Watching your tee shot start a little right and then curve even further right is one of golf’s most common and miserable experiences. It feels powerless, it racks up penalty strokes, and it can single-handedly ruin a great round. But that weak, slicing shot isn’t a life sentence. The fixes are often much simpler than you think. This guide will walk you through the most common reasons your driver goes right and give you clear, actionable steps to finally straighten out that ball flight and hit powerful, confident drives.
Before we can fix the problem, we have to understand what’s actually happening. For a right-handed golfer, a ball that flies right is almost always caused by one of two things, and usually a combination of both:
An open club face is the primary cause of the ball starting right of your target. The outside-to-in swing path, often called coming “over the top,” is what imparts the ugly left-to-right sidespin that turns a push into a push-slice - the dreaded “banana ball.”
The good news is that these are not fundamental flaws in your ability. They are technical faults that stem from a few predictable areas: your grip, your setup, and the sequence of your swing. We are going to tackle each one, step-by-step, starting with the most important connection you have to the club.
Your grip has the single biggest influence on the club face. If your driver face is open at impact, there's a 90% chance it starts with how you’re holding the club. The most common error for slicers is a “weak” grip, where the hands are rotated too far to the left (counter-clockwise) on the handle.
This weak position makes it nearly impossible for you to naturally square the club face through impact. Your hands will want to return to their natural position, leaving the face wide open. Let’s fix it.
This new grip will feel strange. It might even feel like you’re setting up to hook the ball. That’s a good sign! It means you’ve made a genuine change. Stay with it. Hit some short, easy shots at the range to get comfortable with the feel. Your hands are now "pre-set" to release and square the club face correctly.
Many slicers, often without realizing it, aim their body left to compensate for their slice. They see the ball going right, so they align their feet, hips, and shoulders well left of the target, hoping to counteract it. In reality, this sets off a chain reaction that makes the slice even worse by programming an over-the-top swing path.
A correct setup puts your body in a position to swing from the inside, giving you a chance to hit a straight shot or a draw.
The "over the top" swing is the classic slicer's move. It happens at the very start of the downswing. Eager to hit the ball hard, the golfer’s first move is to use their right shoulder and arms to throw the club forward. This pushes the club path outside the target line, forcing you to slice across the ball to make contact.
The cure is to learn the feeling of starting the downswing with your lower body, allowing the club to "drop" into position behind you, creating an inside-to-out path.
What is the "release"? It's the natural and passive rotation of your forearms through the impact zone, which turns an open club face into a square one. Slicers almost never release the club, they tend to "hold on" through impact, blocking the face open as they guide it toward the target.
Once your grip is corrected and your path is coming from the inside, the release will often begin to happen automatically. But if you’re still blocking shots to the right, try this.
Take some easy, three-quarter swings with a mid-iron. Your only focus should be on feeling your trail forearm (right arm for a righty) rotate over your lead forearm (left arm) after the club makes contact with the ball. Feel the club head "pass" your hands. In a proper, full swing finish, the heel of the club should be pointing up towards the sky and the toe should be pointing down towards the ground. When slicers hold off the release, the face of the club is often pointing up towards the sky in the finish. Start slow and small and build speed only as you become more comfortable with this rotational feeling.
Consistently hitting your driver right comes down to a few core fundamentals: getting a solid grip that allows the face to square itself, setting up in a way that promotes an inside path, and sequencing your swing so your body leads the way. By working through these checkpoints - grip, alignment, path - you can start to replace that big, weak slice with a powerful straight flight or even a draw.
Identifying the root cause of your specific slice can be the trickiest part, and having an expert opinion in real-time is often what’s needed to groove the right changes. This is exactly where our app, Caddie AI, can change your game. You can use it to get instant feedback on your setup, ask very specific questions about sequencing your in-to-out swing, and get smart, clear advice to avoid disaster on the course. We provide that on-demand expertise which takes the guesswork out of your practice and play, letting you focus on confident, committed swings.
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