Help with slice please!

HI, and welcome.  Seems a slice plagues most of the golf world.  Try google seach and type 'fix my slice' and I'll be you'll find a thousand videos.

Most common reasons for a slice, club face open at impact.  You might be cutting across the ball from outside to inside during your swing.  Lots of vids out there with drills on how to reduce or eliminate slice.

dave

Where do you live ??
 

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the ball flight laws, specifically meaning, how the angle of the clubface and path of the clubhead effect the flight of a ball. 

Not to start from the beginning, or repeat what you have heard already, But:

If you are slicing the ball, your clubhead path is out-to-in, or over the top (OTT) as many call it. Meaning that the clubhead starts outside the ball as it enters the impact zone, and cuts across inward towards your body. 

Also, the clubface is open, relative to the (OTT) path at impact. 

This means that every shot that you hit which slices, you are failing to: 

1) Close the clubface at impact

2) Perform an Inside to out swingpath

Your question is "How can I do these things?"

I am not a great player, and not an expert.And I have been historically prone to the right side banana ball, but I am very very excited to have recently cured myself of my slice, with the help of this site and a shitload of range balls, and I will tell you what has helped me, because I am so excited. 

Here is what I did:

1) Copied the Hogan driver swing, most especially the grip as closely as I possibly could. The grip is described in detail in his book 'Five Lessons'. The grip is the key, IMO. It is essentially a pretty strong grip with both the left and right hands. I use a 3-4 knuckle grip with my left hand (I'm a righty), and I cover my left thumb with my right hand, with my right thumb slightly over to the left side of the shaft, and my left thumb on the right side of the shaft.

The bolded part was absolutely key for me. Totally vital. I'll explain:

I was dong this on the range, and would only hit a slice if I completely neglected the clubhead/swingpath and also swung too fast. 

I was striping straight drives otherwise. SO HAPPY, I was!

Went and played with a buddy who golfs 3x a year, and has never practiced at all.

In between this successful range session and the round with my buddy, I read a tidbit somewhere, probably in a thread on this site, that said that Ben Hogan changed the grip described in 'Five Lessons' ever so slightly, and although the hand positions remained the same, he put his left thumb more toward, or on top of the middle of the shaft. DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!

I did this while playing with my buddy because I was SURE this had to have been an improvement to Hogan's grip. It may have been for him! But it DAMN SURE wasn't for me. Every single drive was a banana ball, wildly OB to the right. 

I haven't been that upset on a golf course in a long time. My buddy, (who rarely plays, never practices!) beat my by 17 strokes.

I was frustrated, to say the least. 

SO I go to the range, and decide I'm not leaving until I have this straightened out. 

I probably hit 250 balls. Luckily, after some thought, I remembered the old grip with the left thumb on the right side of the shaft (stronger position)

What do you know, (mostly) all straight now!! Back to how it was before I tried to get cute with it!

To test it, I put my thumb on top of the shaft... A DEL MONTE F-ING BANANA to the right, HARD.

Put my thumb back on the right... striped em'.

So.. That was part 1)

2) Inside to out swingpath. 

This one may be trickier to get the feel for. You, and many other slicers probably very well understand conceptually that you are coming over the top. What you may not know is how that FEELS. And more importantly, how the correct, inside to out swingpath FEELS. 

This is important, and will take some range time. I don't have the for sure feel for you and for your body and mind. But what works for me is to take the clubhead back just a hair inside of what I perceive to be 'straight back'. Then, on the downswing, my personal feel is that I am pushing the shaft forward with my right hand some, and feeling like I'm trying to 'put my right elbow into my right pocket'

I don't know if the 'right elbow to right pocket' description will feel correct to you. But it works for me. 

The point is, to (while maintaining that grip), try different feels that involve the clubhead feeling inside the ball at impact. 

That in itself may work. Maybe visualize hitting the inside part of the ball, instead of the back of it.

I don't know. But find YOUR inside to out swingpath FEEL. And maintain that grip. 

Hopefully this helps. 

Oh, and if you swing too fast.. sometimes you will still slice one, even doing all that. But MOSTLY you won't. Nice controlled swings with good tempo to start with. Build speed as you build confidence.

I said all that to say this: GOOD LUCK FIXING THAT SLICE. IT'S AN AMAZING FEELING!!!