Fix High Push Slice Shots

How to stop hitting big push slice shots.

Hey, Robin here. Just got a quick one for you based actually on my own golf.

I was out playing yesterday.   I was hitting sort of high push cuts to the right and that’s actually been my history. Even when I was back playing a lot more that would be my missed shot which kind of plagued me a little bit. But because the ball’s going to the right, we get scared of going to the right. So naturally, what I would’ve done in the past is, the more the ball was going to right, the more I would’ve put the ball further left in my stance. In theory, I was thinking that would’ve given me a better chance of squaring the club face, releasing it. And without trying to do it, what I would’ve done through impact is I would’ve spun my hips back, stayed on my right foot, spun my hips back to try to get behind the ball to square the club. But in doing that, these two things, spinning back, staying on my right foot, the swing path will be coming across the ball, putting the ball more forward in my stance. The more the ball is forward, the more the path is going to be to the left. So I’m spinning back, the ball is forward. The club head can only be sort of wiping across the ball.

Obviously if I did square the club to that, the ball would go straight left, way left, out of bounds left. So you’re not going to do that. You are going to try to get–I’m going to use my instinct and try and hold the club open a little bit to get the ball going to the target, about half left open club face, it creates a high push cut sharp to the right.

So you have to fight your instinct a little bit, and that’s what I was doing yesterday.   I was putting the ball a little further back in the stance. That gives me a chance of keeping the club traveling down the target line.  And then from this angle, I was really forcing myself to move my weight to the left foot and try to feel like the club head was going to the right of the target. That’s fighting. . . your instinct is not wanting you to do that. You’re missing right.  You don’t want to swing right.  But it’s amazing, you get the ball a little more back.  You force yourself to move to your left foot, and the club head to travel a little more down the target line or right side of the target line. The ball actually wants to go more left than it does to the right. And, once you hit a few shots which the ball draws a little bit rather than high cuts to the right, you gain confidence in it, and you go ahead and you start playing well.

So just a little bit from my round yesterday, not a specific lesson, but hopefully there’s a few people out there who struggle with that kind of shot which it can help. So let’s give one a try. Ball back a little bit. I’m going to force myself to move to the left and keep that club traveling to the right of the target. I don’t know if you saw that, but that was quite low ball flight, straight.  There was no hint of the ball kind of starting right and cutting further right.