This week we hear from Douglas D'Avignon, who writes to us from Vermont. Here's how he fixed his slice:
As someone who speaks from experience, it is very difficult to rid yourself of a slice. I suffered from the slice for several years before I decided to do something about it. If your slice is caused mainly by an out-to-in swing path, this tip is for you. One thing I did was turn my rear foot out so it was perpendicular to my front foot. This will cause your swing path to become more in-to-out, far more desirable. If you use this tip for, say, two to four weeks on any shot that you usually slice, when you go back to your normal foot placement, your swing will have adjusted so you'll now have a well-shaped path. The movement will have had time to become muscle memory and will be like second nature to you.(Related: Above, Matt Killen demonstrated a similar tip in the September, 2010 issue of Golf Digest)
Editor's note: This is a neat tip, and one that I had not heard before--turning your back foot so radically out that it is perpendicular to your front foot. That really will encourage a fuller hip turn so your arms and club will swing more around your body. From there you can deliver the club on an inside path to the ball.
The drill is kind of like wearing
braces on your teeth. You need to wear a retainer until the movement of
the teeth becomes permanent. Likewise, you'll need to turn your back
foot out until your inside-out path becomes permanent.
This tip will work for most slicers because an outside-in downswing path almost always results in the clubface being open to that path at impact (otherwise you'd hit pulls or pull-hooks). If you are able to successfully correct your path and start swinging the club from inside the target line to outside the target line past impact, you'll start rotating the clubface so it squares up at impact. Otherwise, you'll hit pushes and push-fades. In other words, you can't just fix your path. It has to coincide with the squaring of the clubface, but over time that should happen automatically.
-- Roger Schiffman, Managing Editor
Follow me on Twitter: @RogerSchiffman
Photo by J.D. Cuban/Illustration by Jim Luft
This tip will work for most slicers because an outside-in downswing path almost always results in the clubface being open to that path at impact (otherwise you'd hit pulls or pull-hooks). If you are able to successfully correct your path and start swinging the club from inside the target line to outside the target line past impact, you'll start rotating the clubface so it squares up at impact. Otherwise, you'll hit pushes and push-fades. In other words, you can't just fix your path. It has to coincide with the squaring of the clubface, but over time that should happen automatically.
-- Roger Schiffman, Managing Editor
Follow me on Twitter: @RogerSchiffman
Photo by J.D. Cuban/Illustration by Jim Luft
