SLICED DRIVES

BREAK 100/90/80

- STEVE THOMAS

As you work through these cures, designed to rid the beginner, improver and more skilled player of golf's most common bad shot, you'll see two themes emerge: poor setup basics and flawed concepts. Over the years, these two elements have remained at the heart of the slice. While the swing itself gets all the attention, the address position that fundamentally creates it gets woefully overlooked; meanwhile, it is perhaps golf's chief curse that so many of the things we think we should be doing in the golf swing actually cause its biggest problem shot. So wherever you are in your golfing journey, your path to taming your slice has to begin with checking your beliefs, and checking your address position. Improve in these two areas and that infernal curvature will start to melt away. This article will set you on the right road.

When beginners and game improvers slice, their instinct is to change swing mechanics. It feels logical because it appears to be the swing that's causing the slice. But we need to take a step back from this and understand it's the address position that causes the swing. Improve your setup and your swing will follow.

SCARE STORY

Let's understand how the setup can lead to slicing through this Frankenstein's Monster of slicing address issues. Any and all of these can produce a cut...

■ Ball outside lead foot. Encourages open shoulders and a leftward club path (right-handers), promoting a slice.

■ High trail shoulder/torso leant forward. Sets a downward and leftward swing path.

■ Weak grip, lead hand under/trail hand over the handle. Wants to open the face.

■ Face set open. Directly creates a spin axis that causes the ball to cut or slice.

■ Low tee. Encourages the downward attack angle that goes hand-in-hand with a slice.