Off the tee, I pretty much just hit a big fade or slice. My problem is that I am coming through with the club face wide open. I am looking into an R7 Draw but does anyone know any good drills in which I could try to fix this problem?
Like Bump said, strengthening your grip is a way to promote wrist rotation through impact, rotating closed obviously. Learning the proper release through impact is a tough egg to crack. I struggled all season until very recently with this. Most of the season, I hit little push fades when I set up for a draw with the driver. I overcame it with better timing and less of an inside-out swing path. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but it's almost a "feel" thing for me.
Might want to check your left wrist at the top to see if it is "cupped" (causing a big wrinkle on the hairy side of your wrist). This was a significant problem for me all summer long because I didn't realize how badly it opens the clubface and how hard it makes getting the clubface squared.
If you have a cupped wrist, you need to have a strong grip, where your clubface will be pretty significantly closed when your left hand is directly facing the target and your right hand is facing directly away from it.
Off the tee, I pretty much just hit a big fade or slice. My problem is that I am coming through with the club face wide open. I am looking into an R7 Draw but does anyone know any good drills in which I could try to fix this problem?
Thanks.
You are not releasing properly. Don't grip the club so hard. Don't grip with your palm use your fingers.
Not seeing which you do this is just a guess.
Another thing could be it if you release your hips too soon and the club has too little room.
Getting a club to fix your swing trouble is like bandaiding an cut on the aorta.
Get the draw club if to help create draw strategy for your course management. IME these club are good for enhancing the ball fight (10-15 degrees dispersment) and are not designed to fix an open clubface or cronic slice (been there, done that too).
Believe him, there are lots of good tips and videos on this site. Join up and use them. Select the category about driving and pay close attention to how to set up for a driver. There are all kinds of things that can cause you to slice or push the ball with the driver. Learn the proper setup though and you can be much more consistent. Setting up with a driver in your hand is a different mind set. Teeing the ball up too low can cause a slice or push. You must hit the ball on a slight upswing which imparts a little backspin on the ball which reduces the ratio between side spin and back spin giving a straighter ball flight. A flat or downward swing on the ball with a driver is a killer.
You might also try standing a little closer to the ball. You might be "reaching" for the ball on the tee a little even though it may not feel like it. This might cause the club head to be a little open at contact. You might still hit it a good distance but the slice still gets you offlline and off the fairway.
i cured my slice the other day
it had everything to do with the wrist
my wrist was totally cupped on the backswing
basically, what I realized is that in golf, what you "feel" and what you are doing are two things, which is why it's such a hard game to learn
now, when i hit the ball, my slice is gone but i "feel" like my club is closed 45 degrees at impact, but in reality, it must be square because the ball flight is straight.
maybe you should try "feeling" like the club is 45degrees closed from the top of the backswing to impact--maybe that will help you get it square as well.
i cured my slice the other day
it had everything to do with the wrist
my wrist was totally cupped on the backswing
basically, what I realized is that in golf, what you "feel" and what you are doing are two things, which is why it's such a hard game to learn
now, when i hit the ball, my slice is gone but i "feel" like my club is closed 45 degrees at impact, but in reality, it must be square because the ball flight is straight.
maybe you should try "feeling" like the club is 45degrees closed from the top of the backswing to impact--maybe that will help you get it square as well.
You of course are talking about the left wrist or lead hand wrist to be more generic. Getting that wrist flatter helped me too and I agree it is a major factor in open club face.
i cured my slice the other day
it had everything to do with the wrist
my wrist was totally cupped on the backswing
basically, what I realized is that in golf, what you "feel" and what you are doing are two things, which is why it's such a hard game to learn
now, when i hit the ball, my slice is gone but i "feel" like my club is closed 45 degrees at impact, but in reality, it must be square because the ball flight is straight.
maybe you should try "feeling" like the club is 45degrees closed from the top of the backswing to impact--maybe that will help you get it square as well.
Did you use any drills to reinforce that "feeling"?
Did you use any drills to reinforce that "feeling"?
not really
although i am a beginner (playing golf for about 1-2 months)
and I'm self/friend taught
but learning to close the clubface was one of those eureka moments at the range
I too struggled with a bad slice/fade. It got so bad to the point i finally broke down, took a 120.00 dollars and got my swing video taped and analyzed for about 2 hours with a local pro. It was the best 120.00 ive ever spent in my golf career.
Yeah it could be your grip, stance, turning of the hands, address, really it could be anything there are so many factors. He put my tape side by side with some pros including aaron baddeley, tiger, mickleson with some down the line views and head on views and showed me angles of my body arms at address, top of my back swing, and through impact. Pretty much getting more fundamentally sound. I noticed immediately after making some minor tweaks my irons were hitting alot straighter and further and my control was amazing, BUT my driver was still slicing/fading.
I also came up with the idea of getting the taylormade r7 draw 10.5* stiff flex med tip. Let me be honest with you, it didn't do a thing! Now not only did i slice the ball but now the ball went a mile high in the sky because its a high launch driver. I immediately resold it on ebay.
So now breakdown number 2 happens about 1 week later while im still slicing, so i reach in the pocket book again grab another 65.00 for another hour lesson on driving. Now instead of focusing on my driver he had me run this drill.
He had me stop hitting my driver and grabbed my 7 iron. Lined up about 10-15 balls in a line on short tees just barely off the ground. And taught me how to hit a draw shot. So he had me take baby steps opening up my stance and aiming about 10 yards out of my target and making me turn my hands over through impact, forcing the ball to draw a little. (taking half swings) as i got more consistent at hitting the draw i would take larger and larger back swings, and eventually taking away the tees all together and taking full swings being able to draw the ball 10-15 yds consistently right onto my target. I hit about 200-300 balls doing this.
Now i grab my driver focusing on putting a little draw on it, slow my swing speed down to probably 90-95 instead of 105-110 and BAM! slice suddenly disappeared. Now i drive with a draw oh and i got a Cleveland launcher 460 with x-stiff 9.5*.( love it alot more than the r7 i bought and it was cheap! got it used for like $65+shipping with a nice fujikara x stiff shaft.)
Try to do this, learn to hit little baby draw shots with you 6 or 7 iron off a short tee consistantly focusing on your grip and turning of your hands. Then pull out your driver. It saved me a lot of time and effort and took about 6 strokes off my game. Its way to hard to try to cure something with a club you swing the fastest, and is the longest club in your bag.
What he said to me was a straight drive is the worst drive. Because if you can consistently hit a nice fade or draw consistently and accurately it will save you alot of strokes. So say your fairway is 30 yds wide, instead of hitting it down the middle and only having 15 yds each way to screw up if you biff the shot, you can hit a fade or draw aiming down the left or the right side of the fairway and have 30 yds of room to play with. Made sense to me lol. Sorry for the long read, but hope this helps you.
People may think its a waste of money to get local lessons from house pros, but look at it this way wasting 10-15 dollars a day hitting balls at the range is not going to better your game unless you know what you are doing wrong. I was hitting balls every day and playing 36 holes a week for about 2 months with minor if not any real improvements. So i stopped going to the course and invested money in lessons just off 4 lessons and 225.00 dollars later my game has taken leaps and bounds and i feel like i am getting a lot more quality practice when i am at the range and i hit half as many balls as i used to. Iam hitting in the high 70's low 80's instead of the 100's in just 3 months, To me its worth every penny. So in my honest opinion dont hit balls for week and take that money to a notable local pro and get torn apart and scrutinized....you wont regret it, you may hit the balls worst for the first week but it will get better.
Last edited by nolan386 : October 18th, 2007 at 02:19 AM.