Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
Correctly aiming when you are out on the golf course is absolutely vital to being able to play great golf shots. And in this swing tip we are going to have a look at how aiming correctly is going to affect the trajectory that you hit the ball and also the shape of the shot that you are going to hit. So initially what you want to do to get yourself aiming correctly is have a look at your club face. The ball is always going to fly off that club face at a right angle. So look at the target from directly behind the ball. First of all before you even consider hitting the shot, look at where you want to go, and look at where your target actually is, it might not necessarily be the flag. Think where you want to play your next shot from. Once you've decided where the area is that you want to hit the ball to, imagine a line coming directly back from the target that you’ve now selected to the ball. So you can imagine your target line and then pick something out on the target line, just two to three feet in front of the ball. So if I place another golf ball out on my target line here I'd be thinking that that’s where I want to hit my golf ball over so that I'm going to hit the target up the fairway.
Now when I bring my club face in, I'm going to aim my club face, so that's going to allow the ball to fly off that club face at a right angle so that the ball is going to go over the spot on the floor that I've picked which really is just showing me where the target is I’ve just brought the target a lot closer to me. And then I'm going to set my feet so my feet are parallel to the club face, keep my feet together so that if I draw a line back from the club face it would hit the middle of my feet. And now I'm going to set my stance up so that I'm parallel to my target line. So if I've aimed the club correctly, I'm now going to be able to hit the ball at my target. Aiming the ball in that way is going to allow me to influence the trajectory of the shot. So for example if I'm out on the golf course and I've got slightly out of position and I've now got over hanging branches that I need to get the ball under. Or it's particularly windy and I need to hit the ball on to the wind, I can now hit a much lower shot but down that target line. Similarly if I'm playing a dogleg, and I see that the hole is swinging left to right, I need to hit the ball left to right so I need to aim correctly to allow for that left to right swing on the ball. So to aim the club correctly, stand behind the ball, decide where your actual target is. And then once you’ve picked where that particular target is, draw a line back to the ball. Rather than just walking up to the ball, thinking where the flag is and just hitting at the flag. So always think one shot ahead. Think how you are going to make your next shot easy and then you’ll get aligned on much better out on the golf course and hitting much more accurately. 2014-01-13 Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
Correctly aiming when you are out on the golf course is absolutely vital to being able to play great golf shots. And in this swing tip we are going to have a look at how aiming correctly is going to affect the trajectory that you hit the ball and also the shape of the shot that you are going to hit. So initially what you want to do to get yourself aiming correctly is have a look at your club face. The ball is always going to fly off that club face at a right angle. So look at the target from directly behind the ball. First of all before you even consider hitting the shot, look at where you want to go, and look at where your target actually is, it might not necessarily be the flag. Think where you want to play your next shot from. Once you've decided where the area is that you want to hit the ball to, imagine a line coming directly back from the target that you’ve now selected to the ball. So you can imagine your target line and then pick something out on the target line, just two to three feet in front of the ball. So if I place another golf ball out on my target line here I'd be thinking that that’s where I want to hit my golf ball over so that I'm going to hit the target up the fairway.
Now when I bring my club face in, I'm going to aim my club face, so that's going to allow the ball to fly off that club face at a right angle so that the ball is going to go over the spot on the floor that I've picked which really is just showing me where the target is I’ve just brought the target a lot closer to me. And then I'm going to set my feet so my feet are parallel to the club face, keep my feet together so that if I draw a line back from the club face it would hit the middle of my feet. And now I'm going to set my stance up so that I'm parallel to my target line. So if I've aimed the club correctly, I'm now going to be able to hit the ball at my target. Aiming the ball in that way is going to allow me to influence the trajectory of the shot. So for example if I'm out on the golf course and I've got slightly out of position and I've now got over hanging branches that I need to get the ball under. Or it's particularly windy and I need to hit the ball on to the wind, I can now hit a much lower shot but down that target line.
Similarly if I'm playing a dogleg, and I see that the hole is swinging left to right, I need to hit the ball left to right so I need to aim correctly to allow for that left to right swing on the ball. So to aim the club correctly, stand behind the ball, decide where your actual target is. And then once you’ve picked where that particular target is, draw a line back to the ball. Rather than just walking up to the ball, thinking where the flag is and just hitting at the flag. So always think one shot ahead. Think how you are going to make your next shot easy and then you’ll get aligned on much better out on the golf course and hitting much more accurately.
