Off the tee · Driver accuracy
How to stop slicing your driver
A slice happens for one reason: at impact, your clubface is open relative to the path the club is travelling on. Everything else — the weak grip, the over-the-top move, the ball starting left and curving into the neighbour's garden — is a symptom of that one relationship.
That matters because most slice advice fixes the wrong half. If your face is wide open and you spend a month shallowing your downswing, you will turn a slice into a bigger slice. Diagnose first, then pick the drill.
1Find out which half is broken
Hit five drivers and watch where the ball starts, not where it finishes. If it starts right of your target and curves further right, your face is open to your body and the face is the problem. If it starts left and curves hard right, your path is cutting across the ball and the path is the problem. This single observation decides everything that follows, and it costs you five balls.
2If the ball starts right: fix the face first
Strengthen your lead-hand grip until you can see two to three knuckles at address. Most slicers hold the club in the palm with a grip so weak the face physically cannot square in time. Hit ten balls with the new grip and expect them to feel wrong — a correct grip feels closed to someone who has sliced for years. Judge it by ball flight, not by feel.
3If the ball starts left: fix the path second
Your club is approaching from outside the target line and cutting across the ball. Put a headcover a few inches outside and behind the ball, then swing without hitting it. This forces the club to approach from the inside. Do it at half speed until you can miss the headcover five times in a row, because a path change made at full speed is usually just a different compensation.
4Move the ball forward and tee it higher
A driver should be struck slightly on the upswing. Ball off your lead heel, tee high enough that half the ball sits above the crown, and a touch more weight on your trail foot at address. This alone reduces sidespin, because hitting up on the ball lowers spin loft and gives the sidespin less to work with.
5Change one thing at a time
The single biggest reason slice fixes fail is that golfers change grip, ball position and swing path in the same session, then cannot tell which one helped. Give each change its own session. It feels slower and it is dramatically faster.
Common questions
Why do I only slice my driver and not my irons?
The driver has the least loft and the longest shaft in your bag. Less loft means sidespin dominates the ball flight, and a longer shaft means a flatter swing plane and more time for the face to be left open. The same face-to-path error that produces a small fade with a 7-iron produces a big slice with a driver.
Will a stronger grip make me hook the ball?
Eventually it can, but almost never at the start. Golfers who have sliced for years have usually built in compensations to hold the face open. When the grip changes, those compensations fade over a few sessions and the ball flight settles. Give it three or four sessions before deciding you have overdone it.
How long does it take to fix a slice?
A grip change can straighten ball flight within one session. A swing-path change typically takes several weeks, because you are replacing a movement pattern rather than a hand position. This is why diagnosing which one you need matters so much.
Keep reading
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Address, Backswing Parallel, Top, Downswing Parallel, Impact and Finish — what each phase tells you, and why comparing swings at the same phase matters.
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Most range sessions are just exercise. This is a structured 60-ball routine built on blocked and random practice, and how to tell whether it is working.
ReadLast updated August 18, 2026