IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR GAME

Know how to slice, then do the opposite

Slicing isn’t your fault if you’ve taken to heart some bad advice telling you that you need a “late hit” and to do this you need to pull with your lead hand as you start the downswing.

First of all, you don’t want a late hit any more than you want an early hit. The only difference between the two is that the late hit usually produces a shot that starts to the right of your target and then slices even farther.

So forget early and late hits. What you need is an on-time release that gets your arms and hands in front of the midline of your body at impact, with the clubface looking directly

down the intended line of start ― something you can’t have if your left hand is yanking the club forward and downward as if you were pulling on a bell rope.

When you drag the club toward the ball with your lead hand, the clubface comes into the hitting zone wide open because your left hand is in control, and that means your right hand is frozen out. Without your right hand and forearm, you can’t square up your clubface, and the ball slices with no power. This is one reason Ben Hogan said, “I wish I had three right hands!”

Remember, “If you drag, your club head will lag” and that spells slice, so don’t do it. Instead of concentrating on one hand or the other, think of golf as a two-handed, two armed game where both get back in front of the body at impact so the hands can beat the bejeebers out of the ball.

It’s not all bad to know exactly how to slice the ball to hit the cut-shot when you need to ― just hold on tight with the left and then pull as if your club was a bell rope. And if you really want a major-league slice, think about the “late hit” part as well as the “bell rope” part.

Just before impact, the right wrist is still loaded with cup, but it won’t be for long. The face is pointing to the right, so the cup needs to release to square the face.

A millisecond later, the cup is gone and so is the ball. Look how square the face is.