Anyone who’s battled a stubborn slice knows how frustrating it is to watch your drives veer off to the right. Beyond sending your ball into trouble, a slice robs you of both distance and control, turning your driver into one of the most intimidating clubs in your bag. As a result, many amateurs end up benching one of their biggest weapons on the course.
But you don’t have to sacrifice distance to find more fairways. As David Armitage, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, explains in the video below, all you need is a simple swing cue to improve your sequencing and straighten out your drives.
Keep your back to the target to fix your slice
According to Armitage, one of the biggest causes of a slice is the upper body opening up too early.
“What I see a lot of is people opening up too early, trying to create too much power with their upper body, and that just gets them way open and the clubface doesn’t get a chance to release,” Armitage says.
This often looks like players spinning their shoulders towards the target from the top of the backswing, resulting in an open clubface and an out-to-in swing path, which sends the ball way right.
To combat this, Armitage borrows a classic swing tip from Jack Nicklaus. The tip is simple: keep your back to the target for as long as possible as you transition to the downswing. It’s a simple cue that Nicklaus still shares with golfers today, and one that can have a big impact on your ball flight.
Don’t mistake this feeling for a pause at the top, though.
“It’s not a stop, it’s a sequence,” Armitage says.
The goal is simply to keep your upper body from outracing your lower body. By keeping your chest and shoulders closed for a fraction of a second longer, you give the club time to fall naturally into the downswing and approach the ball from the inside. From there, the clubface can release more freely through impact instead of staying open and sending the ball sailing right.
