How to fix a slice: one cause, one feel, one drill

For a right-hander, the ball starts a touch left or straight and curves right, hard. Two things are in it: the path of the club through the ball and the face at the moment it hits. A slice is a face that points right of the path. The bigger the gap, the more it curves.

That is the symptom. A coach does not fix a symptom; he looks for the moment in the swing where the face starts losing to the path. On video, that moment is usually one of three.

1. 1

   The transition

   The shoulders start the downswing. The club is thrown outside the line and comes across the ball from out to in. The hands are late, the face is open. This is the most common cause and the one a down-the-line video shows best.

2. 2

   The setup

   A grip turned too far towards the target, the ball too far forward, or shoulders aimed left: the swing is fine and the face still arrives open. A face-on video shows this before the club even moves.

3. 3

   The body lifting

   The hips move towards the ball in the downswing, the chest comes up, the arms get stuck behind and the face cannot catch up. The ball goes right with a weak flight. Face-on shows the lift; down the line shows the hips.

Feel: the hands drop before the chest turns. Said another way: pressure into the lead foot first, then the arms fall, then the turn. Five to twelve words you can repeat on the range: “Left foot, hands fall, then turn.”

Drill with reps: the pump drill. Take the club to the top, start down only to hip height with the hands dropping and the chest still, go back to the top, repeat, and on the third pump swing through. Ten reps without a ball, then eight balls at half speed, then eight at a bit more. Self-check: if the ball starts right instead of left, the hands are dropping but the face is not closing: slow down and let the forearms roll through impact.

Give it weeks, not minutes. And measure it with the ball, not the mirror: if five balls do not curve less, the cause is somewhere else.

The analyzer below reads one video of your swing, measures your body on each frame and names one cause. If you tell Morris the ball goes right, his priority has to explain it. You get the pictures of your key positions, the feel and the drill in about three minutes, free and without an account. More on how the analyzer works and drills that come with reps.