Instruction
Turn a Slice Into a Draw By “Reversing The Loop”
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. As a golfer, you must change something in your golf swing to change your ball flight. Grip, stance, alignment, and posture are extremely important in the setup, but I consider them variables, not fundamentals. You see phenomenal golfers with all type of setups, grips, alignments, and postures.
Can you change your ball flight and make impact conditions different with grip, stance, alignment, and posture changes? Absolutely, but in my experience one of the worst things you can do is change a golfer’s grip without determining what the outcome needs to be. I have seen golfers with strong grips slice the ball and golfers with weak grips hook the ball, so as a golf instructor I have to be very careful.
My goal for the majority of my students is “getting the car out of the ditch,” so to speak. I want to get them back on the road to competent golf as quickly as possible. Watching ball flight and listening to impact is the best way to help a golfer improve, and my diagnosis of a golfer always starts with the ball flight. Then I go to the club face, then to the shaft, and then what the body is doing in the motion to create the golf shot.
Golfers do not need to change their entire golf swings to improve their ball flight, but if the goal is to change ball flight — hit the ball higher, farther, and make the bottom of the swing more consistent — we need to find a way to improve impact, face angle, and angle of attack.
The first few feet in the takeaway is crucial to have a repeating swing, and the majority of golfers I give lessons to or watch on the range have a distinct movement in their takeaway that directly affects their downswing. In an effort to create power, the golfer whips the club too far inside and usually opens the face way too early in the backswing. Compensations abound from creating this type of position with the club face and shaft. The handle of the club will move up and out, making the front arm become disconnected from the body, and golfers experience an automatic loss of power.
Doing this, the club head will also move too far behind the body in the backswing. At the halfway-back point in the backswing, golfers are doomed to an over-the-top, out-to-in downswing, which causes the ball to curve to the right (slice) for a right-handed golfer. The club face is now way too open, and the golfer has created a steeper angle of attack. It’s no wonder most golfers have never hit a real draw in their life.
In the video at the top of the story, you will see the shaft is above the shoulder in the start of the downswing. It creates an in-and-over motion with the club head and shaft that leads to a slice. Now, there have been some very successful golfers with this type of motion: Bruce Lietzke, Hale Irwin, Raymond Floyd, and Colin Montgomerie to name a few, but these are professional golfers who have perfected their technique. They are swinging on a path with a club face that works for a ball flight they want to see, and they also have awesome wrist, hand and body action.
The following motion will have golfers picking the club up with their arms and not completing their pivots. They are lifting their arms up and not tilting properly, which may cause them to lose balance.
These golfers will most likely have an open club face at the top of the swing, too. Having an open club face at the top of the swing leads to many swing faults, including hitting behind the ball, too much weight on the trail foot at impact, and casting the club, which adds way to much loft to the club face. The golfers will generally have a major, backward shaft lean at impact with the handle leaning back to their trail leg.
On the downswing, the golf club will start moving across the ball like a butter knife. The club face will be slicing across the ball, resulting in pulls, slices, and weaker shots. Loss of distance and accuracy will be a huge factor with this type of motion. The arms will be pulling apart, usually having the chicken-wing look after the ball. Topping can also occur with this type of motion because the head of the club is swinging too much up and in toward the body. The trail arm will also have space in between the trail elbow and the body during the downswing.
Reversing The Loop
How can we fix this type of motion? Very simple! Reverse the loop! What I mean is that golfers can reverse engineer their entire motion to create a very effective swing with the desired ball flight. For your backswing, take the club up the path of the faulty downswing, and then bring the club back into the ball on your original backswing path. This is called “reversing the loop.”
Your golf swing will feel as if you are swinging way up and outside, but this is what you need to feel and create to change your ball flight. You can even feel an early hinge in your backswing, making your takeaway and backswing steeper and having the shaft shallow on the downswing. You will start to create a swing path that travels out on the downswing, not in to your body, which jams you up.
The shaft will now be working properly and not coming down over your neck in a steep fashion. You can keep swinging back up and around on your follow through, because the golf club will be swinging around in a circular motion. This is an excellent way to change your impact conditions and path.
Now your club face will be looking slightly right of your target with a path that is farther to the right, creating a perfect drawing opportunity. Make sure you do this slowly at first before you build speed.
I always recommend 10-15 minutes per day of slow motion swings that are 10 percent speed of your normal golf swing. Begin practicing with a ball on a small tee and gradually move the tee down until you’re ready to start hitting shots off of the turf. You will have completely changed your impact, the bottom of your swing, your contact and ball flight.
Reversing the loop is a change you can do!
There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” on RG.org each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more Tips!
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Harry
Sep 8, 2017 at 9:32 am
Hi. Seems like I tend to tilt my shoulders rather than turning them when practicing this drill. I then return slightly from outside the target line. I am having a hard time “feeling” the move from the backswing to the finished shoulder turn position. With this being said, this is one of the best drills to help me shallow out. Any comments would be appreciated.
Jo
Aug 25, 2017 at 3:40 pm
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.” You mean just like all these one hit wonder “fixes” for your swing. Yup. Doing these quick fixes over and over expecting a different result is in fact insane….
Ted
Jul 30, 2017 at 9:37 am
I don’t think this drill is only for slicers. I am a drawer of the ball, but I tend to get v steep in transition which ends up in pull hook stuck flip vortex. I always struggled with the steep to shallow concept and doing a drill similar to this move was the only thing that ever got me to produce that steep to shallow move on video.
Problem is taking this loop swing to the course was near impossible and I struggled with finding a back and thru type thought to replicate this continuous loop drill when playing golf. But when I go back to just a back and thru thought, I always end up back to steep.
Jess Frank
Jul 30, 2017 at 7:17 pm
Hey Ted! Thanks for your comments and reading my article! I have also struggled from steepening and then shallowing with too much lateral movement. You have to spend a lot of time to get rid of a movement that you are speaking about and then taking it to the course is even more of a journey. However, one of the best swing thoughts is pushing the club out away from your body. If you push your hands away from your body this will keep width in your swing and will shallow with out steepening. Thanks again!
Jess Frank
Jul 28, 2017 at 8:45 pm
The changes usually will occur pretty quickly because of my hands on approach to teaching. I will move a student through the motions over and over again. And I will use obstacles to make sure the shaft and club head move in the direction I know will help a student. Nothing is guaranteed but I have had a lot of success with golfers looking to improve. I see students regress too. Changing movement patterns is difficult for a lot of people so if I can improve contact and ball flight in a non-invasive manner that is my goal:)
Jess Frank
Jul 28, 2017 at 8:39 pm
Hey ooffa! You are correct each student is different:) Thanks for your comments!
beachsideandy
Jul 28, 2017 at 1:34 pm
It’s a drill people! I have worked for while keeping the clubhead outside the hands after years of yanking it real quick… It always helps me to exaggerate the motion a few times on the range to get the feeling… When I play an actual round I don’t hit the ball doing any kind of “feel” drills but I may take a few practice swings to make sure I know what I am trying to do when I get up to the ball… This type of people would greatly benefit major slicers (like my Dad) because the path and motion are just so over the top.
Jess Frank
Jul 28, 2017 at 8:31 pm
Thanks for the comments beachsideandy! I agree, once you are on the course you have to believe in what you have practiced and the positive results you have seen. You can absolutely rehearse this type of motion in your practice swings and during the round.
Lloyd
Jul 28, 2017 at 12:55 pm
You are worthless. Your only here to personally attack Obs. You are a troll. sooo obvious
Harley
Jul 28, 2017 at 12:07 pm
Jess frank is an awesome teacher. my personal experience.
Jess Frank
Jul 28, 2017 at 8:37 pm
Harley! You are the man! Come see me soon and thanks for reading and commenting!
Simms
Jul 29, 2017 at 1:43 am
I know back around 1996 or so I watch John Daly hitting pitch shots pulling the back swing in but it seems he just came back around to the ball and hit it straight without going over the top…I did notice years later he was not doing it that way….I think that was back when they talked about how good his hands and short game were (Were is the message here).
Jess Frank
Jul 30, 2017 at 9:07 am
Hey Simms! John Daly is one of the most talented golfer to play the game. His short game and putting was simply the most under rated of all time. Watch him on the Champions Tour!
Gorden
Jul 28, 2017 at 1:21 am
Pulling club inside and looping back straight into the back of the ball also works there have been a few Pros make good money doing it that way, I believe the term is called getting the club back into the slot….knowing what the club face is doing is the key.
Jess Frank
Jul 28, 2017 at 8:52 pm
You are correct Gorden! Especially, what the club face is doing. Ball flight and club face:)
surewin73
Jul 27, 2017 at 12:48 pm
Invest in a better camera.
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:37 pm
Thank you for your comment surewin73. I will make needed adjustments for the next time.
M S m i z z l e
Jul 27, 2017 at 11:43 am
Turn a slice into a push slice by “reversing the loop”
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:38 pm
Hey MSMizzle thank you for you comments. You are correct you also have to fix club face but what I find is that slicers already have a club face pointing left at impact a large majority of the time. So if you fix the path this usually will help a slicer.
MSMI ZZLE
Jul 29, 2017 at 6:14 pm
“just hit the inside of the ball”
larrybud
Jul 27, 2017 at 9:14 am
Why not just teach the proper path, rather than another bad loop that the player will have to fix again later?
timbleking
Jul 27, 2017 at 9:39 am
Perfect comment.
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:43 pm
Thank you for you comment timbleking. But when you are in the trenches and need to get a result sometimes exaggeration is necessary.
Timbleking
Jul 28, 2017 at 4:04 pm
Hi Jess.
Why not teaching a simple drill such as: one ball ahead of the ball you hit inside the target line, one grip length; one ball back in the stance outside the target line, one grip length from the ball you hit. Of course, the ball you hit is in the target line. From there you have to swing in to out, otherwise you hit the wring balls as well. Now…loop or not loop, my drill against yours, if the rythm of your swing is not good then you will mess it anyway. How do you fix that rythem issue from there?
ooffaa
Jul 31, 2017 at 9:48 pm
ooffaa strikes again … wotta loser am I
Bryan
Jul 27, 2017 at 9:43 am
Since we are so used to our “bad” swing sometimes it is helpful to do something drastically different, to shake up the way the body feels during a swing to get a different result. If you stick too closely to your “bad” swing you probably won’t get too far away from it, while if you can start to feel what a wild hook swing feels like versus your own slice swing you can work back to the middle where you’ll hit is straighter. I had read that before and thought it was crazy, but it worked for me.
I still play a little bit of a fade with most clubs, but rarely hit the high banana ball off into the woods anymore. And when I do, I can usually feel it and understand what I did, where if I had not forced myself to swing the other way I’m not sure I would notice as much.
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:51 pm
Thank you for your comments Bryan! You have hit the nail right on the head! I have been teaching for nearly 20 years and have had a lot of success with students getting better quickly with this type of motion.
lopey986
Jul 27, 2017 at 10:44 am
You could read the article to understand why.
“My goal for the majority of my students is “getting the car out of the ditch,” so to speak. I want to get them back on the road to competent golf as quickly as possible.”
This is a quick way to do so and then you can work from there on getting the path straightened out to a more normal approach.
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:53 pm
Yes sir Lopey986! You have to improve impact to get the ball flight better and different. That’s the key to golf instruction. Make a student have a better ball flight and more solid contact and your book is full:)
Jess Frank
Jul 27, 2017 at 6:42 pm
Hey Larrybud! Thank you for your comments. I totally agree with you but sometimes you have to a mile to get an inch. Most golfers who don’t practice need to feel an exaggeration or else they just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.