If you’re wondering why you keep slicing the golf ball — even after lessons, grip changes, and countless range sessions — this guide gives you the real answer. The fix isn’t a new swing thought. It’s understanding two root causes and using the right drills to correct them permanently.
Why You Keep Slicing: The Two Root Causes
Three Drills That Fix Why You Keep Slicing
These three drills directly address the two root causes: open clubface and outside-in path. Add them to your next range session.
Why you keep slicing comes down to two impact factors — and it’s not the one most instructors start with. Photo: Unsplash
There’s a specific reason why you keep slicing the golf ball even after lessons, new grips, and hours of range time — and it’s not your athletic ability. The standard lesson model tends to treat the symptom rather than the root cause. This guide breaks down exactly what’s happening at impact and gives you the fixes that actually stick.
Why You Keep Slicing Even After Lessons
Here’s what typically happens in a lesson: the instructor watches a few swings, identifies that your path is outside-in (over the top), and offers a fix — maybe a different takeaway, or a thought about dropping the club in the slot. You work on it. It feels different on the range. Then you go to the course and the slice comes right back.
The reason, however, is straightforward: swing thoughts don’t hold under pressure. When you’re standing on the first tee, your nervous system falls back on whatever movement pattern is most deeply grooved. If the root-cause mechanics haven’t changed through enough repetition, every cue your instructor gave you evaporates.
Additionally, there’s a second issue: many lessons address path first. But path corrections without face corrections actually make the slice worse for some players. If your face is still open to your new path, you’ve changed the direction of the spin axis without fixing the spin itself. The ball still curves hard right — it just starts from a different position.
The Two Actual Causes of a Slice
Essentially, a slice — that left-to-right curveball for right-handed golfers — is caused by sidespin. Specifically, it’s caused by an open clubface relative to the swing path at the moment of impact. That’s it. Two variables: face angle and path. Every slice in the world traces back to those two things interacting badly.
- Open clubface to path the ball curves right
- The more open the face, the more it curves a banana ball
- Outside-in path amplifies it starts left, curves farther right
In reality, most slicers who wonder why you keep slicing have both problems at once. The open face is usually the bigger contributor — research from Trackman consistently shows that clubface angle accounts for roughly 75–85% of initial ball direction and the dominant factor in curvature. Yet most lessons start with path. That’s why the slice persists.
Cause #1: Your Clubface Is Open at Impact
Importantly, the clubface being open at impact doesn’t necessarily mean you’re aiming right. It means the face is pointing right of the path the club is travelling on. Even a perfectly aligned setup produces a slice if the face rotates through impact in the wrong sequence.
More specifically, here’s what’s usually happening: your grip is too weak. A weak grip — both hands rotated too far toward the target on the handle — makes it structurally difficult to rotate the face to square by impact. The wrists don’t release properly, the face drags open, and you slice. This is why grip adjustments in lessons help briefly but don’t stick: golfers revert to what’s comfortable without realizing it.
The Grip Fix That Actually Sticks
Turn both hands slightly away from the target at address — specifically, you should be able to see two to two-and-a-half knuckles on your lead hand when you look down at address. Your trail hand should sit more underneath the grip, not on top of it. This “stronger” grip position gives your wrists the range of motion to rotate the face through impact naturally — without forcing it.
The Chicken Wing Kills Your Rotation
Moreover, there’s a second face-opening culprit that rarely gets enough attention: the chicken wing. When your lead elbow breaks outward through impact (instead of staying connected to your body), it yanks the face open at the worst possible moment. You lose the rotation, the arm structure collapses, and the ball goes right — every time.
Fortunately, fixing the chicken wing comes down to keeping the lead arm connected to your chest through impact. Some instructors cue this as “towel drill” — tuck a headcover or small towel under your lead armpit and make swings without dropping it. If the towel falls through impact, you’re chicken-winging. Keep it tucked, and you’ll feel an immediate change in how the face delivers through the ball.
Cause #2: Your Swing Path Is Outside-In — Why You Keep Slicing
Cause #2: Your Swing Path Is Outside-In
Furthermore, even with a perfectly neutral face, an outside-in path will still produce a pull or a pull-slice. For most slicers, the path problem starts at the top of the backswing: the club gets “over the top” — the hands and arms fire outward before the hips have cleared, casting the club across the ball from outside to inside.
As a result, the swing cuts across the ball, imparting left-to-right sidespin even when the face isn’t wildly open. The more the face is also open, the worse the curve becomes. Combine outside-in path with a weak grip, and you’ve built the perfect slice machine.
Why You Get Over the Top in the First Place
As a rule, it starts with sequencing. Most slicers initiate the downswing with their upper body — shoulders unwind first, which throws the club outward. The correct sequence is: hips, then torso, then arms, then club. When the lower body leads, the arms have room to drop into the slot on a shallower, inside-out path. When the upper body leads, the club has nowhere to go but over and across.
Why Lessons Miss the Real Reason You Keep Slicing
In essence, a good lesson gives you information — it explains why you keep slicing. It tells you what your swing is doing. The problem is that information without motor-pattern change doesn’t fix anything. You need to physically rewire how your body moves — and that takes repetition with immediate feedback, not swing thoughts on the first tee.
Therefore, the most effective approach is to work on face and path separately, using training aids that give you physical feedback on every single rep. Trying to think your way to an inside-out path or a square face under pressure doesn’t work. Feeling the correct movement hundreds of times in low-stakes practice does.
How Physical Feedback Rewires Your Swing
Consequently, training aids that constrain the wrong movement — rather than just describe it — produce faster improvement. When a tool physically stops you from getting over the top, your body learns the correct path by default. No thought required. That’s the kind of practice that holds up on the first tee.
Three Drills That Fix Why You Keep Slicing
These three drills target the real causes of why you keep slicing — face angle, swing path, and sequencing. You can start all three at your next range session.
1. The Headcover Drill (Fix the Chicken Wing)
To start, place a headcover or small towel under your lead armpit at address. Then make three-quarter swings and hold the finish. If the headcover drops before impact, your arm is separating from your body too early — that’s the chicken wing opening the face. Repeat until you can complete a swing with the headcover still tucked at the finish. Most golfers feel a dramatically different release within 15 reps.
2. The Gate Drill (Fix the Outside-In Path)
Next, set two alignment sticks (or tees) on the ground just outside your ball on the target line and just inside the ball slightly behind it, creating a narrow gate. Your goal is to swing through the gate without hitting either stick. This physically forces an inside-out path — you cannot get over the top without clipping the outer tee. Ten minutes of gate drill work will do more for your path than hours of abstract swing thoughts.
3. The Forearm Rotation Drill (Fix the Open Face)
Finally, take your normal address position, but hold the club in front of you at waist height — parallel to the ground. Now make a slow practice swing, consciously rotating your forearms through the impact zone so that the face goes from slightly open to square to slightly closed. This is what proper forearm rotation looks like. Repeat this 20 times before hitting balls at the range. It activates the rotation pattern that a weak grip and a chicken wing have been suppressing.
Training Aids That Help Fix Why You Keep Slicing
Training Aids That Fast-Track Your Slice Fix
These are the tools we recommend for golfers serious about fixing path, face angle, and sequencing for good.
The Speed Trap is probably the single most effective tool for fixing an outside-in path. Four foam rods surround the ball to physically force your club to travel on an inside-out path — get over the top and you’ll clip the rods immediately. That instant, physical feedback rewires your path faster than any drill alone. The device also teaches face rotation through the impact zone, targeting both root causes of a slice at once.
↗ View on AmazonThis small inflatable ball fits between your forearms and teaches you to keep your arms connected through the swing — the direct fix for a chicken wing. When the Smart Ball stays in place through impact, the face can rotate properly and your path stabilizes. Drop it and you feel the chicken wing immediately. Deceptively simple, it’s genuinely effective within the first 20 minutes of use.
↗ View on AmazonAlignment sticks are the backbone of the gate drill described above — and they do triple duty as path guides, alignment checkers, and ball position aids all in one session. Every serious golfer should own a set. These GoSports sticks are durable, affordable, and bright enough to actually see at the range. Use them for the gate drill every single warm-up until your path changes for good.
↗ View on AmazonThe Hanger clips to the shaft of any club and creates a physical extension that presses against your lead forearm through the swing. If your forearms aren’t rotating correctly — the number one cause of an open face — the Hanger digs in and you feel it immediately. Hit balls with it for 15 minutes and the rotation pattern ingrains itself. An odd-looking device, the Hanger has a surprisingly powerful effect on face angle.
↗ View on AmazonIf your slice comes from poor sequencing — upper body firing before the lower body — the Orange Whip trains your transition timing without a ball in sight. The weighted, flexible shaft makes it physically impossible to rush the downswing: your arms get ahead of the load and the whip goes out of rhythm immediately. Use it for 10 swings before every range session and the correct sequence starts to feel natural within two to three weeks of consistent practice.
↗ View on AmazonWhy You Keep Slicing — And the Fix That Actually Holds
Ultimately, the reason why you keep slicing after lessons isn’t a lack of information — it’s a lack of ingrained motor change. Your open face and outside-in path are deeply wired movement patterns, and they don’t disappear from a range session or a tip. They change through physical repetition with feedback.
As a starting point to stop asking why you keep slicing, work on the grip. Two-and-a-half knuckles on the lead hand, trail hand underneath — then hit 50 balls and don’t touch it. Next, add the gate drill with alignment sticks for your path. Finally, use the headcover drill or the Smart Ball to eliminate the chicken wing. Work all three consistently for two weeks and the reason why you keep slicing will be permanently eliminated. Not because you thought differently — but because your body learned to move differently.
That’s the fix that holds under first-tee pressure.