Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.
Hitting a slice is no fun. The ball comes out with tons of spin and no control. There’s no power in the shot and it usually puts you in some tough spots.
It’s a helpless feeling watching the ball start on its twisting path — and a feeling most golfers know well.
When you first start playing golf, the slice is a familiar ball flight. Coming over the top and cutting across the ball is extremely common for beginners. But if you want to improve, you must learn how to get rid of that banana-shaped ball flight.
Lee Trevino has forgotten more about golf than most of us will ever know. Fortunately for the slicers out there, one thing he will always know is how to fix a slice. And in the video below (1:21 mark), he explains a simple swing adjustment that will help you get rid of your slice for good.
Lee Trevino’s simple slice fix
As mentioned above, a slice comes from an over-the-top swing path that causes you to cut across the ball through the hitting zone. The reason for an over-the-top path can vary, but one thing that is consistent is your lead knee gets too straight at the bottom of your swing.
“What happens when you get down into the hitting area is that you’re locking your [lead] knee,” Trevino says. “What happens here is the right shoulder goes over and you cut across the ball.”
To keep yourself from locking the lead knee, try to focus on keeping your lead kneecap in front of your trail kneecap as you make your downswing.
“What you have to do is make sure when you’re in the hitting area, the [lead] knee breaks towards the target, keeping the [trail] knee in back of the [lead knee],” Trevino says. “This results in laying off the club and getting underneath it.”
Once you start keeping that lead knee a little more flexed in the downswing, you’ll be able to lay off the club and produce a path that comes from the inside. Then — voila! — your slice will be gone.
