Attention, choppers: Technology has banished the banana ball forever

You can blame a lot of things for that weak, wildly fluttering, despicably uncontrollable, girly-man slice of yours. What you can’t do is blame technology. Fact is, technology–properly implemented–can end your slice. Immediately.

That’s right, Banana Man. If you can’t find the fairway, the fault is yours. Sure, the root cause might be a swing flaw, but that kind of fix could take months or even years of diligent practice, video analysis and perhaps the repeated use of some torturous swing-training device that if used improperly might get you arrested in nine states. Who wants to do that? Save the hassle and just get yourself a new driver. Golf Digest has the data to show that slice-correction technology isn’t a marketing gimmick. It works.

“We can certainly say the slice is contained, and there’s certainly enough technology out there to kill it,” says Bob Thurman, director of investigate for Wilson Golf. “In terms of things like head size, face angle and draw bias, the average golfer has every opportunity to get that face to close at impact.”

Contemporary robot and player testing confirms as much. In investigate conducted for Golf Digest by Golf Laboratories Inc. of San Diego, a swing robot hit balls with six drivers, two with a neutral setup (TaylorMade r5 dual Type N, Adams Redline RPM Neutral), two with a draw setup (TaylorMade r5 dual Type D and Adams Redline RPM Draw) and two with adjustable weight screws (TaylorMade r7 quad and r7 quad TP). The robot’s launch setup was designed to mimic a slice at an average golfer’s swing speed of 95 miles per hour. Of the drivers tested, those built with a draw bias or a draw-enhancing weight configuration hit tee shots with an average of 13.4 yards less rightward movement than those with a neutral setup.

Neutral-driver tee shots missed the center line by an average of 22 yards to the right, and draw-bias drivers missed the center line by an average of 8.6 yards to the right. Given that fairways on typical courses tend to be 35 to 40 yards wide, that’s the difference between a lie in the cabbage and one in the small grass.

Golf Laboratories player testing revealed much the same effect. Each of the 10 players in the test hit the ball more left with a draw-bias driver versus drivers with a neutral setup. On average, draw-driver shots were 15.1 yards left of those hit with a neutral club. In addition, seven of the 10 testers hit the draw version farther than the neutral clubs because they were able to launch the ball higher or with less spin.

“In 15 years of doing this, I very rarely get impressed,” said Gene Parente, president of Golf Laboratories and a limb of the Golf Digest Technological Advisory Panel. “It was incredible to watch all the jaws tumbling. It was a very compelling example of what technology can do.”

First things first. Huge-headed drivers are fantastic even without ball-flight designs. Larger means a club potentially has a high moment of inertia (resistance to twisting), and therefore is more stable on hits away from the sweet spot. “Extra size means less curvature because of a higher moment of inertia,” says Callaway Golf’s Alan Hocknell, vice president of innovation and advanced design. “That lets you tighten up the envelope in your shot pattern.”

Player testing confirms robot
John Pennant-Jones of Oceanside, Calif., used to rush for pars until he participated in our driver test. His normal driver ball flight–”190 yards forward, 20 yards slicing”–changed drastically when we place a draw-bias model in his hands. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m hitting the ball straight and in play,” says the 15-handicapper, who says he went out and bought a driver after the test. Jones was one of 10 participants in player testing conducted by Golf Laboratories for Golf Digest. Each of the players, all of whom characterized their typical miss as to the right, hit seven drives with a neutral driver and seven with a draw version. The average miss with the neutral club was 26 yards right. The average miss with the draw version was only 11 yards right. –Caroline Stetler

But huge heads can also be perilous if you’ve already got the “rights.” The larger a clubhead gets, the more the center of gravity tends to go away from the shaft. The farther it is from the shaft, the more hard it is to square the face. That’s why most huge drivers already have some degree of draw bias built into them. MacGregor’s MacTec is built with 14 grams of tungsten weights in the heel, and Cleveland’s Launcher Comp 460 features a graphite crown that allows weight to be redistributed in the heel. But a chronic slicer should look at drivers that take ball-flight correction a step further. Specifically, focus on these characteristics:

1. Closed face angle. “The largest factor by far in helping the golfer who slices is to close the face angle,” says designer Ralph Maltby, president and initiator of The GolfWorks, a golf club component company in Newark, Ohio. The distress is, most golfers are a small uncomfortable with the way a hooked face looks at take up. Worse, a hooked face can alter some swings, potentially defeating the purpose. “What happens a lot of times is that players set them up open so they don’t look so closed,” says Thurman of Wilson Golf. Subdue, it is undeniable that it should work. Tom Wishon, president of Tom Wishon Golf Technology, a golf club component firm in Durango, Colo., says his investigate shows a six- to seven-yard correction for each degree a driver’s face is closed.

2. Extra heel bias. Most drivers have some degree of heel bias, but there are some head-shape modifications that further weight the heel (look for a head shape that flattens and extends toward the heel side). Heel-weighting through offset or other means is excellent because the club’s center of gravity lines up with the shaft at impact. That action means the face closes coming into the ball. Also, pushing mass toward the heel with weight chips or adjustable screws will boost the toe area and induce draw spin on the ball because of the gear effect–the tendency of the ball to hook when hit toward the club’s toe.

3. Offset. Offset is when the face is set back from the shaft. ”When you offset it, it really backweights the head,” says Clay Long, who crafted Nicklaus Golf’s AirMax ML 440. “It moves the center of gravity farther behind the shaft, and the centrifugal force of the head at impact bends the shaft forward and closes the face.”

4. Flexible shaft. In most cases, a shaft that’s too stiff will produce shots to the right (for right-handers) because the face never gets back to square. A softer shaft is an underrated, simple slice fix. Says Maltby: “I would place the right shaft ahead of weight-biasing. If a slicer had a tip-flexible shaft, which causes the face to close more coming into impact, he would be much farther along with this kind of change.” He says a shorter shaft can boost sweet-spot hits for golfers who struggle with their swings.

Don’t overlook the ball, either. Many balls, even those that spin nearly the greens, are designed to spin less off the driver. Less spin means less curve. (Caution: Less spin makes it hard for low-speed/low-launch swingers to maximize space.)

Anti-slice technology
In addition to drivers with adjustable weights, such as TaylorMade’s r7 quad and r5 dual TP and Adams Golf’s Redline RPM 430Q and 460D, there are drivers with fixed configurations designed specifically for slice relief. Callaway’s Huge Bertha Fusion FT-3 and Ben Hogan’s Huge Ben C-S3 use weight options to produce draw-specific versions. Other slice-busting technology includes the heel-bias and closed-face designs and the classic offset unfilled in drivers like those by Cobra (400 SZ), Nicklaus (AirMax ML 440) and Adams (Ovation).

With all these suggestions there is the dread that too much medicine can kill the patient. If a driver is designed to go left and the slice-swinger starts swinging better, he could find his shots small left of out-of-bounds. Perhaps. In the player testing, one golfer whose neutral-driver shots were missing the center line by only six yards found that when he switched to a slice-correction club, his tee shots flew 15 yards left of center, though that subdue would have kept him in most fairways.

“You will never see a golfer with a legitimate slice who changes to a driver with a more closed face angle commence to hook the ball. Never,” says Wishon, who has fit thousands of golfers during the last 32 years.

So if you want to snuff the life out of an unrelenting slice, taking advantage of the options of modern technology is not a suggestion. It’s a mandate.

Embarrassed? Tell your ego to shove it. Demo a closed-face, offset or draw-bias driver, and come talk to us. If you’re apprehensive about aesthetics, install some window boxes. We assure you that after hitting more fairways in a week than you used to hit in a month, how a club looks will concern you about as much as whether the guys are paying you in new 20s or ancient ones.

Of course, like Long says, “The slice is an hideous shot that takes an hideous cure. And every now and then you’ve got to use a small castor oil.”

Why I’ve stopped seeing the slice
by Shelby Futch, Golf Digest Schools

Until about three years ago, fixing the slice was the No. 1 request we heard from golfers coming through our golf schools. Though, because of advances in equipment, the slice has now all but disappeared from the game, replaced by the push, a shot that starts right but doesn’t curve.

Strangely, the changes in driver design that have killed the slice were aimed at something else: more space. First, shafts are two to three inches longer than they were a few years ago. This puts the golfer farther from the ball, setting up more of a baseball-type swing, as opposed to the traditional steep chop of the slicer. Following, clubfaces are taller and require extra-long tees (left), which also promotes a flatter swing (reflect of a kid playing T-ball). Third, some manufacturers that have lengthened the shaft have not changed the club’s lie angle, so the toe sticks up off the ground, pointing the face smooth left at take up. Fourth, today’s graphite shafts have a low kick-point, which increases loft and closes the face at impact. Place these changes together and down goes the game’s most nagging fault.

So where does the push come in? The more rotational swing described above approaches impact from inside the target line, so golfers tend to make contact when the club is subdue swinging in to out. This sends the ball to the right. But the lie angle and low kick-point help golfers square the face to the swing path, so shots start right, but with no slice spin.

To fix this fault, remember that the club moves on an arc and should swing to the inside immediately after impact. If you try to force your driver straight down the line, as so many golfers do, you change the swing’s natural shape. Instead, focus on turning your hips and body left on the downswing, making room for the club to swing to the left. You’ll straighten out your path and turn those pushes into bombs down the middle.
with Peter Morrice

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