As with most golfers, controlling the curvature of the golf ball in flight tends to be the most common issue plaguing players’ consistency on a daily basis. While there are a ton of fundamental reasons why your swing is causing the ball to curve off-line, the simplest reason is this:

• When your ball curves too much, you have a face-to-path ratio that is too diverse.

This ratio determines your ball’s spin axis, or the amount the ball will curve in the air in general. Now, I know an off-center hit coupled with the club’s gear effect can also influence the ball’s curvature, but for the sake of this article we will just assume that you have hit the middle of the blade to make things easier to understand.

So let’s examine the sample shot I hit above showing a big right-to-left curve:

1. My target-line is the thin white line directly over the top of the golf balls I have placed at the end of the range.
2. My path is 16 degrees from the inside to the outside as shown by the blue line.
3. My face at impact is 3.6 degrees open. With a centered hit, whenever the face is left of the club’s path the ball will curve from right to left.
4. Thus the ratio between my face (3.6-degrees open) and my path (16 in-to-out) at impact shows a difference of -12.4.
5. This ball had a spin axis of -13.6, meaning it was curving left. This is shown by the purple curving line tracing the ball in flight.

KEY: Whenever you have a big difference between where you face is pointing and where your path is going, you will tend to have a big curve (as shown in the sample shot above.)  In order to hit the ball with less curve, you need a face-to-path ratio that is very low. This means that your path and your face are going in mostly the same direction give or take a degree or two, as shown below.

One final thought. You can alter the alignment of your body at address to make up for a face-and-path relationship that are in-line, but a touch too much to the right or too much to the left of your target. Please do not alter your aim while you do the drill I’m describing.

So how do we train our hands and body to produce straighter golf shots with less curve, and what drill can you do on the range to best learn how to control this ratio? Line up square to your target-line and then make full-swings in slow-motion trying to hit the ball as straight as possible. Some amount of curvature is inevitable for the majority of players, but the goal is to have the least amount of curve possible while you are hitting these shots.

As you make these swings please, remember to hit the same shot over and over. This means hit the ball the same distance and with the same curvature tendency each time. The better you can get at this drill, the easier it will be for you to understand and feel how to hit the ball straighter when you go back to hitting full speed shots!

Enjoy the process and have some fun. At worst, you are designing a “B” game for yourself if your “A” game is in the tank that day!

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