Note: If your a left-handed golfer you should use the opposite directions than mentioned in the article.

Slice is the most common problem among golfers and one that causes many extra shots per round. Almost everybody has struggled with it at some point of their golfing career. It is fortunately easily curable.

Slice is caused by the club head coming from outside to in path.It also requires an open club face to actually create that dreaded slice. If your club face is neutral or closed it just makes your ball flight straight to left.

First step you should do is make sure your alignment is proper. Make sure your shoulders, feet and hip are all pointing in a straight line towards your target. Make sure that they are not pointing at the left of your target. That is the main cause of outside to in club head path. Also make sure your grip isn’t too weak. When you look at your hands when you are in golf position ready to hit you should see 2 or 3 knuckles on your left hand. Any less and it’s a weak grip and any more and it’s probably too strong grip. However having a bit too strong grip is not bad at all if your struggling with slice. You can ask someone to look at your posture and alignment or you can videotape it or even use a mirror.

Second step is that you make sure you’re not standing too close to the ball. If your standing too close it forces you to create an outside to in path to even hit the ball. Get someone to look at your swing from the behind to verify this is not your problem. It can be a bit difficult to know whether you are standing too close but you can try to move to different distances from the ball and see if it helps you.

One cause of slice is what is called an “over the top” move. It happens when the arms are swung in a circular motion away from the body as the transition is made from the top of the backswing to the start of the downswing. In other words you start to push the club away from you as you start your downswing and then pulling it back closer to you as you get near the ball. Here a good video that explains it clearly at youtube Golf Tip Woody Austin – On Over The Top Move. It is often caused by an overly long backswing which puts the club over the parallel line. If this is you, you should shorten your swing and see if that helps.

Some drills you can do to help your slice are:

First is that you put something light like a golf ball sleeve a little behind the ball in the outer side so that if you hit the ball from outside to in you will hit the sleeve. This makes you hit balls from slightly inside to outside path.

Second is to hit the ground with an iron and to see where your club hits the ground. If that spot is different from where your ball would be then you have some issues with your swing that causes you to make some extra movements to hit the ball at all during your swing.

Third is to make practice swings in a mirror and stop your follow through halfway to the finish. Make sure that the toe of the club points up in this position. Also make sure your right hand has released over your left hand for right-handed golfers and the opposite for left-handed golfers.

But the most important thing is to make sure your setup and grip are good. If you can fix it it will help you with other things than slice as well. So make sure that your feet and shoulders point to the right direction before trying any of these other tips because they won’t help you if your fundamentals are wrong.

With these tips you shouldn’t have to worry about slice anymore.