Escaping The Feared Golfing Slice

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by: JohnHigbie
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Word Count: 576
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 Time: 5:12 PM
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Like an annoying relative at Christmas, the slice just seems to never want to go away. Beginning golfers almost to a man, have at one point or another had to deal and fight with why their ball seems to have a magnet to the trees.

The dreaded golfing slice caused by mainly because the club head cuts across the ball from the outside path to the inside in almost a slapping motion. And it is a sure-fire way to make sure you will not hit the ball solidly, you will lose significant distance and you will spend a lot of your time searching for it in the right trees (or left trees if you are a lefty).

Slicing has a number of cures, so fear not if you are afflicted with this most dreaded of golf diseases!

Striking the ball in the backswing in golf will cause the ball to sail either to the right or left depending on which hand you swing with, but either way it will keep the ball from going the direction you want: straight! A lot of people try to cure the slice by lowering the club head and overcompensating. This is treating the the symptom, not the disease!

The most common reason that golfers slice is that their backswing starts off on too much of an inside path. This then causes the effect of the golfer then redirecting the club at the top of the swing and come across the ball on the outside to in path. Do this long enough and you quickly become the next resident of slice city.

A cure for this would to make sure that your take-away is straight back and on the outside path. This will make it very difficult for you to have a downswing on the outside path. This can encourage you to swing more from the inside during your downswing, which will keep you from slicing across the ball.
Hey, now you're doing it right!

What you want to do is go to the practice range stand behind the golf ball and pick the target you want.

Set down a tee about two feet in front of the golf ball and a few inches to the right of your intended target. Now what you need to do while you are practicing is to swing and see if you are following through directly at that tee.
This will encourage you to develop a perfect swing on the inside path and let you follow through on the outside path like you should. If you're left-handed, sorry. You'll have to reverse the directions to work on this!

At the least, this drill can help you avoid slicing and will produce a full-out draw swing.
At the most you could see an extra 75 - 100 yards added to your tee shot. This tends to make golfers very giddy and running to the first tee to try out their new swing.

Don't let slicing ruin your enjoyment of a wonderful game. If you understand the root causes of the problem and develop a drill or exercises to correct it, you will enjoy the game immensely and start hammering the ball down the fairway with that draw that every golfer desires!!!

About the Author

Long John Higbie is an avid golfer who offers classes and writes articles about all things golf-related from gear to technique courses to avoiding the feared golfing slice and everything in-between. Go to his website for tips and secrets that all the top professional players all know that lets them to send the ball further and constantly achieve massive golf distance on each shot.