Seeing Adam again, he had completed a practice session hitting a bucket of balls as prescribed. He worked really hard on doing the basics such as posture, set-up, grip and turning the body.
In this lesson we really wanted to dive into the swing path. Adam tends to do like a lot of golfers which is swing slightly 'over the top'. When this occurs the divots get steeper as well the ball tends to slice to the right or if the clubface is square to the path, pull to the left.
What I have demonstrated in this lesson is to place the priority of the change on his first position. The first position is defined as when the club reaches parallel to the ground in the backswing. The reason why Adam comes 'over the top' is that he tends to swing around his body at the first position and as a result changes the downswing to an 'over the top' move to compensate. This is the exact move that most golfers do when having a slice.
If you have been for a lesson with me in the past, the most effective drill to cure a slice is place a stick inside a bucket (Bucket that has holes as squares in them, seen at a lot of driving ranges) near the top where the shaft lies at a near 45 degree angle directly behind the ball. The angle of the stick should be matching the angle of the shaft.
You can then see by the first picture below that Adam then tries to swing in front of the stick at the first position. He is trying to have the shaft in line with his hands, along his feet line to ensure his first position is in place. After the first position he will then turn his body to the top of the swing.
On the downswing what we are trying to do is exaggerate this feeling by swinging back underneath this stick on the downswing and swing through the ball from in-out (or 7-1). You can see that Adam is trying to accomplish this in the second picture. He is not quite there yet but will keep re-enforcing this throughout the upcoming lessons so this becomes embedded.
In the last picture you can see me really overdoing it by making sure the club is really under the stick to ensure a flatter golf swing. We really need to exaggerate this downswing move to ensure the old pattern eventually moves toward the new pattern.
I'm looking forward to the next lesson with Adam as he continues to overcome the slice.



Very well described coach! the swing path is something I knew nothing about, and by the end of that lesson I understood why I sometimes mess up my shots!