get you on the right track no problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewWSATfytWk

Wichita Lineman

May not work for everyone but switching drivers from a 10.5 degree to a 9 degree helped me a lot. Borrow one and see if it makes any difference.

PARlance

Hit the ball on your practice swing.



As with most of us, the practice swing is nice but the actual swing is quite different. Try to hit your driver 150 with an nice easy swing. If you swing like you do on your practice, you'll probably see a little draw after a while of adjusting the club face. Then try to build up your distance from there gradually.

And get a lesson.

alxmorgan

First step for me was to understand why the ball does what it does. Try this to start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89M1vt66FA

This series by Rick Shiels covers it quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDnctpwLa8o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRJkLs0gXkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TOu4VnTMuo

I would highly recommend marking the face when practicing so you can see where you are striking it.
You can have a swing perfectly setup to hit a straight shot but if you hit out of the heel its going right.

Most of us have fairly consistent swings, even if we think we do not.
What varies wildly is our strike point.

Practicing intentionally hitting out of the heel and toe starts to improve control of strike point - drills like these are given in Adam Youngs book "The Practice Manual" which I highly recommend.

Hope this helps

Davd

I'd agree with a lot of what Golfgraffix has said:
- Standing taller will have you swinging less around your body and should help.
- You do need lower body turn but you seem to let your lower body pass out your arms during the swing and this will have you swinging and hitting the ball with a divot pointing left and I'm guessing losing a lot of distance. Focus more on the getting the arms ahead of the lower body. I had this problem when a pro pointed it out during a lesson. It feels counter intuitive as you always hear McIlroy fires from the hips. but when you get excessive hip turn and the lower body passes out the arms you lose power and pull the ball left leading to a slice.
- Golfgraffix pointed out that you should have a weaker right hand grip. But from some of the videos, the ball appears to start right and go further right (slice). If its starting right, then the club face is open. To allow it to get more square, you need to have a stronger right hand grip as it allows the club face to close on the downswing.


- Hard to see form the video but it looks like the butt end of the club is up against your left palm. If its in the palm of your hand and not in you fingers, you are also likely to pull the club creating a slice, particularly with a faster swing. the butt of the club appears to be at the x in the photo below and not along the fingers.


- Go to a pro with a slo-mo camera. Without seeing your swing in slo-mo, you are only guessing at what is really happening mid swing. A face on video your swing will show more about you hand position at set up and impact.

tommyhayes1989

That's great I'll have a watch tomorrow, I've been focusing on the follow through and seems to be working OK for the shorter irons. Driver is ok, nearly 75%. I suppose I might end up just getting lessons

alxmorgan wrote: »

First step for me was to understand why the ball does what it does. Try this to start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89M1vt66FA

This series by Rick Shiels covers it quite well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDnctpwLa8o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRJkLs0gXkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TOu4VnTMuo

I would highly recommend marking the face when practicing so you can see where you are striking it.
You can have a swing perfectly setup to hit a straight shot but if you hit out of the heel its going right.

Most of us have fairly consistent swings, even if we think we do not.
What varies wildly is our strike point.

Practicing intentionally hitting out of the heel and toe starts to improve control of strike point - drills like these are given in Adam Youngs book "The Practice Manual" which I highly recommend.

Hope this helps

Sipper

Is that the Kerries driving range?

Hoof Hearted2

Sipper wrote: »

Is that the Kerries driving range?

No other range like it in the country;)

jay5296

Your coming up on every shot. Try staying down on the shot through follow through. Drive the club down into the ball (irons)
at impact (hands slightly ahead of ball)
Also concentrate on having your weight more on your left foot through impact
Hope this helps

galwaylad14

Backswing and first half of the downswing look very decent, as others have said though you're totally losing your posture as you strike the ball, standing up through impact and striking the ball with all your weight on your back leg.

Can't really see your grip there so it may be an issue but definitely the two biggest things are losing your posture and not getting your weight through the ball.

When you start to transfer the weight better you'll hit it a lot further too, at the moment I'd say all you can hit is a weak sort of push slice as the clubface looks totally open at impact.

tommyhayes1989

Have you any videos that could show me this? I'm useless at visualizing instructions? I've changed my grip so I think its actually ok now, I was holding the club with the palm of my left hand it is now more with the fingers as I've been told. Allows for a lot more rotation. When you say weight on the back leg, am I not supposed to shift the weight to my left leg through impact?

galwaylad14 wrote: »

Backswing and first half of the downswing look very decent, as others have said though you're totally losing your posture as you strike the ball, standing up through impact and striking the ball with all your weight on your back leg.

Can't really see your grip there so it may be an issue but definitely the two biggest things are losing your posture and not getting your weight through the ball.

When you start to transfer the weight better you'll hit it a lot further too, at the moment I'd say all you can hit is a weak sort of push slice as the clubface looks totally open at impact.

galwaylad14

tommyhayes1989 wrote: »

Have you any videos that could show me this? I'm useless at visualizing instructions? I've changed my grip so I think its actually ok now, I was holding the club with the palm of my left hand it is now more with the fingers as I've been told. Allows for a lot more rotation. When you say weight on the back leg, am I not supposed to shift the weight to my left leg through impact?

I'll try have a look for a video later.

Ya I'm saying your weight is on your back leg now as you strike it, it needs to transfer through to your left leg through impact and the follow through.

Berty44

The best drill I have found and you could try to get your body to learn the correct swing feelings and address some of the problems you are having. As you say yourself it is often very difficult to visualize the instructions and put them into practice. This is a drill which I now use as my practice swing before I hit a shot with driver to get the feeling of what should be happening.

Basically all you do is set up as normal for your driver. Then pull your right foot straight back so that your right toe would be in line with the back of your left heel. From that foot position swing away and hit the ball.

tommyhayes1989

That's me now immediately after follow through, hitting I think a 6 iron that obviously sliced badly


http://imgur.com/ObY9NYL

alxmorgan

tommyhayes1989 wrote: »

That's me now immediately after follow through, hitting I think a 6 iron that obviously sliced badly


http://imgur.com/ObY9NYL

If I was you I would do the following:

1) Start to swing right of your target. See if you can get the ball to start right. This would mean feeling like you are swinging to the right of your target (and your club face also pointing in that general direction)

At this point the ball should be either going straight right or starting right and going further right

2) Keep swinging right and adjust the club face so that the ball turns left. You can do this by strengthening your grip and/or closing the face when you grip the club. Feel free to go to extremes here. What you feel and what is real are often different

Once you see the ball turning left in the air then move on to point 3.

3) This is basically fine tuning. So you need to weaken your grip or turn the face back to the right a tiny bit at a time so that the gap between your swing direction and club face lessens.

A slice is caused by the path being left of the face. Doing the above will reverse this.

You may reach a playable level by getting to point 3 and working on it. But note this may not be easy at all

Notes:
1) This is all about learning. It is not saying you do not have fundamental swing issues which a pro can help with

2) This game IMHO is all about impact. Look at Jim Furyk's swing for example. So anyone who says you need a perfect swing is wrong. It would be great but not all can have one for reasons of time, money, physical limitations etc

3) Where you strike it on the face is key. All the above steps can be compromised by strike. So closing face massively and swinging right could result in ball going right if you hit out of the heel.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

tommyhayes1989

Hey I was at the range today and massive improvement. Squaring the club face up, nice grip so my left palm isn't holding the club anymore. And shifting weight through the ball. Driver and wood are perfect, straight or right to left. Irons are a bit trickier there's still some coming over the top but it's definite progress. And the ball goes for miles. I'm delighted. The only thin now is i've to adjust my aim as I'm not used to aiming straight. I might upload a new video with the new swing