How trying to hit a slice (or hook!) can help cure your swing woes

If you’re like most golfers, chances are you’ve got a hole in your game – and it’s in your head! I call it the law of intention and attention.

When I meet a new student, even if he or she has been playing for years, I always ask, “What are you looking for? while your swing?”

By far the most common answer is, “I try not to think about anything.”

But the second most common answer is more revealing. It usually refers to body part control: “I’m trying to rotate my longitudinal arm” or “I’m trying to create torque in my upper body.”

These answers keep giving me pauses because while swing thoughts are okay, there’s a huge difference between thinking about how something to do with a club as opposed to what you are actually do to get the club to behave in a certain way.

In order to hit the ball properly, you need to swing the racquet so that it makes contact with the turf in the right place – ie the target side of the ball. There are several possible explanations for poor contact: your club is too high on the ball, too low, too far left (toe hit), too far right (heel hit or maybe even a nice shank!), or too far back (brocken).

How you process—and act on—that information is key to improvement.

Let’s take a common swing mistake: the dreaded slice.

If you’re a slicer – and assume your grip isn’t the culprit – try this fun exercise. Hit that slice on purpose! But don’t change your setup at all. As you swing, just focus on opening your face. Then, over the course of several swings, experiment with opening the face at different times: in your backswing, at the top of your backswing, in your transition, etc. The goal is to “catch yourself in the act” by increasing your awareness the action that causes the clubface to open at impact and slice the ball.

Now do the exact opposite. close the face If you hook the ball hard to the left, don’t call it a bad shot. Rejoice instead! That’s what we’re trying to do here. You have indeed done a fantastic job getting rid of your piece.

Once you are comfortable with both intentionally slicing and hooking the ball, you can begin correcting your club face position relative to club travel.

As the old saying goes, “To explore is to learn. Everything else is just information,” and that’s what you need to do to get better at golf. Hit the disc. Hit the hook. Hit it straight – what I mean just enough. This process of changing your intention from shot to shot and making adjustments as needed serves a dual purpose: you both learn how to pay attention and how to execute shots.

Don’t worry if you’re trying to hit the ball perfectly straight. Even the girls and boys on tour don’t know how to hit the mark every time. You will always have shots that deviate from your aim – the goal should be to reduce your shot spread.

And this process begins with paying attention – with every shot! – to what you had in mind.