My push slice problems!!!

Hello fellow golfers and friends. I come to you today, not only as a new member to the sand trap, but also as a fellow golfer that has his fair share of woes. I have been playing this fantastically frustrating game for two years now and have been plagued by the msfortune of a " slice ". But not just any slice, oh no. Rather a " Push slice ". (like a regular sliced wasn't bad enough).

It started from day one. I can put a real move on my driver and get some good distance. But it starts out right, and then it goes even further right until i'm hittting houses or other golfers on other fairways. Funny thing about it is that it's only with my driver or 3wood (my longest clubs). In fact i am getting really good and consistant with a draw shot with my hybrids and irons(right handed by the way). I have been to see a golf instructore and he filmed my swing and we seen that my swing plane is correct and that i have a great swing with good rythm. But i cannot get the club face closed in time with my driver.

I have tried clubs with a draw bias and have had no results. I have tried to swing the club like a baseball bat to try to get the feel for clossing the club face, but I cant seem to get that to work. I have tried a stronger grip ( right hand under the grip) still no success. Even trying to turn it into a draw yelds no results. I have good hip rotation and follow through. it has gotten to the point where i have now been using 3 hybrids off the tees just to keep my ball in play.

If anyone has any insight into what may be going wrong and how i can start to correct this problem i would be great. I'm sure that with a straight drive, i could be into the low 80's with ease.

Chadman

Do you have the video and could post it?

An open clubface could be a result of different things. Getting into impact with the backside of your left hand pointing up towards the sky, cupped left wrist, weak grip. Do you rotate the club when taking it back? You could try keeping it square to the plane .

Well i do not have the video from my lesson unfortunatly. I do know that it's not a weak grip as i have played with my grip  to try to get the club to release better on impact. however i should say that i have the tendancy to squize the grip to tight on the way down to the ball.

as for the cupped wrist, this could very well be a problem. Do you have any suggestions as to what i can practice to fix this problem. I'm at the range several times a week to work on my game and i'v never looked at my wrists through impact.

Hi Chad

I have the same problem. Its a terrible problem for me. Its really stopping me in my tracks in regards to progress this year. I was actually going to post a thread asking for help also. I though I had the problem licked when I stopped swinging over the top.

The thing is when I get to impact with my driver my left hand turns skywards which opens the face and causes a big slice. Whats especially annoying is that once I switch to my 18* hybrid I hit it straight or with a slight draw.

I'm not sure why I do this.......

I have a neutral grip with a decent swing plane . I sometimes over swing. In regards to the cupped wrist idea I actually have a slightly cupped wrist at the top, this could translate into open face at impact but I would imagine it would effect all my clubs then.

I am interested to see what advice you get as maybe it might help me too.

I have battled the problem of leaving the club face open through impact in the past, and I have two drills I suggest (I'm no pro, but I did learn these from a teaching pro):

1) Baseball swings.  I don't mean the grip, I mean stand up and swing your driver at an imaginary ball pitched to the strike zone.  Bending over and swinging at a target on the ground makes it hard to let the arms turn through the shot the way they should.  Standing up and swinging at the strike zone makes it easier, due to body mechanics.  So between your shots at the range, take a baseball swing or two, to feel how your arms whip (not flip, mind you) through the contact zone so powerfully and effortlessly.  Then try to make your golf swing feel like that.

2) Right arm only swings.  The right arm has an important role to play in closing the club into impact, and it's easy to lose track of it when you're swinging with both hands.  Alternate right-arm-only swings in with your regular swings, and you remind your right arm of the part it needs to play.  Even more effective if you're brave enough to actually hit balls with the one-arm swings.

-Andrew

I sometimes over swing. In regards to the cupped wrist idea I actually have a slightly cupped wrist at the top, this could translate into open face at impact but I would imagine it would effect all my clubs then.

If you hit your irons and hybrids well, and they draw, then that says good things about your swing.  The fact that you get push-fades with your longer clubs probably means you're swinging similarly, but just leaving the face open.

Remember that it's a lot easier to close the face on the shorter clubs.  It's easier to get the arms through for a good release, and it's easier to turn the clubs with your hands (which you shouldn't consciously be doing, but your hands have to get it done nonetheless).  The MOI difference in the physical properties of the club, coupled with the swing speed difference and the resulting inertial forces, is the reason.  So it's not that surprising that this problem doesn't manifest itself in your shorter clubs.

I wouldn't recommend using the baseball swings on the tee box, but if it works for you, then anything goes.  A lot of pros rehearse a certain motion from the swing as part of their pre-shot routine.  The only reason I wouldn't recommend it is that it's a good rule of thumb that you should do your thinking about your swing and your swing training at the range, and just try to get out of your own way on the course.

-Andrew

I thought I saw Eric post that the right-rolled under is actually a strong right-hand grip that will result in an open face(paraphrasing - I *think* that's what he wrote).  Anyways, I've had a terrible push slice till I tried actually rotating my right-hand on top rather than on the bottom.  I always thought that a *strong* grip meant having the left rolled over so knuckles are exposed and right-hand farther under, but its seems to me that that was not correct.

What really threw me off was Ben Hogan's book since he promotes the right-hand being farther on top, but I also though that he favored a *weak* grip.

It's all supposition on my part, but as I mentioned above, I've actually had better luck suppressing the slice when I roll my right-hand on top and keep the left showing a couple of knuckles.

Heh yup, you're the one I was referring to.  I think my problem was that I would rotate my left hand so that two knuckles were showing but then I would rotate my right hand all the way under the club.  I'd then be able to see my left thumb and had a terrible time trying to close the face at impact.  It was an incorrect grip all around.

That's why I wondered when he said he rotated his right hand under.  I took that to mean that he was not also rotating his left hand farther clockwise as well.

I had a nasty push-slice too.  A few things my new instructor had me do was:

1]  Move the ball more forward in my stance.  I had it too far back, to where it was at a point in the swing that the club was still open and of course starting off to the right.  By moving it up to my left heel, I am catching it when the club face is closing.

2]  He had me do drills of taking the driver back to about 8 o'clock (left arm), then gently swing through the ball to a full finish.  I had a better feel of the clubhead moving through the ball by doing that, and since I was prone to not following through and finishing, as well as getting weight back onto my left side, this helped a bunch.

3]  Once I was either drawing or hooking the ball, then he had me swing back to 9 o'clock, and swing gently through to a full finish.  We kept doing this, going back to 10 o'clock, then 11, then full swings.

4]  Before this my tempo was terrible.  I was taking the club back to quickly, not pausing ever so slightly at the top in the transition, and was coming over the top.  Now my tempo is much smoother (my cues are to inhale on the backswing, and exhale on the downswing) so at the top when I go from inhaling to exhaling, that is my transition to the downswing.

5]  Grip.  My idea of a strong grip was TOO strong!  I now grip where I can see two and a half to three knuckles of the left hand (I'm a righty), then how I place my right hand is in a way that my left thumb fits into the groove (love line?) right below the meatly part of my right hand that is below my right thumb.  This puts my left thumb on the club somewhere between 1 and 2 o'clock when looking down the shaft at address, with my right thumb being around 12 o'clock to 12:30.

Between moving the ball up, slowing my tempo, and the partial swing drills, and a "weaker" strong grip, I am now hitting a fairly consistent fade that starts just left of the target line and comes back to the target line.  But of all of them, I think the partial swing drill helped me the most.

this video should help. if not, you could be coming up out of your inclination to the ground(losing your spine angle) or whatever you want to call it. your left hip should move to the left and behind you on the downswing. many people thing they are doing this right(me included a while back) but they aren't, and it can cause you to push the ball out right cause your hands have no place to go. imagine you are lined up to hit your shot and i come up and put a bar across the front of your hips. your hips should not hit the bar.

Since I can't see a video, I will just throw out some things that I commonly see people do when they push slice it.

The first thing I always look at is grip. A weak grip is the problem 90% of the time. Try rotating your left hand to your right. It's ok if you can see 3 knuckles.

Another thing is how far you're standing from the ball. If you're standing like you do for your shorter clubs, you get jammed in and can't get through. <(My guess of what your problem is)

One more thing. When you finish, finish standing tall. If you finish tall, you've come through the ball and finished strong.

A video would help clear things up though. Like you said, we're your fellow golfers, we don't judge.