Never Slice Again – Justin Kraft Presentation 2024 Minnesota Golf Show

Justin Kraft, PGA gives a presentation about how to never slice again at the 2024 Minnesota Golf Show in Minneapolis, MN.

Justin highlights ways to go about closing the clubface – through grip adjustments, wrist angle changes, and forearm rotation movements.

If you enjoyed this, please subscribe! Justin offers online lessons on the Skillest App for those looking to improve their golf game.

So we might just get started forgive me if I squeal here there we go all right so uh my name’s Justin and we’re going to talk about slicing how many of you slice the golf ball and don’t lie cuz I teach golf for

A living and I know a lot of you do so uh the last thing I need to do is hear my voice for 30 minutes so I hope we can make this interactive uh I’ll try to Breeze through things because I really don’t want to stand here and make you

Guys look at slides uh but I want to answer your questions and and kind of help you as much as I can in the 30 minutes I’m given so uh my promise to you is when you leave this presentation is you will know why you slice and you

Will hopefully have a bunch of ways to like fix it and I’m not going to guarantee you’re going to hit it perfect but you are not going to slice it so uh a little bit about me cuz you’re probably wondering who the heck is this

Kid uh talking to me right now I’m the owner of the crafty golf Instagram page so if you don’t follow me I’d love to I’d love to have you follow me uh I’ve got 126,000 followers I try to post daily uh golf content that would help

You just every day in your in your golf golfing life uh I was recently named to Golf Digest best teachers in the State uh very humbled and honored to have that as a player I played at Northwestern College in Orange City Iowa uh I had a decent career nobody really cares how

How I played uh but I had a decent career I’ve uh worked at Golf Tech before I won some awards there last year I won the youth development award for the Minnesota PGA so I’ve got some accolades that really don’t matter but I did want you to know that I’m not just a

Rando guy standing up here talking to you can everyone hear me okay okay uh show of hands does anyone know what creates a slice there’s not a bad answer here I’m not going to point fingers at you but does anyone know like why do you slice the ball swing too hard any

Others open Club face wow that’s very good uh so there’s a lot of misconceptions around what creates a slice so swinging too hard some people think if you bend your left arm you’re going to slice the golf ball some people think if you don’t keep your head down

You’re going to slice the golf ball uh Tempo kind of falls under swinging too hard right or if you don’t start your swing with your hips maybe you’ll you’ll you’ll slice the golf ball right I’m here to tell you that it’s not voodoo and none of those things matter you can

Swing as hard as you want Dustin Johnson swings very fast he doesn’t slice the golf ball so I’m here to tell you there’s hope for you uh and all these cliches that we hear they’re not necessarily accurate so don’t don’t think if someone says hey you didn’t

Keep your head down the ball doesn’t give two craps if you kept your head down right it cares about the open Club face which is which is a perfect answer by you so this is a picture of Victor uh his head is sort of down uh he probably

Started with his hips but his left arm is bent Victor doesn’t slice it very often I think he hits like 60 to 70% of his Fairways so one of the best ball Strikers in the world so the open Club face that’s an interesting way to think about it right

So what is an open Club face well I have got a tool up here and a picture up there that’s going to show us where the club face is pointed and any anytime the club face is pointed to the right of your swing path the ball’s going to

Slice okay so does anyone know what a swing path is so this would be like if this line right here was where I was trying to swing this would be a pretty straight swing path this would be an inside out swing path and this would be

An overthe toop or an outside in swing path it does not matter where your swing path is if the club face is open relative to it it’s going to slice okay so alls we’re really trying to fix is where this arrow is pointed and this is

A photo here showing a swing path that is a little bit outside in so you can see the green line moving a little bit to the left of the white dotted line that’s the target line but then the face angle is pointed to the right of that

Swing path and so the face is open relative to the swing path the ball’s going to slice does that look like a very big angle there the difference there it’s pretty close right well I’ve got bad news for us if you you hit your driver 250 Y and your

Club face is just 5° open you’re going to slice the ball 50 yard to the right and that’s eye opening for a lot of people so give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve ever hit a fairway because that’s amazing okay and I’ve got worst news for us so uh can everyone

Agree a circle is 360° all the way around right and on a clock we’ve got 60 seconds so 360 ID 60 means every second is 6° so picture your 50 slice unfortunately every degree is just 1 second on a clock again give it up for yourself if you’ve hit a fairway before

That’s very impressive any questions so far does bending my left arm make the ball slice no thank you thank you okay we’ll keep going if there are questions raise your hand a quick a quick slide on gear effect so I know we don’t all hit the

Club or hit the ball in the middle of the club uh we need to recognize if we hit the ball in in the heel the ball will slice more or hook less and if we hit the ball on the toe because of gear effect and physics and fun stuff that

Doesn’t matter the ball will draw more or slice less so if you’re a slicer should you be aiming to hit the heel or the toe toe wrong you should hit the middle I’m just kidding uh the toe would be way better than the way better than

The heel uh so if you don’t hit the center hit the toe question no okay so now that I’ve made you feel awesome about your golf game right uh let’s go ahead and talk about how to reduce that problem uh of you slicing this is going to be interesting but I’m

Going to do my best here everyone has heard oh your grip is weak your grip is neutral your grip is strong right anyone know what that actually means it’s not referring to how tight I’m holding this thing right yeah it’s exactly it’s how much your hands are turned exactly so how many Knuckles

Can I see right so I think that this term is terrible I think it should be called an open face grip a neutral face grip and a closed face grip and here’s what I mean by that if I took my hand and I did that uh that picture on the

Left there where he’s kind of got the v’s of the of the right thumb pointed straight up and his glove logo is kind of facing the target that’s more of an open face grip okay so I’m going to show you what I mean by that I’m going to try

To emulate that far left picture here and now I’m just going to hold the club up to you guys and I’m going to do my best to close it as much as I can and you can see I can get about that far maybe 20° okay now I’m going to go to

The extreme end of the spectrum over on the far right side which is a strong grip I’m going to rotate my glove hand that I don’t have on and I’m going to rotate it as far as I can to the right and I’m going to take my right hand my

Trail hand I’m going to point it at you guys okay and I’m going to get that it’s almost like I’m doing a bicep curl or giving blood with my right arm and now if I hold that up and I apply the grip that way so again this is the stronger

Grip or the more closed face grip this is going to help me close the club face a heck of a lot more so I’ve got a ton of Leverage there to close the face so if you slice the ball should you have a weaker grip or a stronger grip you

Should try a stronger grip why would we worry about all this stuff during the swing if we could just fix it at setup right so I’m a big fan of trying to get the easiest uh identify the easiest way to help you so again stronger grip more closed face

Grip weaker grip more open face grip if you hook the ball we I could just fine with you living over here right cuz that’s going to uh close the face less right any questions on that I got a couple like uh I’m not sure what all that meant basically the more we turn

Our hands to the trail side the easier it is to close the face does not guarantee anything but it does help okay okay we’re going to use some big words here I don’t want you to get bored uh just try to follow me as best you can

Unfortunately grip is not the only thing that influences the club face so as I go up to the top of my swing I can have a wrist that goes this way like you’re revving a motorcycle that’s G to open the club face you can see how it points

Down or out towards me and then I can do it the other way I can opposite rev the motorcycle that is going to really close the club face and this is what amateurs struggle with the most when they get to the top or they do their back swing they

Really roll the club face open and when they get to the top it’s really Cup this is called extended extension in your lead wrist so this is an example of a flexed lead wrist meaning that would close the club face so you can see the club face orientation there how it’s

Pointed up at the sky that’s a great place to be if you struggle with a slice okay this is an example of a flat wrist or or a neutral Club face and then an extended lead wrist opens the club face so again if you’re a slicer I would not

Want you pulling that wrist this Direction that’s going to open the club face even more and make your job even harder I want to make it easier right uh if does everyone know who Dustin Johnson is uh really good Tour player right right he’s been known to have some funky

Wrist looks at the top of his swing he has a really flexed wrist and the club face is really closed so he’s a good example to copy if you’re trying to figure out hey how should my wrist look during my swing if I slice the ball I

Want it more this way and not like this so Zach Johnson some of us might know Zach Johnson he won a masters a while back he doesn’t hit it that far but he’s very straight he plays with an extended lead wrist the you might be saying oh

How doesn’t he slice it well he sets up with a very strong grip so he’s got the strong grip and the lead wrist uh extended so he actually ends up hitting it pretty straight so the golf swing is really all about matching some of these things up but again if you slice we

Should be trying to be this guy and not this guy okay and don’t worry we’ll I’ll give you some drills and some like practical application I know that this makes no sense okay the final element you can do to kind of reduce your slice is learn how to roll your forearms so everyone’s

Everyone probably drove here and you had two hands on the steering wheel I hope if you turn your hands to the right that’s going to open the club face if you turn your hands to the left that’s going to close the club face I’ll give you a demo if

You dang it if you turn the steering wheel to the right the club face opens if you turn it to the left the club face closes so as you come into the golf ball if you’re not turning the steering wheel the club face is going to stay really

Open okay but if you are turning the steering wheel you can get the club face to close pretty efficiently okay a lot of players that slice they come through and they leave the steering wheel turn to the right so we need to learn how to

Turn it to the left and I’ll help you with that uh there’s fancy words up there like forearm rotation that’s technically what we’re doing uh you’re pronating ar your arm and suating your arm those those words don’t matter but what does matter is you turning the steering wheel

More to the left and I would say if you’re still slicing it when you feel like you’re turning it to the left you need to take a hard left and you need to do it sooner okay any questions any questions on that are we kind of making sense so far

Okay so if you came to this uh presentation or this stage to watch this kid talk to you about slicing and you wanted to start implementing some of this stuff I would have you start with your grip okay if you have one of those open-faced grips typically the club is

Going to sit more in your palm okay that’s the picture shown right here I’m going to ask you to get the club more in your fingers because if you do that it’s going to be much easier to get that closed face grip so again we’re trying

To get the club more in the fingers also if it’s in your fingers you can really control what you’re doing with it if I asked you to close it you could probably close it but when it’s in your palm it’s hard to move it around you just don’t

Have a ton of strength and a ton of range of motion there so again get it in the fingers and then this is an example of me demonstrating a stronger grip so my glove logo is facing the camera or facing you guys that helps me get all

That leverage to close the face right and then my trail hand is giving blood or doing that bicep curl and I stuck my hand on it from there okay make sense so far palms or fingers fingers fingers exactly way better if you slice it right and then here’s some checkpoints

Uh if you’re ever able to video your swing it’s my probably my favorite thing to do to teach people is to show them a video of their swing a lot of people think the camera adds 10 lbs well it doesn’t open your Club face okay so if

It’s open on camera it’s just open and we got to fix it okay so a couple checkpoints when you do your back swing I mentioned that a lot of bad golf or a lot of slicers they open the club face excessively on the way back why wouldn’t

We practice doing the opposite of that let’s practice closing it or at least keeping it closed on the way back so as you take the club Back and You’re videoing yourself try to get that club face pointed down at the ground that’s closed that would be pretty Square this

Would be wide open and unfortunately I see way too much of this from golfers that that slice okay so good checkpoint there is to keep the club face down and then like I mentioned at the top of the Swing we don’t want that club face to be

Pointed down we want want it to be pointed up at the sky more down means more slice more up at the sky means less slice or more hook okay that make sense and then in the follow through this is a really good picture for the steering wheel analogy okay so on the

Left the club face didn’t close at all right it kind of came through the ball and it stayed pointed up at the sky that’s the steering wheel either not turning or maybe even turning to the right which would be the worst case scenario and on the left you can see I

Really turned the steering wheel to the left so as I went through the ball my forearms almost like kissed I’m going to show you that in a second but you can see the club face rotated and pulled down right so a really good thought if

You slice the ball and you need to get more of that forearm rotation is to actually feel like your forearms kiss as they come through the ball and I’ll show you what I mean by that they kiss and touch and that would be the act of closing it right or if

They never touch then the face would stay open the whole time so I’ll show you again ler let it twist your forearms will actually touch or kiss but if you don’t the face will stay open the whole time hit to right okay thanks for your patience

There okay so I have a couple drills I’m not going to lie a few of them I made just for this presentation and a few of them I’ve had on my Instagram for a while so uh this is a good drill for your grip so I want you to pay attention

Hopefully the audio works and then I’ll explain it to uh if it doesn’t here’s a great test for your grip hold the club straight up using just your glove hand we’re going to see if you got the heel pad of your hand in the right spot and the club in the

Fingers if you let go with every finger except for your pointer finger the club should be balanced like this and not fall if you have the club too much in the palm of your hand and the grip runs through the heel pad when you do this test the club will

Fall all right does that make sense so all I did there was I tried to hold the club with the heel pad that’s this piece right here on top of the club and that got my glove logo face facing you guys that’s that closed face grip we were

Talking about okay now when I let go with everything except for my pointer finger the club balances pretty nicely if I’m doing it wrong and I’ve got the club in my palm and I’ve got that weak or open face grip when I try that drill it’s it’s going to fall right away okay

So getting your heel pad that’s that’s this piece right here on top of the club that gives me that more closed face grip it gives me some lever uh levers and some ability to close this thing does that make sense how am I doing on time We’re doing good wow everything makes sense or am I just crazy test hold the club okay this might be the harder one so I think the grip is probably the easiest thing to do because you’re not swinging your golf club yet you’ve got infinite amount of time to set that baby

The right way right the hardest thing to do is fix it during the swing right the swing doesn’t take that long couple seconds right so this is harder but this will hopefully make sense this is for you if you get to the top and you roll

That club face open and you end up with that wrist cued up like this like we said we didn’t want where the club face pointed down we want to get it more this direction okay and it’s not good enough to just go uh up to the top with it like

That it needs to stay there on the way down so a lot of people that hear this they say oh I’m going to go up and I’m going to make sure it’s like this but then as soon as they start down they go straight back open okay so this is a

Drill that’s going to help you prevent that all right can you guys hear the videos even if you get to the top of flat lead wrist if you’re extending it again on the way down the club face will still be open and you’ll still fight a

Slice you need to learn how to flex that wrist on the way down get that club face closed a really good drill is to take a binder or a magazine and grip it like you’re griping your golf a little space between the object get to the top of the

Swing and maintain that space But in transition push the object against your arm like this this is going to get your lead wrist to go into more flexion that’s going to be that same idea of closing the face on the way down to help you get rid of that slice thanks for

Watching follow for more tips all right so I’ll reenact that one real quick doesn’t have to be a magazine or a binder it could be an iPad a clipboard whatever but we set up with our grip and we go up to the top and as soon as we

Get to the top we push the binder or the clipboard against our arm and that’s that act of getting that wrist to flex or bow which is going to close the face that’s exactly what we need it also prevents us from getting up in a good spot and then moving the clipboard off

The arm on the way down Okay so so again any object is fine a keyboard a magazine iPad up to the top push it against your wrist and then keep it pushed on the wrist or on the arm on the whole way down okay so that’s a good way to make

Sure that that uh wrist isn’t cupping or opening the face at the top of your swing all right we good there even if you want to watch it twice okay forearm rotation I did make this just for this uh just for this so this is the steering whe you may need to add

More forearm rotation through the shot so the club face doesn’t stay open like this if I let my forearms rotate and roll over you can see how the club face is going to close one really nice drill to practice this feel is to stand 90° close to your target line and practice

Making swings because you can’t rotate your body it’s impossible to stop your forearms from rolling over and the club face from closing thanks for watching and follow for more tips okay so that’s a goofy one I wouldn’t swing super hard if you’re going to do that because you

Could hurt yourself but uh when you when you literally cannot rotate your body your forearms will cross very simply okay so getting that forearm rotation is going to help you close the club face as well uh does that one make sense again I probably wouldn’t hit balls like that it

Just to help you give you a sensation of what it’s like to turn the steering wheel to the left how we doing in the back any questions can we hear anything yeah good if you slice the golf ball you may need to okay so this is where you guys

Are going to talk and I’m going to listen if you slice the golf ball weaker grip or stronger grip stronger is that more glove logo that way or glove logo towards you guys towards you guys exactly why well then I can get that leverage to close the face

More more more right all right if you slice the golf ball should you bow your wrist or cup it bow it it’s not easy to do it’s not going to feel strong or powerful or normal but it is what you need to do okay a lot of these things

Too I would recommend taking your pitching wedge and just doing it slow like some half swings to feel it again we’re not talking about your swing path but we are talking about the club face and it if we’re getting the club face more closed it’s not going to slice I

Promise okay uh and if you slice should you rotate the steering wheel to the left or to the right as a right-handed golfer to the left we as a right-handed golfer we would want to feel like we turn the steering wheel to the left and we get these forearms to close as soon

As possible possible as we go through the golf ball and if you’re still slicing it instead of trying to do it right before you get to the ball try to do it right here if you can’t if that doesn’t help try to do it right here

Keep moving it earlier and doing it more and trying to get the club face to close Okay uh I left some time for questions cuz I used a lot of big words flexion extension uh pronation superation strong weak all that stuff uh who here still thinks they would slice the

Ball you do you want to come up here no okay that’s fair uh I guarantee you if we get your grip in a closed face position and we get the wrist flexed at the top and we roll your forearms you’re going to hit it so far left you might

Hit your left leg like honestly okay uh I really didn’t leave I I really don’t have a bunch else so I wanted to leave time for you guys if you want to know more about me or you want to see more videos like that I think some people

Think that’s the Holy Grail of golf instruction I think those videos are for a very particular set of people I put them out there cuz honestly it helps some people but uh as we all know I think internet instruction is a little bit maybe misleading sometimes right so

On Instagram you can follow me it’s crafty golf on threads you can follow me it’s crafty Golf and uh for those of you that don’t know I’m the director of instruction at Spring Hill Spring Hill is a private member only Club so I don’t get to teach a lot of non-members but I

Do offer online lessons and they are much cheaper than inperson lessons and I do that through the skillist app and uh it’s actually crazy what you can do through an online lesson program because the player has to video their swing and like I said the camera doesn’t add 10

Lbs and it doesn’t make you come over the top either so uh if you want to if you do want to try and schedule you know an in-person lesson you can email me crafty golf gmail.com but uh I do respond to like DMS and stuff very

Regularly so if you want to message me on Instagram or something you certainly can any questions yeah go ahead the question was short distance wedges yeah is the instruction the same I would say if you hit them high and to the right absolutely because that means the club face is open obviously there’s

A little different technique there in terms of you know governing how far the back swing goes but absolutely if you’re leaving the face open and the ball’s kind of shooting up and to the right and it’s kind of weak and it doesn’t feel compressed or powerful it probably means

The club face is open especially if you have a you know a 56° wedge and it’s it’s launching super high it probably means that face was turned open when you hit it because anytime the face is open there’s more Loft on the golf club so this is why players that draw the ball

Tend to hit it a little bit farther which is why this presentation is about how to not slice it cuz I never want to tell anyone anything that’s going to make him hit it shorter or more crooked but that’s a very good question yes so

I’d say for the most part yes I think it’s player dependent but uh if it’s popping up to the right and high and short yeah absolutely come on we got to have questions questions we got to have questions yeah you have a tendency to pull it

Absolutely so if you come over the top and you pull it the club face probably isn’t open is it absolutely not so if you’re hitting it left of your target it means that the club face is closed so for all of you like physics people or analytics or science people the golf

Ball is about 75 to 80% where the Club face points swing direction does not really matter if you’re over the top under the plane whatever it’s majority Club face so if you’re on the golf course and you hit 10 straight to the right you better be closing the club

Face and if you hit 10 straight to the left I don’t know why you wouldn’t open the club face right so don’t let these like dogmatic terms keep your head down left arm straight hips whatever Tempo that’s not the reason it goes a different direction now maybe those

Things need improved but it’s not the reason they go there so if you’re hitting it to the left with polls I’ve got two options for you you can do any of those moves that closes the club face less meaning opens it more which most people here I think

That slice the ball that are at this presentation should not do or we could find some kind of drill to get your swing path moving a little bit more from the inside and then maybe turn that pull into like a a ball that starts a little

Right and draws that’d be a powerful way to do it right now I didn’t talk a lot about swing path in this presentation because I didn’t want it to get too fuzzy and complicated but like coming over the top or or you know swinging way

Outside in on the ball it’s going to be hard not to slice you’re going to have to really close the club face it’s best to actually do probably a combination of both but I promise if you’re living with an open Club face you will have no reason or incentive to swing straight

Into the ball you will always try to come over the top because you know your brain knows you got to give it credit it knows the face is open and it knows if you swing straight into the ball for right okay so I always like to get the

Club face in the in the right spot first and then work on the swing path because the player now has incentive to hit the ball a little straighter so if you have the face super shut now cuz you’ve been to this presentation and you’re never going to slice it again but you’re

Pulling the ball I promise you’re going to get sick of that too you’re going to start figuring out a way to swing a little bit more straighter into the ball and you won’t hit the PS anymore okay but any kind of drill to help you with

You know swing path I I like putting like a head cover on on the ground and angling it a little bit to the right so if I come over the top I hit the head cover that’s a good one very generic but a good one anything else these are good questions I like

Them those are very good what club’s easier to close the club face a pitching wedge or a driver a pitching wedge why just seems easier right shorter Club has more Loft and the weight of the club head doesn’t sit so far behind the shaft so when we have a driver there’s all

This weight back here and an iron it’s kind of just right there you got really good control of it the other thing is it’s moving faster so your your dominant pattern or your normal swing will come out more when you move the club faster

So when you make a change feel it with a pitching wedge first then an eight iron and then hit some slow drivers feeling that club face closed uh with the club face closed will the ball go higher or lower with the club face closed the golf

Ball will have less l or the golf club itself will have less less Loft so if you close the club face more it’s going to come out lower and probably go a little farther if you leave the face open and you’re someone who like you’re you’re on your driver and it just goes

Super high into the right this is going to be super beneficial for you but the more we close the face the lower the ball will come out too so back to the short irons and stuff do we want to hit our wedges kind of low with spin or do

We want to hit them a mile in the air and hope they come down at the right spot a lot of the best players are hitting it low with spin so they have the club face closed and then they’re managing their swing path from there cuz

That helps them hit it you know hit their numbers better good question so the driver is probably the hardest one to close I still think if you take a golf lesson you should have it fixed in 10 to 15 minutes I’m not saying you’ll hit it straight but you’re

Not hitting it right not on my lesson te okay uh if I want to stop slicing should I hit more of the toe of my driver or the heel this was a long time ago I’m testing you guys the toe exactly and here’s a fun physics question for you if I’m swinging a

Driver at 100 mph the toe is moving at different speed than the heel right the center of the club’s moving 100 if I’m swinging a driver at 100 the toe is moving 106 the heel is moving 94 another reason to hit the toe it’s actually moving faster that’s the

Physics of circles right good question good job all right that’s a that’s probably all I got for you guys unless there’s more questions thanks for coming again I’m Justin if you want to follow me on Instagram say hi to me I’m happy to talk again I don’t like hearing myself talk thank you