Point and Shoot Properly

April 8, 2008

The other day, my buddies and I were teeing off on a par-5, a dog-leg right with trees on the right and a row of houses and out-of-bounds on the left. Bob, a pretty good golfer, set up, teed off and his ball shot straight into the trees. He looked at us, perplexed, and said, “How did I do that?!“. We all said in unison, “You were set up that way.” The point is that even the best of golfers sometimes line up their shots incorrectly. Sometimes, the hole doesn’t set up well for the eye. Some golfers have aligned their shots incorrectly for years and have learned to compensate with their swing to make the ball go where they aim. On those occasions when they don’t compensate, their shots go off-line. So the next time you’re having a tough time getting the ball to go you where you want it to go, it may be how you’re lined up and not how you swing the club.

If you’ve played golf for any length of time, you’ve seen the model for ideal alignment. The path of the ball is on one track of an imaginary train track that leads to a target, and the lines of your body are on the other track parallel to the target track. Some golfers will line up so their bodies point straight at the target (closed stance). Others will do the opposite, overcompensate and line up away from the target (open stance). If you’re right-handed and you set up in a closed stance and the ball flies straight, the ball will land right of the intended target. If you line up in an open stance and the ball flies straight, the ball will land left of the intended target. Some golfers have no clue how they’re lined up, which is an open-and-closed case for frustration and disaster.

So if you’re misaligned, you have two choices: (1) make compensations in your swing to get the ball to go the right direction or (2) line yourself up squarely. Some golfers make adjustments in their swing, but these take a great deal of time to ingrain and sometimes these adjustments can’t be performed consistently. Also if these golfers make swing changes, those changes might not incorporate the original adjustments they made to make the ball go where they want. Learning to line up squarely is far easier to learn and to repeat, and improving your swing can only make your accuracy better. Here’s a brief refresher on squaring up your alignment.

First, pick out a target you want to hit and be very specific. Just trying to hit a 100-yard-wide fairway can lead to lazy set-up habits and haphazard results. You might want to use a shadow on the side of the fairway you want to hit, or use a tree or a shrub in the distance behind your intended target. The more precise your target, the better the targeting.

Next, stand directly behind your ball, draw an imaginary line from the target to your ball. Let’s call this the target line. Pick out a spot along the target line a few feet in front of your ball. Again mark this spot precisely. It could be a dark or light spot, a leaf, a beer can, or a divot. While keeping your eye on the spot, walk to the side of the ball with your club in hand and line up the clubhead behind the ball. The bottom line of your club should be perpendicular to the target line. Let’s call it the clubhead line. Some drivers have a targeting aid (like an arrow) on the top of the clubhead. That arrow should point right at the target spot.

There are several ways of aligning your body to the target line. The traditional method is to start with your feet. Take your back foot and place the foot so that its position is parallel to the clubhead line. Now place your front foot into your stance. The line made between the toes of your feet should be parallel to the target line. Let’s call this line the foot line. Align your hips and your shoulders so that they are parallel to your foot line. Another method is to align your elbows or your shoulders first to the target line before aligning your feet. The point is that, by whatever method, all your body lines, and not just one line should be parallel to your target line.
Even when you’ve gone through all the proper steps, you still might not be aligned correctly. Your eyes can play tricks on you and on how you get your clubhead squared up.  Thomas Golf, a maker of custom-fitted golf clubs, offers a line of clubs that has a precision line-up aid built into their clubs. They’re economically-priced and they’re sure to help your game.