Here’s an easy way to get a sense of what a square club face feels like and how to get back to it every time.

To start this, set up to your ball and take the club back so that it’s parallel to the ground AND parallel to the target line. When you do this, what you should see is that the club face angle should match relatively closely to the angle of your spine.

Now, if you were to set up with your club parallel to the ground, you should see that the club face is perfectly vertical and still matches the same angle as your spine.

When you move around in this position, your spine should actually match the club face if everything else stays the same and this is a great reference point to understanding squaring the club face.

We actually want to try to keep the club face square to the arc of our swing. Which means that we really don’t have to “control” the club face much, just allowing it to move along with the centripetal force. In order to get a good feel for your club face being square to your arc, think of your club face matching the angle of your spine throughout the swing.

We have a lot of recreational golfers coming to us who are frustrated about slicing their driver. Ultimately what is going on when someone is consistently slicing is that their club face is open relative to the path. This is sometimes called and out-to-in path or and over-the-top swing.

It’s pretty easy to see when you are slicing your driver and the need for a launch monitor isn’t really necessary. However, when you are working on “fixing” your driver, it’s MUCH easier to work on these drills with a shorter iron like a 7. So for this fix, grab a shorter club.

First of all, it is IMPERATIVE that you set up with good alignment. It’s pretty tough to figure out what’s going on in your swing if your alignment is bad. 99% of people who don’t practice with alignment sticks do not have good alignment. Make sure when you set up with the alignment aids, they are parallel.

Second, make sure you are setting up with a proper grip. Now you can focus on your swing path. If you are swinging the club out-to-in, chances are you feel like you are swinging the club straight at the target. So start trying to swing the club more in to out or to the right for a right handed golfer.

Chances are, the first couple of times that you try to swing the club more to the right (for a right handed golfer), you won’t make great contact. Part of the reason for this is that when you try to swing the club out to the right, you may throw your hands out away from you. However, when you do that, your entire club will be farther away from you and it’s really hard to connect with the center of the club face. So another way to think about this is to try to keep your back pointed at the target a little bit longer in your backswing as you unwind toward the target. This will help you unwind with your lower body first. This will help you shallow the club under the previous plane. Try this without a ball first to get the feel for it.

Another thing you can do is start to get more aware of the club face and feel like you are moving the toe of the club past the heel.

I’ve been playing the game a really long time and chances are, if you are new to the game, this will not come easy to you. However, if you keep working at it, it will become easier and will definitely help to fix that slice!

Did you know that hitting up too much can actually be causing your slice?

Before we get into it though, I have to start with the fundamentals. First off, you can’t expect to play good golf or to make an efficient swing and good connection if you don’t line up with your target. If you are consistently lining up incorrectly, you are going to incentivize yourself to make an inefficient swing in order to get the ball where you want it to go.

It’s very easy to set up with poor alignment without the use of proper aids.

Here I am using two golf shafts as my alignment aids.

The best way to insure that you are doing this is to use 2 sticks to help with alignment. One of the sticks should line up to the ball - this is your target line. The second stick, running parallel to the first stick will assist with lining your feet up to the target - this line will be parallel to your target line.

Okay, so now we get to the dreaded slice! A slice is a ball that curves dramatically to the right for a right handed golfer. Yeesh. That is ugly! Very often a slice can result from a weak lead hand grip. However, if you have checked your grip and made sure it was stronger and you are STILL slicing. What then?

Next, check your ball position. If your ball position is too far forward in your stance, you may be catching the ball as your club is traveling to the left which can result in a slice (for a right handed golfer). In other words, you will be catching the ball too much on the upswing.

Remember, if you have the ball too far forward in your stance, you may be catching the ball on the upswing as the club is going out to in which will very often result in a slice!

Are you struggling with a slice? Comment below.

Most golfers, when they have been playing for a little while, come to me with the hope that I can help them hit their driver better. I am going to give you a drill that will help you start hitting your driver better but it does require practice and a certain amount of discipline. The goal is to take a full swing with the driver but only 50% speed. So if you normally hit your driver 220 yards, during this drill, you will only hit it 110 yards. During the drill, the goals are to make center face contact and for the ball to be relatively straight.

It’s actually much harder to do than it looks. When we tell our students to swing 50%, it usually ends up being more like 80-90%. If you can manage to swing slower, it will help you get a feel for the club face, the path, and most importantly making center face contact.

Here’s another great drill to work on indoors during the winter months or rainy days. This is something that a lot of people don’t like to work on and only really gloss over this major problem. The reverse pivot is a huge problem and can’t seriously affect your ability to get the club on the correct swing plane. The reverse pivot is when your secondary spine angle changes and causes your back hip to slide back and the orientation of your spine become the reverse of what it should be. When you look at a really good player, if you put a line on the back side of the player, when the shoulders turn back, the hips stay in place and a bit later, the hips turn. There is no lateral slide to those hips. When we laterally slide, we have to make some compensations to get back to the ball. So how do we fix this?

We are going to learn this one piece at a time. First, we want to be able to feel what the correct motion feels like. So start this without a club and a ball. We are going to bump our hips toward the target and let our head drop back behind the ball. But you still want to be vertical. Then we are going to put our club across our chest. When we turn back away from the target, we should feel some resistance in that rotation. We can feel some pressure between the ball and the heel of your foot. This is really helpful if you can use a mirror to see what’s going on in your body. When we make that turn, we should maintain the integrity of our spine in that secondary spine tilt. So first, let’s make sure you can rotate those shoulders 90 degrees around your spine. Practice the rotation in the mirror for about a week and make sure you can do this without sliding those hips.

Next, we add the primary spine tilt which is the bend at the hips so that we can hit the ball from the ground. When i bend at the hips, I want my hips to be directly between my ankle bones. When I bend forward at the hips, I want to make sure the club is 90 degrees to my spine.

Watch Video!

Finally, this is a great drill to do on the Perfect Motion app. I am going to start the app and I’m not going to take a full swing, I am going to cross the club across my chest and go through the swinging motion with the club across my chest. You can use the feedback on the app to see what’s going on in your swing. Position one is position at address, position two is the top of my backswing, and position three is impact position. We are focusing on position two with this drill to make sure we are getting into a nice pivot position.

Fix the reverse pivot and golf will become a lot more fun!

This is a great drill you can do to help with slicing. Slicing can be one of the most frustrating things in golf. Two things are going on when you are slicing. First, your club face is open meaning that the club face is pointing right of your target line for a right-handed golfer and left of the target line for a left-handed golfer. You are also swinging out to in. When it comes to the path of the club, you must swing the club with a little bit of side bend. This is what we call a secondary spine tilt. If you are coming through with your swing and you don’t have enough side bend, the club will come from out to in on its path. You can use the Perfect Motion app to really see your secondary spine tilt. The app allows you to see where the center of your chest is at impact and can really help you with fixing your side bend problem. You can do this drill without a ball and you can even do this drill without a club. When looking at the PerfectMotion app, the numbers on the app show you the position of the center of your chest at set up, at the top of the backswing, and at impact. Another cool feature when looking at your motion maps is the “Pro Overlay” feature to see what a professional golfers motion map looks like on top of your own for a comparison.

So the drill we did in this video was a one arm swing where our focus was to initiate my downswing using my lower body and simulate skipping a stone. Try this drill to increase side bend at impact and help you stop slicing the ball.