Help with inconsistent ball striking

I've been hitting the range fairly regularly trying to build a consistent swing. I'm hoping to solicit some feedback on some of my own observations:

Slicing - I developed a serious slice during my playing hiatus. From a subtle push on my irons, to banana balls with my driver. I tried hitting with my feet together, and that helped a lot. That seems indicative of too much lower body movement. With a narrower stance, my irons have straightened out nicely, but I'm still slicing my driver. For now, I'm not even using it, preferring to hit my 4h off the tee instead. Much straighter and longer than my driver at this point.

Irons - in addition to the narrower stance, I've also been trying to really concentrate on striking the ball downward. I still occasionally mishit, mostly thin. I find that moving the ball rearward in my stance, well past center, has helped a lot. What could that indicate as far as swing issues?

Putting - My putting stroke is very inconsistent. It feels like I just can't find a proper stance, it's either too hunched over and I'm bottoming out on my stroke, or I'm too upright and then not getting straight line putts.

Stance - A lot of my mishits seem to be off the heel, especially when driving. I've had to keep pushing my stance back. With irons I'm lined up with the ball but as I go longer in clubs it gets worse. By the time I reach my woods, I'm setting up an entire clubhead in front of the ball in order to make center contact when I swing. What could be causing this? Am I swinging too outside coming out of my backswing?

I work for the city and just took advantage of discount membership rates to our muni course. I'm hoping to get set up with some lessons in the near future, but I'm hoping to get some ideas of what I can try in the meantime. I take advantage of the range several times week in the mornings when I leave work.

Any suggestions or comments?

A slice is from the club going across the line of the ball, outside in. There are many things that cause this. Poor shoulder and hip turn, poor takeaway (outside the line), the wrong sequence on the down swing (start from the bottom up). Try this though. Next time you are on the range, have a club at your toes pointing at the target, another just outside the ball pointing right of the target. On your downswing, try to get the club head travelling in the direction of the club near the ball, gently roll the wrist through impact to square the face. It might not be your problem, but try it. It will at least give you the feeling of coming from the inside more. After loosing my way off the tee for a couple months, Im back to hitting a nice draw. I had another issue too, but this helped heaps.

*puts on his helmet*

Description of "slice". Bad.

Telling someone to try to swing a club travelling in an arc along a straight line. Bad.

Telling someone to try rolling the wrists. Bad.

To the OP I'd suggest taking a video of your actual swing (not a practice swing without a ball!) and posting it up on YouTube to link here. With only a description of the end result there are MANY reasons for the problems you're experiencing. Even your description of "slice" doesn't define whether it's a pull slice, straight slice or push slice, all of which have different root causes (but all of which inevitably have an open club face to the swing arc)

Have a read of this - http://thesandtrap.com/b/playing_tips/ball_flight_laws

I have to agree with MiniBlueDragon.

Since  you're just starting out though, Instead of posting a video of your swing here -which will only give you a bunch of different advice from different people (all well meaning), I recommend you first spend a bit of time with online lesson videos. Sean Clement (you can search for him on YouTube) is very popular, and while some on the board don't like the swing he teaches, you'll learn a lot of solid fundamentals from him (grip, stance, takeaway, etc.)

Best of luck!

Thanks guys. Using the range on a regular basis is really helping develop muscle memory and I'm seeing improvement already. I'll add those Sean Clement videos to my watch list until I can get set up with lessons from the pro. Maybe I'll figure out a way to get my swing on video and posted soon.

Minibluedragon, you can take off the helmet. Im not going to hit you that hard even though you were quite dismissive.

I may have generalized the "why people slice" description, but its hard to argue that this is why most people slice.

I've never seen a golf aid for alignment curved like your swing path. The idea of the extra shaft or rod pointing to the right is to give the player an idea of where an inside out path goes. Coming inside and turning your hands over and trapping the ball will give you good compression, ball flight and ultimately, distance.

Roll, rotation, call the release what you will.

To the OP, dont get all wrapped up in muscle memory hype. Its a term that used loosely to describe your body performing a repeatable action with little thought. Your muscles do not have the ability to remember what you did on your last swing. Your brain controls your muscles. Dont confuse the "feel" of your swing and repeating that feel with muscle memory. I know that may sound stupid, but muscle memory just does not exist.

Yeah I wasn't in the best of moods, my bad.

What I was trying to say was that to describe "a slice" in the simplistic way you did makes the assumption that the OP is a pull-slicer when in reality there are several ways to slice the ball, even if they all contain an open clubface to the swing arc at impact. If the assumption was wrong and he's a straight-slicer or a push-slicer then the correctional instruction you gave would be incorrect and likely make things worse.

The straight line on the floor idea for me has never been a good one as I believe it trains people to take the club back too wide, they shift too much weight to the right as a consequence and then they have trouble getting back to the ball from their rear-ward sway. When they have trouble their mind tries to auto-correct and swing up on the ball more which is bad all around. There's also the possibility that they won't take the club back deep enough as feel is never real and that's a move toward the outside-in swing you mentioned.

"rolling" the wrists I took offense to because it's a typical term used by people trying to get others to draw the ball when they think that the action of rotating the club at the exact 0.0004 seconds the ball is in contact with the face is controllable, let alone imparts draw spin on the ball. Rolling the wrists also adds an element of uncertainty to the angle of the club face at impact if the rolling is happening through the impact zone rather than before or after.

If you meant "rotating to square" then that's different and I agree with that providing it's do well ahead of the point of impact and the right wrist angle is mantained (Flying Wedge) to prevent flipping through the ball.

Apologies for being dismissive.

No Problem..

Actually, I don't think mymizunosrock is far off base. As minibluedragon pointed out, it's hard to know for sure without seeing someone's swing but, in general most beginners slice because they come over the top and cut across the ball. The golf swing is not exactly the most natural motion in the world. Your natural tendency is to want to hit the ball from the top of the swing which causes you to get everything out of sequence. Instead of starting the downswing from the ground up most beginners do it the other way around. My only disagreement is with the rolling your wrists part. Not that it's necessarily wrong but for most of us it's nearly impossible to pull off. The golf swing happens too fast. If you're trying to roll your wrists to square the clubface at impact you'll end up releasing too early and hitting a snap hook. At least that's the way it works for me. Generally speaking though, what he said is correct. If you make sure your takeaway is not inside or outside, make a full shoulder turn away from the ball and start the downswing with your hips you will be much less likely to come over the top. GENERALLY SPEAKING, that is.