You're Correct!

Aim is one of the most important fundamentals, but also one of the most overlooked by golfers.

Without being aimed correctly, hitting a ball at your intended target suddenly becomes less about skill and more about luck and manipulation of the swing and club face. Many people go to teaching professionals begging for a cure to ailments ranging from pulls to pushes. They may believe they have a horrific swing fault only to find out their swing is fantastic but their aim is offline.

This tendency to aim offline is very prevalent from the teeing ground. Most of the time, players just don’t take the time to properly pick out a target line and align their club and body. Players struggling with alignment can use this following routine to ensure they find the target more often.

• Start from behind the ball and pick out your target. From the teeing ground, this could be the flag on a par 3 or something in the fairway where you want the ball to land on a par 4.
• Using your mind’s eye, trace a line back from the target to the ball. This line is known as the ball-to-target line (target line). It is the target line which the club face needs to be pointing down (for a straight shot).
• After picking out the target line, find something on the ground just in front of the ball which sits on the ball-to-target line. This could be a mark on the grass or old divot, for example.
• Move into a set up position and aim the club face at the intermediate target sitting on the ball-to-target line.
• After the club face has been correctly aimed, you need to set the toes, knees, hips and shoulders at right angles to the ball-to-target line.
• When viewed from down the line, the club face will aim at the target line with the feet, hips and shoulders parallel and to the left. The most popular image players’ use is to imagine a straight train track. The ball sits on the outer rail running down to the target whilst the body sits on the inner rail.

Golfers looking to hit better tee-shots should take a little more time before hitting the ball to ensure they are aimed correctly.

Imagine you asked a highly trained sniper how they focused in on their target only to hear the answer ‘well I just kind of looked at the target and aimed in its general direction’. Would you not be astounded? You should be, players wanting to hit more successful golf shots must first ensure they are committed to aiming precisely at the target.

The mind works best in all target driven sports when the aim is precise. Just aiming at a green or fairway is too inaccurate. If aiming down the fairway, for example, players need to pick out a specific point on the fairway or something small in the distance such as a tree to focus their attention.

The routine above will only take about 15-30 seconds to complete and will result in better shots. Those worrying about slow play should consider how much more time they will spend looking for their balls in the trees.