Why Do You Hit Your Irons Straight But Slice Your Driver?

We have golfers come in to see us on a regular basis and their biggest struggle is slicing their driver. They tell us how they feel they have a pretty good handle on the irons but for some reason, they can’t find consistency with the driver.

Generally when someone comes in with this problem, we will put them on the Flightscope to see what’s going on with their numbers. We specifically want to look at both the swing path and the club face. When I put myself on the Flightscope while hitting my wedge, I noticed that my ball flight and impact seemed really solid. When looking at the numbers, it showed that my club face was 7 degrees open. This chronically open club face is what we see all the time. On the screen we could see that the ball flight was a little bit to the right but not enough for it to hurt us too bad on the golf course. However, the same swing with our driver would get us slicing into the woods, pond, or out of bounds. Why is that? It’s because of the loft of the club. My pitching wedge has 46 degrees of loft and when you hit the ball with a lot of loft and an open club face, you’re not going to see a big tilt axis on that ball. My driver has less than 10 degrees of loft. When the club has less loft, the tilt axis becomes more extreme. So how do we fix this?

The first thing is, you want to try to make sure that you are spending some time working on getting your club face square relative to your path. If you are slicing the ball, you should even try to get your club face closed. The first thing we look at when this is happening with one of our students is the grip. We want to make sure that the top hand is rotated on top of the club so that the V in between the thumb and forefinger is pointed up toward your back shoulder. This is going to make it much easier to rotate the club through impact. Your bottom hand should match up to the club face so that your palm is pointing down the target line.

Now the grip is looking good and you’re still slicing. The next thing we have to do is become skillful with the club face. In order to get that club face square at impact, you should start with smaller swings. Take a look at your club face on the back swing. Try to get the club face somewhat pointing at the ground as you take it back. Believe it or not, most people who struggle with a slice tend to have their club face pointing at the sky on that backswing. Your intention with each of these swings should be to have that ball flight go either straight or to the left (for a right-handed golfer). As you become more skilled at manipulating that club face through impact, move up to a longer club with less loft like a 7 iron. Try to get those balls starting left and curving left. This is a skill game and you’re building skills with each one of these drills. Feel free to comment below with any questions.