July 5, 2020 12:45 pm

If you are unlucky enough to have suffered with a slice for a long time, here’s some advice to help you stop this common fault NOW. Consciously or not, you are probably compensating for the slice and accordingly making things worse.

You will either be aiming left (for a right-handed golfer), or even more dangerous, subconsciously attempting on your downswing, to hit the ball to the left. This causes you to slice across the ball (there is that word again) which of course makes the ball slice even more. It’s the perfect vicious circle.

Now, you will have read the manuals, watched the videos and probably have a good understanding of what is going wrong. But still your body doesn’t want to do what your conscious mind is telling it to do.

So, time for radical action has come. In simple terms, you need to have the golf club face pointing to the left of the direction the club is swinging when it hits the golf ball. Simples.

But, actually, not so simple. It requires a concerted effort. There are many tricks that can help. A good place to start is to put your wristwatch on your left wrist. Hit some shots at the range and abbreviate the follow through to about chest high or even shorter if possible and ensure that your wristwatch face is pointing towards the ground at the end of this swing. This will mean you have rotated your forearms and thus the golf club face through the impact of the ball. This will definitely make the ball go left.

Now you might say, well left is no better than right, just as many trees on that side of the golf course, but it is the psychological effect of seeing yourself finally controlling the ball and sending it a different way, deliberately. If you can convince your subconscious that the ball will not always slice, then you will stop making the compensations that are making the problem worse.

This is something that is best practiced at the golf range, as it is better to lose our golf balls left and right than your own on a golf course. So come and have a play and see how quickly you can stop your slice NOW!!!

For another persepctive on how to cure the slice, check out this video from my World of Golf teaching colleague, Kevin McDonald.

By Jon Woodroffe, World of Golf Master Professional

Categorised in: Golf lessons, Tip of the month