What goes wrong, and why
Why you slice, and the two fixes in order
By the end you will know which of the two impact numbers is wrong in your swing, why the grip is the one to change first, and what the ball does while the change beds in.
A slice is one number: face minus path
≈44 yards of curveFace 5° open to path, tour driver, 275-yard carry
Take the direction the clubface points at impact and subtract the direction the clubhead is travelling. TrackMan calls that face to path. If the face points 5 degrees right of the path, the ball curves right. That is the whole slice.
TrackMan prints what that costs. A tour driver carrying 275 yards, 5 degrees open to the path, bends about 44 yards right. A tour 6-iron carrying 183 yards, 2 degrees open, bends about 8 yards. Your face can point at the flag and still slice, as long as the path is further left than the face.
You will see it written that 80 or 90 percent of golfers slice. No published study sits behind that number, so treat it as a feeling about driving ranges.
Why it starts left and finishes right
The ball starts close to where the face points. TrackMan calls face angle the most important number for the starting direction of the ball. So a shot that starts left of your target and curves back right is telling you two things. The face was left of the target. The path was further left still. That is a pull slice.
Hear it
Three clicks: takeaway, top, impact. Start at the tour beat and move to whichever one you can actually swing to.
Fix one: the grip, after a foot-powder check
About 2Knuckles on your lead hand at address
Before you touch the grip, spray the driver face with foot powder and hit a few balls. Marks toward the heel mean the strike is doing part of the work. Coach Adam Young explains gear effect: a heel strike twists a big driver head in a way that adds slice spin, even when your face and path numbers are decent. Get the strike closer to the middle before you judge anything else.
Then look down at your lead hand at address. One knuckle or none is a weak grip, and PGA professional Ben Emerson says it makes an open face at impact very hard to avoid. Rotate both hands away from the target until you see about two knuckles, with the V between thumb and index finger of each hand pointing at your trail shoulder.
Change the face before you change the path. The face is the cheaper of the two to check, because you can see your grip at address without filming anything. Hit half swings with a 7-iron. The ball will go left at first, and left is the sign you want: it means the face is finally closing while the path is still cutting across.
Fix two: the path
Once the ball is going left, the path is what is left to work on. For most slicers it swings out to in because the arms start the downswing. That is the over-the-top move, and it has its own article. Pebble Swing reads joint angles and the backswing-to-downswing tempo ratio from the frames of your video.
Questions
- Should I just aim further left until I fix it?
- Aiming left moves your path further left, which widens the face-to-path gap and adds curve. The ball starts further left and slices more. Aim at the target and let the grip change work.
- Why do I slice the driver but not my irons?
- The driver has the longest shaft and the least loft, so the same face-to-path angle produces far more curve, and the ball flies further while it curves. The big driver head also produces more gear effect on heel strikes than an iron does.
- Will a draw-bias driver or a closed face setting cure it?
- A closed setting shrinks the face-to-path gap, so it does reduce the curve. It does not change your path or your grip, so the slice comes back as soon as you swap clubs. Use it as a patch, not a fix.
- How do I know the new grip is working?
- Judge it by the ball rather than by the calendar. While the shots are pulling left, the face is closing and the change is doing its job. Add the path work once the pulls settle down.
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these.