I aim to provide you with golf articles and reviews, in a clear and concise manner. I hope you like the site and find it useful and helpful. Thanks for visiting.I like this golf swing tip because it is easy to remember and it works. If you find yourself addressing a golf shot and pondering what to think about next, try this. To initiate the backswing, on every golf shot through the bag, turn your right pocket back, if you are a right handed golfer. To begin the downswing, turn the pocket back to the ball. What could simpler. It’s also a great way to block other thoughts out of the mind before you play your golf shots. Go ahead, and give it a try.
Don’t get me wrong. I love golf and like most keen golfers I want to improve my game and reduce my handicap. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of all fit and able golfers? I also like to read about golf swing tips that I like to think will help me play better golf, and I share what I learn on this website.
There’s only one problem with trying to apply these golf swing tips to my own game and that is age. The mind is willing but the body, as I get older, tends not to be so willing. There are a few twists and turns of the arms and torso that I can’t manage today so well as I could say five years ago. Age creeps up on us all, without exception, and that includes golfers like you and me.
So what are the implications of this? As the body winds down and complains more when we get older, the best we can do is try to keep the muscles and the mind as fit as possible. Looking after your general health is important to longevity any way. There’s a fine line between quitting walking a round of golf for the luxury of sitting in an electric golf cart between shots. You might wonder, if you opt to ride round the golf course instead of walking, what will happen to those aching limbs. Will they seize up quicker, and does the effort of making yourself walk slow down the process. I don’t have the answer to give you, though I prefer to walk for as long as I am able.
Underlying this is the enjoyment playing golf gives to thousands of enthusiasts who take to the golf courses around the world on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter how you look at golf, as escapism, a chance to get to know a work colleague better, as a means to make new friends, and so on. There are lots of different reasons why people take up golf. This only serves to highlight the positive benefits of golf to all who would partake in this great sport. You don’t have to be a Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy to get the most enjoyment out of the game.
To return to the original theme of this article, on golf swing tips and whether the body is going to allow you to apply what you read or see to your ultimate benefit on the golf course. That’s for your body to tell you. It makes me a little envious when I see body positions I would like to copy, such as a full body turn, but know I now cannot. Still, that doesn’t stop me enjoying my golf, and taking advantage of the golf swing tips that I can apply to my golf game, even if they are confined to putting and the short game only.
If you are thinning your wedge shots, the chances are you might be swinging the same way you hit your drives. It goes without saying that the angle of approach on the down swing for wedge shots needs to be more acute than with the driver. The driver golf swing is essentially a sweeping motion, while playing wedge shots with a driver swing results in thinned shots, and as we all know to our cost, these can have disastrous consequences on the scorecard. Assuming everyone has hit this kind of golf shot at some point in their golfing career.
Specifically:
“When hitting a shorter club, the angle of attack has to be between 6 and 7 degrees downward and the path has to be slightly out-to-in. This means the club has to travel to left after impact.
If you open your stance and try to hit down on the ball, you will be squaring the club to your target at impact. So the driver swing is totally different than the iron swing.
When you are on the practice tee go back and forth between the driver and the wedge. You should develop the technique for both clubs now that you know what to work on.”
Playing across the ball from out to in causes the ball to fly higher, and is just the golf shot you need to clear bunkers and other hazards. You never know when this shot is likely to be useful during a round of golf and it’s a good shot to try and perfect in advance.
While there might be nothing new in swinging the golf club with one hand, there are positive benefits for the golfer. It doesn’t matter which hand you try first so long as you only use one hand. In fact, try both individually and see which works best for you.
My favourite swing action is with the left hand. If you are right handed, swing with the left hand only is the natural way to swing the club head. One thing you’ll notice is you can’t rush the swing. If you are a quick swinger, this drill will slow you down, dramatically I suggest. Another benefit is that you will find it difficult to over swing using one hand only. Swinging the club this way gives you a greater awareness of what you are doing throughout the golf swing, in terms of where the club is at various stages of the backswing.
Another key area of improvement in golf to look for is in building strength in the arms and hands, as this exercise targets just those muscles that golfers use to strike the ball. Timing and balance are also improved.
“There are a few things to take note of before when practising one handed:
Don’t take too many swings when first trying this. Hitting balls with one hand is fun and challenging, but if you hit too many, your arm will be sore the next day. Start off with 10-20 swings and, as your arms and hands get stronger, add more.
Grip down on the handle. Start with your sand wedge and grip down on the handle; this will make the club lighter.
Let your body finish to the target. Often a golfer will try to hit a one-handed shot and just move their arm, not allowing their body to rotate so that their chest and belt buckle are facing at the target. When practising, allow your chest to turn back and through and finish with your torso and belt buckle looking at the target.”
If you haven’t tried this method of golf practice before it might feel a bit strange at first. You might find you need to try it a few times before you get the feel of it and the swing tempo, but that’s precisely why you are doing trying it anyway.
This article is intended to give a general outline of how to hit a 6 iron. Whether this is off the fairway or from the tee, the method is the same.
If you are learning to play golf you soon realise that each club needs to be played differently. There are certain golf fundamentals that need to be in place to hit a golf ball correctly, then the golfer needs to be able to play each club in the bag to a competent degree.
I am not a golf teacher and this method of hitting a 6 iron is my own, but is written here in the hope it might help someone’s golf game.
Grip.
The grip is one of those fundamentals I mentioned above. I use my normal overlapping grip to play this club.
Stance.
There is lots of advice about how to stand to the ball, but for the 6 iron I like to have my weight mostly on my heels with my feet a shoulder width apart. I think this is a good rule of thumb for considering how far apart to have the feet at the address position, especially given that we are all physically different from one another, and of differing heights.
In normal weather conditions, I position the ball midway from my right heel at the mid point between my feet. I do this to give myself the best chance of hitting the ball before the turf. Every golfer dreads hitting the ground before the ball.
The Back Swing
Before beginning the backswing, I check that I am lining up the shot to the intended line of flight, with my feet square to the ball. This is the setup for a straight golf shot. When you get good at playing this club you can experiment playing an intentional draw or fade with a six iron. But first, you have to master the basics. I happen to believe that beginners at golf should first get used to playing at least one golf club well, before trying to play them all well at the same time.
I take the club back on the inside swing path and stop when my hands are at shoulder height. By then, my body weight will have shifted, to an extent, to the right leg, and while my left shoulder will be pointing to the ground, the hips will have rotated ninety degrees to the right.
Downswing
The down-swing is initiated by a leftward movement of the hips, and with the wrists still fully cocked until they are at the height of my hips, I then deliberately whip the club through the ball, and then follow through, keeping my head down. This uncoiling of the hips is the power base of the golf shot, and is where the power and accuracy of the shot originates. If you get this right, you will play good golf and you are on the way to a lower golf handicap.
How to cure a slice is not as straightforward as you might believe. Or have I got that wrong? Curing a slice is quick and easy, isn’t it?. Most golfers are aware of why they slice. If you are swinging the club from the outside to in swing path, for example, you will slice the shot if the clubface is open at impact. So the solution is to reverse the swing plane to inside to out, with the clubface square at impact. That solution is well documented, in books, videos. and on lots of websites.
If you take a few of these cure slice remedies, you will no doubt notice that the way to correct the problem is explained in different ways. And this can be confusing, especially if you are looking for more than one slice cure because you cannot understand the one you have just read, or you cannot understand what you need to do to cure it.
Then there is the type of golf slice you have. You might not be slicing your golf shots all the time. If you are not then you have an occasional slice. Contrast this with a vicious or wild slice. I think you know what I mean by that. And yes, it can be a very wild golf slice if it takes you into the remote parts of your golf course. This is a slice which is out of control, and you do not know how to stop it.
Do you know the quickest way to cure a slice? Let me tell you, if you are serious about eliminating the slice from your game, take to the hills. What do you mean, take to the hills? Take a golf club and some balls and practice hitting some shots on the side of a slope. Not just from any position though. You need to stand with your feet below the ball. Can you remember the last time you sliced the ball from this position on the golf course?
It is not easy to play a slice from this lie. Rather, it encourages you to hook or draw the ball. And here is the point of this quick fix for a slice. As you practice hitting one ball after another from the side slope, your swing will be flatter and you will be attacking the ball from the inside swing path, which is exactly the way to cure a slice. These two factors will cure your slice. When you hit your shots from a flat lie, remember what you have learned, and apply it to your normal swing. The result is no more slicing.
Other explanations of how to cure a slice go into more detail, such as giving pointers to look out for during the backswing, like where the hands should be and where the grooves on the clubface should be pointing at a certain stage of the backswing.
I think you can be given too much information at one time, about how to cure a golf slice, so that you lose sight of the actual cure. It is often helpful if you can get a friend or colleague to have a look at your swing and tell you if you are standing too far from the ball at the address, or if you are turning the shoulders fully, if your grip looks too weak, if your stance is too open, and so on. All these factors contribute to the slice in golf.
The fundamentals of golf matter, and you need to check that your body alignment is square to the line of flight. Often curing a slice comes about by eliminating, one by one, the contributing factors that are causing the slice. You might need to do this until you are hitting the ball straight again.
Me, I like the simple and effective golf slice cures. I don’t want a lot of fluff and theory, just an easy to understand solution, like the one mentioned above, about practicing on the side of a hill. The question the golfer should really be asking is, show me how to cure a slice.
I have included a video with this article on how to cure your slice. The explanation the instructor gives in the video gives a very good explanation of the cause of the slice in golf. Showing us what we do wrong when we slice the ball, goes a long way to curing a slice and hitting the golf ball straighter, as we should.
When I was slicing nearly every golf shot, except the putter, I just did not know how to correct my slice. I did not know what I was doing wrong. My swing felt just like it normally does, and I did not sense I was doing anything different to make me slice my golf shots. It is tempting to try different things during your round of golf to try and stop slicing the ball, but that really is not the way to cure a slice for good. You need to learn what causes the slice, and practice the correct golf swing in order to eradicate it from your game.
The key point is that knowing the cause of a golf fault is the best way of correcting it quickly. This is true of hooking, shanking the ball, pushing, pulling or skying your golf shots, and for any other golf fault I have not mentioned here. So its worth taking some time to study the background of the causes of the slice in golf in order to cure it as soon as it infects your golf game.
The golf video demonstrates how, by a simple change in the swing path, you can cure your slice.
Many club golfers would like to know how to fix a golf slice with the driver. Why the driver especially? Two reasons really. First, because the club has such a long shaft, and needs its own particular type of golf swing, makes it harder to play than most other clubs in the bag. Secondly, if you are prone to slicing your golf drives, you will no doubt, unwillingly I am sure, be familiar with the many trouble spots on your golf course.
The side spin generated by cutting across the golf shots, makes the ball travel a long way when it reaches the fairway. The slice in golf is caused by taking the club back too far to the inside on the back swing. As this is incorrect, the solution is to take the club back straighter in the backswing.
So many golf faults can easily be traced back to the fundamentals of the game. This does not mean to say that all golf faults are easily solved. From my own point of view, I don’t believe so. The golf slice is no different from any other golf fault, but it does need hard work and practice to correct it.
Typically, the golfer with a slice begins the downswing by rotating the shoulders, rather than holding back any movement in the upper body, which is what should happen. To fix a golf slice with the driver, you need to practice swinging the golf club correctly, by using the hands and arms only.
To learn to do this, stand with the feet close together, and using a mid iron, practice hitting some shots. Standing this way, with a narrow stance forces you to use the hands and arms more dominantly than the upper body. Internalize how this feels, so that when you are comfortable hitting the ball this way, you can have a go with the driver, and see the difference.
I have also enclosed a golf video lesson on how to fix a golf slice.
The slice in golf is one of the most common golf faults affecting golfers of different playing abilities. When you first start playing golf, you kind of expect the golf ball to go flying in all directions, but when your game settles down you can be plagued by a golf slice which can become remarkably difficult to cure. In this article I offer a golf slice cure, and I am sure that by ridding your game of the golf slice you will enjoy the game of golf even more.
Why put up with the misery of the dreaded slice longer than you have to? In case you are not sure what a slice in golf is, let me tell you it is when the ball starts to the left of the target and then arcs round to the right. Once it hits the fairway, it generally has a lot of backspin, which will take the ball sideways across the fairway and into the rough or some other hazard.
Some golfers are tempted to live with the slice rather than try and cure it. They do this by playing a controlled slice, aiming the golf shot to the left of the target and allowing for it to swing back to the target they are aiming at. This is alright, if you are confident you are in control of the shot. There have been many well know and successful golfers who have played with a controlled fade of the ball, Lee Trevino being an example. Note I said fade, not slice. Both a fade and slice are similar shots, but the golf slice is definitely a destructive shot and should be eliminated altogether from your game.
That said, advanced players should know how to play a slice when needed, but the beginner just needs to get rid of it.
Golf Slice Cure
The slice in golf is caused by striking the ball with an open club face at impact, and swinging the club in an outside to in swing plane. If the club face was closed at impact the end result would be a pulled shot. The club is taken, in the backswing, too far to the inside, so that at the top of the backswing the club head is pointing to the right of the target. From there the shoulders are rotated too early in the downswing, throwing the hands, arms and club head outside the correct swing path, so that the player cuts across the ball at impact and the result is a golf slice. This phenomenon is called the over the top golf swing.
Take the club back straighter at the start of the backswing. The way to cure the over the top golf swing is to start the downswing by moving the lower body to the left, and getting the club to the hitting zone which is at waist height. Once you get into this position, whip the hands through the ball. You will no doubt notice that this position and movement feels strange to start with and you might not stop slicing the ball straight away. But adopt this technique as a golf swing drill to practice on the range, and you will do your golf a lot of good. And cure the golf slice as well.
The slice is probably the easiest golf shot to play without thinking about how you did it. The golf slice can take hold of your game any time. It seems to creep up on you, then it sticks with you until it has you nearly ready to quit the golf game altogether and take up a less stressful sport. This article is about how to correct a slice.
The golf slice is the when the golf ball starts to the left of the target and gradually arcs round to the right, most of the time landing in the rough or some other hazard. It is a destructive golf shot and causes golfers a lot of despair. It will ruin your scorecard. Some golfers try to allow for it by aiming their golf shots to the left, but this strategy is not always successful and the golfer sacrifices a lot of distance.
How To Correct A Slice
First, a quick look at the cause of the golf slice. If you watch, from a side profile, a golfer who is slicing the golf ball, you will notice the club is swung from the outside to in swing plane. Rewind a little, to the top of the back swing. Notice how the slicing golfer starts the downswing by moving the upper body while the lower body lags behind in the unwinding sequence.
It should be the other way round. You should begin the downswing by moving the hips to the left, while keeping the wrists fully cocked until they are in the hitting zone, or just above waist height.
This is a definite golf swing sequence which needs practice. The best golf swing drill to correct a slice is to practice keeping the angle of the left arm and club shaft the same as they are at the top of the back swing until they reach about hip height. Practicing this golf swing drill will feel strange at first, but it is necessary if you are to cure the golf slice.
Practice this routine until you have memorized it, and then hit some golf balls on the practice range, starting with an easy club like a mid iron, and see what happens. When you can hit the shots with your favourite golf club straight, then gradually move on to the longer irons and the woods.
Hitting the golf ball from this correct swing position in the downswing will no doubt feel strange at first, but by persevering with this technique, your golf slice will soon be a thing of the past.
The push slice, while not a full blown golf slice as such, is one of those golf shots which can become quite irritating after a while. Try as you may, you keep hitting the ball to the right of the target, and the ball flies higher than normal as well. About midway in flight, the ball bends to the right, as with the golf slice.
When the ball hits the ground, the side spin on the ball means your shot runs the risk of finishing off the fairway. Like every other golf fault, knowing what is going on in your golf swing is the key to putting it right in time for the next shot.
The long irons are an unforgiving club, and they tend to magnify the particular golf fault you have at any one time. If you have ever watched a golfer with the push slice, you will have noticed that the golf swing looks cramped. What I mean is that at the top of the backswing, the weight is on the left side when it should be on the right. On the follow through, the weight is on the left side, so that the golfer looks as if he or she is leaning to the left. So the golf swing problem is caused by an incorrect weight shift during the golf swing.
Push Slice Cure
The type of golf swing just described is too restricting for what is needed. Bear in mind, the long irons require more of a punch type of shot. The cure for the push slice lies in proper weight transference during the backswing. In order to play the long irons efficiently, you need to generate clubhead speed in the hitting zone.
To put yourself in this position, means shifting the weight to the right side on the backswing, then to the left side on the downswing. This will put the angle of your left arm and the club shaft at the three o’clock position by the time the wrists are just above waist height. From there, you unleash the hands and arms into and through the golf shot.
By practicing a full shoulder turn, and the correct sequence of weight transfer in the golf swing, you will have taken some major steps in curing the push slice.
If your golf game is plagued by the golf slice, all is not lost. There is a way out of this troublesome golf fault. I am going to show you a simple golf swing drill which will teach you the correct golf swing path. This is an effective drill for correcting a golf slice.
When you slice your golf shots, you are swinging from outside to in at impact. This causes the golf shot to start left and curve round in mid air to the right of the target. This golf swing drill corrects this swing tendency.
This is not going to easy when you first try it, but you probably realize you have to change your swing in order to cure the golf slice.
This golf swing drill also demonstrates the power of mental imagery in improving the golf game. As you address the golf shot, imagine the golf ball is a clock face. As already stated, the sliced golf shot swing is from the outside of the line of flight, which makes the impact on the imaginary clock face at about two o’clock.
Visualize hitting the golf ball at four o’clock instead. By focusing on this spot on the ball, you will be attacking the ball from the inside golf swing path, the very opposite of what you have been doing.
Try this golf swing drill with your favourite club first on the practice range, then progress to the longer golf clubs when you have gained in confidence.
During the changeover period to this different golf swing path, your golf swing will feel awkward, and you might be tempted to quit if the golf shots are not what you expect immediately.
Keep practicing and give it a chance, and after some time, you could well say goodbye to the golf slice for good.