Golf Mistakes - Slicing the Ball

Jay Golden: Hi, I'm PGA member, Jay Golden and this series involves common faults and cures. The first fault we're going to take a look at is a slice. Have you ever sliced a ball and it went so far to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right? It actually came back almost to hit you in head and you had a duck. No? That's good news. But a slice is a weak shot, a shot that we don't want to hit. The reason a ball slices is because of the curve, the spin. If a ball spins clockwise, it is going to curve that way. If a ball spins counterclockwise, it's going to curve that way. So that is why a ball slices, because of the spin. Then the question is well what makes it spin clockwise? It spins clockwise because the club head is moving in one direction with the club face facing in another direction. As you could see that is going to put clockwise spin on that ball. Now to get rid of a slice let's go in the other direction. We want to hook the ball. To do that, we have to put counterclockwise spin in that direction and to do that we're going to put the triple whammy on the ball. Number one, we're going to start out with the club face aiming to the left. Number two, we're going to swing that club head out to the right. Number three, we're even going to put a little wrist release, a hand turn before we get to the ball. That's what I call the triple whammy. So a ball slices because it spins clockwise. We want it to hook. We want it to spin counterclockwise. We want to put the triple whammy on it. We'll start with the club head aiming left, swing out to the right and then turn our wrists over. We want to get rid of that weak slice that goes to the right. That made Albert Einstein quit golf. He couldn't figure out why he was slicing, so he went into science. I don't know if that's true. It's just what his mother said. We're going to get rid of that slice and we're going to start hooking triple whammy. Club face aiming left, swing out to the right, and release those hands and you'll be hooking and get rid of that slice. In the next segment we're going to talk about the grip and why a weak grip leads to weak shots and why a strong grip leads to strong shots.