DRIVING SLICE AND HOOK ISSUES ARE OFTEN EXACERBATED BY THE DESIRE FOR IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENT. HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES. i
If your driver shots are curving uncon- trollably or you’re making poor contact with your irons, do you try to put a band-aid on it mid-round and hope the problem goes away, or do you get to the practice tee sometime after the round and address the root of the problem? If you’re like most golfers, I know your answer. It’s understandable to want a quick fix to your ball-striking issues to simply enjoy the day, but the compensations you choose often make things worse in the long run. Rather than survive another round with some makeshift adjustments, you’ll be much better off stripping those manipulations from your swing and instead making some quality changes that take care of your issues over a whole year, not just the back nine. In this article, I’m going to identify the four most common problems I help golfers correct – slices and hooks with a driver off the tee and chunks and thins with irons off the turf – and explain why the quick-fix approach is hurting more than helping and what to do instead. If you get to the range and work on my keys and drills to improve your path, body rotation and contact, you’ll be making quality improvements to your game. LARKIN, Golf Digest’s No 1 female teacher, is at the Club at Creighton Farms in Virginia. She became a Golf Digest Teaching Professional in 2021.
SET UP SO YOU SWEEP IT Slicers usually swing down too steeply on an out-to-in path, so they tee the ball low. That’s a classic band-aid fix just so they can make decent contact – but they still slice. To make good contact and correct the slice, what they should do is tee it higher – half the ball above the driver. This encourages an in-to-out swing path and allows you to hit up on the ball – two key ingredients to driving it straighter, or even drawing it. Also, to help ensure you catch the ball just as the driver begins to ascend, address it so it’s aligned with your lead heel ( right ). SLICE FIX
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88 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JULY/AUGUST 2025
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