The Golf Slice

An old school golfer, who wants to rant and rave about hitting irons, will tell you that as the loft of the club increases you should have a different stance. So, in other words, as the position of the ball shifted to the right as the loft changed you would take a more open stance.

Today’s golfers, especially the professionals, use a much simpler system. In this simplified approached, the right foot moves closer to the left as the loft increases and the golf ball is positioned closer to the golfer (because the shaft on the club is going to be shorter).

So the moral here is that regardless of what club you’re playing make sure your stance is square to the line and your golf ball is always played off the heel.

Shanks are the worst. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having your golf ball rocket away from you at a right angle.

You greatly increase your chance of hitting a shank shot if you stand to close to the golf ball or shift your weight to your left foot before impact. Either of those situations will cause the hosel of the club to hit your ball and produce a shank.

The easy way to avoid these is to setup evenly and make sure there’s about a fist length of space between your grip and your body when you’re holding your golf club.

A lot of people will recommend practice drills with shafts and body placement to cure a shank but I think you’re better off concentrating on how close you are to the ball when you swing. That’s probably the root of the problem the majority of the time.

When my friends and I first started to pick up the lovely game of golf we had a really bad problem with hitting topped shots. A topped shot, as the name implies, is when the head of your club doesn’t get under the ball and instead grazes the top of the ball. The result is less than spectacular.

It turns out fixing this problem is relatively easy. All you need to do is keep your head level throughout your swing. When you move your head or lift it up during your swing you have a tendency to top the golf ball.

An easy way to work on this is to have your playing partner watch you while you swing. In our group, everyone yells out in unison “Keep your head down!” whenever someone lifts their head and hits a topped shot.

This may come as a surprise to many people but your right foot might be the reason many of your golf shots are going off course. It’s not very often that you hear someone talk about their foot when they swing but it is sometime a reasonable excuse for a bad shot.

For right-handed golfers, the toe of your right foot should be square to your line or maybe turned out to the right. By doing this you can help the head of your club come away low from the ball, make a nice turn and start downwards correctly.

What if you want to hit your golf ball farther or higher than normal? In that case, the toe of your right foot should be aiming farther to the right. This will give you a larger and more powerful turn away from your golf ball without ruining your balance or rhythm. In addition, your hips will stay behind the ball through impact which leads to a cleaner motion and greater distance and speed.

If you’re looking to hit a low shot try turning your right foot slightly to the left. This will cut down on your backswing and give you more of a punch shot to keep the golf ball low.

I know this is just one more thing to worry about during your swing but with some practice you might find these subtle adjustments helpful.

A flop shot is basically a high flying shot that doesn’t go very far and lands with very little extra movement. It’s great for those times when you need pinpoint placement and you are a short distance from the green.

You’re going to need a golf club with a lot of loft to hit a good flop shot. I’m talking about using either a wedge or maybe, if you need some extra distance, a nine iron at most.

Here are some swing tips for hitting a good flop shot:

1. Your stance should be similar to what you use for any regular pitch shot. Try and target the area slightly to the left of where you want the ball to eventually land.
2. You’ll want to open up a bit more clubface for this shot than you normally would. Make sure your hands are a bit ahead of the ball as you strike to make sure maintain the open clubface.
3. As you swing keep the club at a steep angle to make sure you get under the ball.

As they say, practice makes perfect so you might want to give these steps some trial runs at the driving range sometime.