Question from a beginner

The best advice I can give you is don't listen to ANYTHING this ^^^^^ mfer says.

Hit with a slow smooth swing. See what happens.

Look at grip youtubes. Baseball grip = doom. Never, even in fun.

Easy does it. Save the big swing for in the rough. Even then, the first few years, just use a wedge and get back onto fairway cut.

Practice swinging under the overhang of a table. Start with club under table. Swing back. Swing through. Do not hit table.

You are probably “coming over the top”. You want your right elbow close to you when you come through. When a golfer goes “over the top” there are two outcomes- hard pull left with a hook or hang back push with a slice right.

Swing the club, don’t hit the ball. The ball is just in the way near the bottom of the swing.

For a former baseball player, line up your feet, shoulders, the ball, etc. towards 2nd base, but think of hitting the ball to the 2nd baseman (not 2nd base, but where the 2nd baseman normally stands - between 1st and 2nd base). This creates an inside out swing path that creates a hook spin and allows you to hook the ball. You are probably swinging towards the shortstop, which is an outside /inside swing that causes a slice. Most beginners slice the ball by coming over the top, meaning they are swinging from the outside to the inside.

Another drill, put the ball on the tee and place a tee approximately 12 inches in front of your ball and slightly to the right at about a 45 degrees angle. swing towards that tee (this is similar to aiming to 2nd base). Once you learn to hook the ball, you can control your swing path by swinging more towards 2nd base rather than the 2nd baseman. Golf teachers always like to instruct those that hook the ball, because they can get better. Those that slice the ball have a harder time on the golf course.

By the way, get Harvey Penick's the Little Red Book and he has a lot of great tips like this. Harvey died about 20 years ago, but he taught at Austin Country Club and his prized students were Kite and Crenshaw.

1. Work on your grip. A bad grip will just lead to more problems down the road. It might take a month or more to get use to a proper grip.

2. Post a video of your swing. I could speculate what you're doing wrong, but I could be wrong. It may have nothing to do with your elbows.

I played baseball before I picked up golf. All my buddies who did the same thing fought a big slice, except for the super gifted athletes who are just blessed. But we will leave them out of this.

The difference between the swings is your hands at contact and weight shift. In baseball, you need to be in palm up, palm down at contact. Your weight needs to be 50/50. In golf, if your hands aren't square at contact, you'll slice. If you don't get to your front side, you'll slice. Doing both is death.

In golf, your palm side, palm side and your weight is closer to 75-85% front.

What I did was try to force myself to roll the ball into the 6 hole. I guess for you it'd be the 4 hole. I just rolled over it until I got used to squaring up the club face. Once you get out of the huge slice, it'll get much more comfortable and you won't feel like you're rolling over it.