divots going to the left

Question
thank you for taking my question. I'd really like to straighten out my divot path.  It mostly goes to the left, kind  of an outside in swing,  bad synchronization?  crappy swing path.... please help.

Answer
Hi John:

No problem, but you need to picture this first.  If you were standing behind your ball, like you are getting ready to line up your shot (I hope you do this already), keeping the ball between you and the target, I want you to picture this.  As you are looking at your ball from behind it, picture your ball as a clock.  12 o'clock is at the top, 6 o'clock is at the bottom, etc.  When your club approaches the ball, it comes into the ball at 5 o'clock and swings toward 10 o'clock.  Obviously, this will produce a divot that is left of target.  This causes pulls, pull hooks and slices.  So to fix it, let's go back to picturing what your club should be doing.  In order to straighten out the divot, your club will need to be striking the ball at 7 o'clock and swinging towards 1 or 2 o'clock.  Can you picture that?  Because that is exactly what I would do if I were teaching you.  I would draw white lines with baby powder on the ground so you could see what I wanted you to do.  I would have a straight line towards your target (target line) which your ball would be sitting on.  I would then make a curved line that moves from inside the target line out towards the 2 o'clock position.  I put an arrow on top of that line, and then we start making swings feeling what it is like to move the club on a different path.  Then we would start hitting balls, trying to get the ball to start to the right of the target for a change.  Pretty soon, you would begin to straighten out your divot.  You need to do the opposite for a while to develop better swing habits.  Once you train yourself to swing the club more towards 1 or 2 o'clock, you'll see a huge difference.  Good luck, take it in stride and keep working.  You'll get it.  

Eddie Kilthau
PGA Member