All about slices

If you hit the ball left to right with a banana slice, your instincts tell you to make adjustments that, logic tells you, will send the ball in the proper direction. The trouble is that in golf, such adjustments almost always make the problem worse. Most weekend players attempt two things to correct their slice. First, they alter their address position. Second, they try to swing or steer the ball away from the direction that they commonly hit.

A slicer trying to avoid hitting to the right starts by aligning his feet to the left of the line and parallel to the target. Next, he adjusts his right grip more to the left or on top of the club. This is done in the belief that it will keep the club from opening up, which is actually what causes the slice.

Unfortunately what the golfer doesn't understand is when you turn your hands to the left, or counterclockwise, it pushes the right shoulder out, aligning your shoulders open and even further to the left.
The alignment of the feet, hips and shoulders to the left of the intended target line causes the club to be taken back well outside the correct plane. The club swings outside the target line, rather than inside and away from it. Because your instinct is to swing your arms to the left, where you want the ball to go, you bring the club back to the ball on the same path, and it cuts across the ball and slices it. Furthermore, the position of the right hand, which you thought would keep the clubface square, actually opens it. The result is a slice spin on the ball that gets progressively worse the more you compensate.

There are three shapes to your slice the pull slice, the push slice and the straight slice. These names are taken from the initial path of the ball, the direction it flies before making a sharp right turn.

THE PULL SLICE
The pull slice starts to the left of the target line then curves sharply to the right. The initial direction of the shot is determined by a downswing path that approaches the ball from the outside to the inside of the target line. This cutting-across action, combined with an open clubface at impact, magnifies the severity of the left-to-right curve, the most common slice among recreational golfers.

THE PUSH SLICE
The push slice begins right of the target line and continues curving farther right. The initial direction of this shot follows from a downswing path that approaches the ball from inside to outside the target line. The left-to-right curve is caused by an open clubface at impact. Of the three slices, this is the most damaging since the ball usually finishes farthest from the intended target.

THE STRAIGHT SLICE
The straight slice starts straight down the target line, then curves to the right. The initial flight of this shot is the result of a proper, straight path of the clubhead on the downswing, but the open face at impact imparts the spin that causes the slice. This is the easiest of the three slices to fix, because only the clubface angle needs correcting to get the ball straight to its intended target. No matter how the club returns to the ball, if the face angle of the club is open to the target line at impact, it will put clockwise spin on the ball and will cause it to curve.