Golf

Hall of Fame instructor Butch Harmon — and his cure for a slice

Butch Harmon and professional Tommy Fleetwood eventually 12 months’s Masters.

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If you’re hitting the ball proper, Butch Harmon says, attempt to hit it left. 

And vice versa. 

“I’m a great believer — and I learned this from my dad — in opposites,” he stated. 

Harmon, a GOLF Top 100 Teachers corridor of famer, was speaking on a recently recorded episode of A New Breed of Golf on SiriusXM, and the topic was a much-discussed one: How to repair a slice. After his preliminary opposites thought, Harmon dove into what that appears like. 

There are a few steps, stated Tiger Woods’ one-time coach: 

— Use a stronger grip.   

“So if you’re a slicer,” Harmon stated on the present, “normally you’ve got the clubface open too much, you’re a little over the top, your path is a little out to in, unless you’re hitting a big push from underneath. So I would really look at a person’s grip, I would strengthen their grip, get the top hand — which for me, being right-handed, left hand about two or three knuckles and the right hand under.”

— Use a extra closed setup. 

— “Let them exit around their body as much as they can,” Harmon stated on the present, “to try and get the clubface closed coming in.”

Harmon additionally stated he has two coaching units. The first is a membership that’s a couple toes lengthy — which might intensify to a participant the motion of the membership face. 

“I have a club that’s about … just as long as a grip, and I use that a lot in reference to show people what their grip does to control the club face,” he stated on the present hosted by Michael Breed, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher lifetime achievement recipient. “And when you get your hands this far on the club face, you can really see it. And I explain to them, you’re coming in too much this way. If we get this left hand over and right hand under, this toe is going to get in there more. And then if we get you coming a little more from the inside, you can get that club releasing.”

Harmon’s different transfer is to have a participant swing in sluggish movement. 

“And I film it,” Harmon stated on the present. “Because in sluggish movement, you may make your physique just about do no matter you need. And I’ll have them hit balls for perhaps 5 or 10 minutes, on a tee, with, say, a 6- or 7-iron, in sluggish movement, stronger grip, a little bit extra of a closed stance, really feel such as you’re hitting the within of the ball, not the surface of the ball, which is what you do while you include the over-the-top swing. 

“And two things happen: No. 1, they can feel the process, they can feel what they’re trying to do; but No. 2, they’re amazed at how far they hit it with what they think is a slow-motion swing.”

Editor’s observe: To hearken to A New Breed of Golf, please click here. [A SiriusXM subscription is needed.] 

Editor’s observe two: Recently, three-time main winner Padraig Harrington additionally vouched for attempting to hook with a view to repair a slice, and that story might be learn by clicking right here or scrolling beneath. 

***

Hook, Padraig Harrington says. 

And hook and hook and hook some extra. 

“The biggest hook you can, like 20, 30, 40 yards of a hook, the worst-looking shot,” he says. 

And that’s how amateurs can right a slice, he believes. 

And that’s how amateurs may also perceive clubface management. 

And that’s how amateurs may also study this: 

“There is no golf swing that stays the same,” Harrington stated. 

He was speaking throughout a not too long ago launched episode of “The Rough Cut Golf Podcast” — which you’ll listen to in full here — and the slice topic is a widespread one. Right-handed amateurs ship it proper usually (and lefties left). Amateurs additionally analysis the cure for it as if it had been a illness. Just Google “how to fix a slice” and get able to scroll and scroll. 

Harrington’s thought, although, is considerably easy. 

Go left when you’re a righty. Go proper when you’re a lefty. 

“So most amateurs, say if you’re hitting a slice, they think, well, I want to learn how to hit this beautiful, straight or say a 5-yard draw,” Harrington stated on the podcast. “Well, actually, if you’ve got a slice and you want to get rid of it, you’ve got to stay on the range and hit the biggest hook you can, like 20, 30, 40 yards of a hook, the worst-looking shot. And you’ve got to keep hitting that for a while.”

Over time, although, Harrington stated, the gamers will begin to hook the ball, which then requires vary work in the wrong way. On the vary, the golfer ought to purposely attempt to slice the ball. 

There are a pair of penalties. 

Harrington thinks the participant will study clubface management. Notably, at a totally different level within the episode, he famous that understanding that is a matter for “people who strike the ball badly.” 

“So for most amateurs,” Harrington stated on the podcast, “they’d be higher off going to the vary and hitting a huge hook and a huge slice and the whole opposites each second shot, and then at the very least they’ll perceive. And what shut face is and an open face. And as they get higher, they’ll scale back how a lot they’re doing it. Whereas most individuals are going from a huge slice to attempting to get sq. face. And sadly, most amateurs have no idea what a sq. face is. So they’ve some likelihood to know what a shut face and an open face is, however they’ve little or no likelihood to know what a sq. face is. 

“So you learn by doing the extremes.”

And ultimately the ball will go left. Or proper. 

But simply don’t anticipate issues to remain that manner, Harrington stated. 

Golf, proper?

“It’s [the swing] never going to stay the same,” Harrington stated on the podcast. “Don’t consider it ever will. It at all times — at all times in golf, you go from one to the opposite and you overdo it a little bit. OK, now cease that, return, and hopefully the higher you get, the much less that strikes, that it’s solely a slight fraction of motion, however it would by no means keep the identical for the remaining of your life. 

“There is no golf swing that stays the same.”

Nick Piastowski

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his position, he’s accountable for modifying, writing and growing tales throughout the golf area. And when he’s not writing about methods to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native might be taking part in the sport, hitting the ball left, proper and quick, and ingesting a chilly beer to scrub away his rating. You can attain out to him about any of these matters — his tales, his sport or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.




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