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LowPost42 · #2 (**permalink**) 04-19-2007, 01:44 AM

Dave:

My slice was caused by rolling my forearms and fanning the clubface open on the backswing. I would then promptly forget to roll my forearms and close the face on the downswing. So for me, slice elimination has to do with keeping the face shut (and it seemed to work well in my round today).

A word of warning - be careful in trying to force your hands to release. You may become a golfer who flips his hands through impact. This results in thinned shots, fat shots, and generally no good compression. It also adds a ton of loft and spin to the ball - robbing you of distance. This especially seems true (flipping) as you're having trouble off tight lies (fairway), but are OK off the tee and when the ball is sitting up.

Make sure your hands are leading at impact. Here's the drill that I was given when I told my coach "I don't want any bandaids - I want to learn how to hit the golf ball properly, and swing properly".

Address the ball. Make sure the ball is in the middle of your stance. Set your wrists (ie cock them). Make a tiny tiny tiny backswing to get some rhythm, then turn through while holding the wrist set. Do NOT let your hands release. This is the proper impact position and the ball will sound different than you may ever have heard it, as you'll compress it properly.

FWIW, I had my wife doing this in the back 40 the other night. She chunked a few (and taking a huge backswing, hands way past her thigh, etc). Once I got her setting her wrists and not taking her hands outside the line of her hips, she was absolutely hitting the ball great - nice compression, target-side divot, nice ball flight. I'd say she was getting 30 yards or so out of her 7 iron, with a swing that never got outside her body line.

Just my $0.02 - YMMV.