"Golf Slice Cured!" All the news channels, every headline in the papers, "Dr.Marcus Welbey MD..." ok... maybe not that kind of cure, it would be good though, wouldn't it? Take a pill, get a jab, three month course of antibiotics or whatever. Maybe it's not too far-fetched after all, the problem starts with new golfers.

I presume your reading this because you have the slice problem, and if you have, don't feel alone, aparently around 80% of golfers suffer the dreaded slice and all of us have tried everything imaginable to have our golf slice, cured. There is no shortage of advice on how to get rid of it, which brings us to the reason for this article, you have tried all the other golf slice cures and failed, or you wouldn't still have the problem, so why not try a different solution?

It turns out that it's not your golf clubs that cause your slice, nor is it your golf shoes, or any of your golf equipment, it's not even your stance, or your grip, or your swing, or the golf course, it's... the golfer. That's right, it's you that's doing the dirty on yourself. You see, it's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Once you get a problem shot in the game of golf you tend to focus on it, worry about it, even fear it. I'll bet you have even tried to compensate for the slice by aiming far left and still get the same result, ie. the ball in the trees on the right.

Truth is, we are better than that.It doesn't make any difference if we adopt an open stance or a closed stance, or if our grip is wrong, even our swing can be far from optimal, but we are still capable of hitting a straight shot in the right direction.

The reason for our slice problem is , that is the place we have made our brains concentrate on puting the ball. Our subconscious is a bit like our pet dog, it tries really hard to please us, and just like our wee dog, it can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy, what's real and what's imagined, fact and fiction, it makes no difference to it because it has no concept of these things, it just takes what we focus on the most and tries it's best to deliver that.

There are really two mistakes here that we have to correct. One is overhitting the ball, we lose all control when we do that. Two, is overcoming the misinformation that we have been sending to our subconscious.

Try the following just to convince yourself of this:

Take out a medium, say a 7 iron, and pick out a spot comfortably within your normal distance for this club. Using your normal setup, hit a ball (a nice easy shot) towards this target. Now, open your stance.. no, more than that, really exaggerate the openness of your stance, now take the same shot at the same target. Then do the same with a closed stance. I'll bet that you'll find there is not much difference between the spots the three balls landed, they certainly wont be wildly different.

Our subconscious compensates for us all the time, we can see that easily in our ability to balance, and it does the same in our golf swing. When we think about our golf slice, or worry about it, we are reinforcing this idea and flight path in our subconscious and this is the exact opposite of what we want to achieve. I wrote an article recently about giving up cigarettes and how positive affirmations can help us to quit (you can view it here), The same positive affirmations can help us to overcome our fear of the slice, if we can concentrate on producing a good shot instead of worrying about having a bad one then the results will improve.

So, next time you are on the tee, try doing the opposite to what you've been doing so far. Place the teepeg as far to the right on the tee as you can (when facing the green), then take your normal stance and aim your shot to land just inside the right hand side of the fairway and don't worry about the slice at all, don't even let it enter your head, instead, picture your shot, imagine a slight draw that will pull your shot back onto the centre of the fairway, and just before you take your swing say "Every time I take a shot, it gets straighter and more accurate." and mean it when you say it, really believe it. Even if you do produce a slice, don't dwell on it, shrug it off and get on with the next shot. I'll bet, if it didn't at least go straight that the slice was nowhere as bad as it usually is and if you stick with it, over time it will gradually fade away (sorry... bad pun).

Save your time and money, this link is a more conventional way to get your golf slice cured! Get rid of the worry and embarressment of your golf slice for ever.