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Achieving the correct alignment when you set up to play any golf shot will allow you to swing and strike through impact, hitting a sweet golf shot. Alignment incorporates your feet initially but you also need to consider your knees, hips and shoulders as well.

These four areas of your body need to achieve a position where they are all in line with each other. Setting your feet, knees, hips and shoulders parallel to each other will allow you to swing the club head through impact parallel to your feet line. If you do this with the club face square, you will hit a straight, sweet golf shot parallel to how you are set up. Following this, if you set up correctly to the target, you will hit straight shots towards it.

When you take up your address position, if you are going to play a straight golf shot at the target then you need to set your feet up so that they are aligned parallel to the target line. This will mean that if you placed another club on the ground across your toes, the club would be pointing left of the target, but it would be parallel left of the target. This is because there is a gap between where you stand and where the ball is played from. It is the ball that needs to fly on a line straight towards the target so you need to position your feet so that you have the same distance between each foot and the target line, to allow you to stand parallel to the target line.

You can check your feet position by placing a club on the ground across your toes and then standing back behind the ball to look directly at the target. If you place another club on the ground to represent the target line, then the two clubs should run parallel to each other.

A good image here is that of a railway line. The ball will fly along the far rail to the target and you need to position your feet so that your toes are on the near rail. Your hips also want to be parallel left of the target line. You can easily check this position if you place a club on the ground across the front of your toes and then place an alignment pole through your front belt hoops. The alignment pole will show you the position of your hips and you want the pole parallel to the club displaying your feet alignment.

Finally, you want to position your shoulders parallel to the target line as well. You can check your shoulder position by placing a club across the front of your shoulders and check its position to the alignment pole of your hips and the club on the ground showing your feet. You want to achieve a line parallel left of the target again.

If you align your feet to the right of the target and then swing the golf club parallel to this, with a square club face you will hit the golf ball to the right of the target. To hit sweet golf shots at the target, you need to align your feet parallel left of the target.

If you align your feet to the left of the target, but further left than parallel and you swing along this line, then with a square club face you will hit a straight golf shot but miss the target on the left. If you aim the club face at the target and make the same swing, you will now hit a shot where the ball flies left to right, making accuracy difficult to achieve.

Alignment is crucial if you want to hit sweet golf shots that fly at the target. If you are mis-aligned, the ball will fly parallel to your alignment, unless you manipulate the club face or your swing. However, doing this in an attempt to hit at the target makes directional control very difficult to achieve.