A tee trick to hit every fairway

One of the main causes of slicing is unduly opening the clubface as you swing the club to the top. It can be a hard problem to fix, but not with this neat little trick.

Stick a tee between your middle and ring fingers on your glove hand, as shown in the photo above. Address the ball as normal and start your backswing. Here’s the checkpoint: When the club gets parallel to the ground, make sure the tee points toward your trail leg. (Slicers will have the tee pointing more toward the ground.) As you reach the top, check that the tee points more toward the horizon. It’s a great visual to teach you how to control the clubface without getting too technical or fretting over mechanics.

Lee Trevino famously quipped that every golfer has two clubfaces: the actual clubface and your lead hand, which pretty much dictates the face’s position as you swing. By training your lead hand with this drill, you’re training the clubface — and hitting better shots.

John Scott Rattan is the director of instruction at Congressional CC in Bethesda, Md.