In a good swing, the left arm creates a pulling force while the right creates a pushing force through impact. This combination will deliver the clubface squarely and powerfully, the opposite of the slicer's characteristic open clubface and weak delivery.

You can produce the desired impact by maintaining the proper relationship of one hand to the other. To highlight this point, I'm wearing a white glove on my right hand and a black glove on my left hand in the accompanying photographs. Since the right hand is lower on the club, it starts farther from the body than the left hand and must maintain this relationship throughout the swing. In a sense, each hand travels in its own orbit, or circle.

If the hands ever swap circles, the motion is disrupted and the swing's speed and force are diminished. In addition, when the left hand moves outside the right, the clubface opens, producing a weak slice. Slicers let their hands "circle swap" at various points in their swing. In the takeaway, a slicer tends to roll the clubhead well behind his body, which puts the left hand outside the right and opens the clubface (photo A). This leads to a flat top-of-swing position (photo B) and a wide-open clubface coming into impact (photo C). From such a poor position, a slicer has only two options: Try to close the clubface with a weak slapping motion (photo D), or hold the clubface open through impact.

When the right and left hands maintain the proper relationships, as they clearly do in Annika Sorenstam's swing, no in-swing compensations are needed to square the clubface at impact. Keeping each hand in its own orbit will give your swing that "Tour Look" -- power without effort and solid contact without manipulation.

INCORRECT

Right hand too close to body

Right hand stays outside left hand

CORRECT

Right hand stays outside left hand

Right arm pushing, clubface squaring

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