Hit the Golf Ball Straighter - Nail Your Alignment, Tour Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hit the Golf Ball Straighter - Nail Your Alignment, Tour Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now this might sound obvious to say, but honestly a lot of really good golfers miss out this fact. Golf is a target related sports. We have a target it might be four, 500 yards away, but there is a target out there and it's really important we aim at it. You've got to consider yourself as a golfer like a rifle shooter, you are aiming at something, when you are pulling the trigger and trying to shoot or hit the ball in the straightest line possible but so many really good players get far too technical in their swing foot and they miss out the fact that their alignment is probably most important facet.

When I'm talking to a beginner or someone that’s never played golf, the very first thing that we say is, point the club where you want the ball to go. Point your feet where you want the ball to go; now you can start to build the rest of your set up, but so many good golfers miss out their alignments or miss out the importance of their alignments. So here is really a simple exercise you've got to toe sticks down on the floor. One is pointing your ball the target line, one is parallel to your ball with the target line and I stress the world parallel, this one where your feet and your body would be, does not point at the same target as this, your feet do not point at the flag, you’ve got to imagine you are on two train lines and that pointing out into the distance but they never merge and they never move apart, they stay the same distance apart.

So this is my ball to target line, this is parallel to my ball to target line. As I align myself up, I get my club and my golf ball near that line and I get my feet here parallel to this line and then I need to check that when I look up I feel comfortable pointing at my target. We see a lot of golfers spend time behind the ball here, they check this line out, they make sure they're aiming straight, yet as when they move into the ball, they get comfortable, they look up and they actually look at the wrong target, probably because their alignment hasn't been very good in the past.

So they are looking in the wrong target, they then just make a little simple, just then they feel comfortable. But now you can see I've got my alignment wrong, I could be encouraging myself to hit some bank shots off target, or worse make some bad swing that will hike the ball back round on target, that's a very short term gain for a actually a long term loss that you are creating about swing. So next time you are on the practice ground strip everything back to basics, get your alignment sorted, make sure that’s pointing at target, that one's parallel to target and most importantly you feel comfortable looking at your target. Get it simple; get the basics right and start hitting the ball a bit straighter.

 2013-06-27

Now this might sound obvious to say, but honestly a lot of really good golfers miss out this fact. Golf is a target related sports. We have a target it might be four, 500 yards away, but there is a target out there and it's really important we aim at it. You've got to consider yourself as a golfer like a rifle shooter, you are aiming at something, when you are pulling the trigger and trying to shoot or hit the ball in the straightest line possible but so many really good players get far too technical in their swing foot and they miss out the fact that their alignment is probably most important facet.

When I'm talking to a beginner or someone that’s never played golf, the very first thing that we say is, point the club where you want the ball to go. Point your feet where you want the ball to go; now you can start to build the rest of your set up, but so many good golfers miss out their alignments or miss out the importance of their alignments. So here is really a simple exercise you've got to toe sticks down on the floor. One is pointing your ball the target line, one is parallel to your ball with the target line and I stress the world parallel, this one where your feet and your body would be, does not point at the same target as this, your feet do not point at the flag, you’ve got to imagine you are on two train lines and that pointing out into the distance but they never merge and they never move apart, they stay the same distance apart.

So this is my ball to target line, this is parallel to my ball to target line. As I align myself up, I get my club and my golf ball near that line and I get my feet here parallel to this line and then I need to check that when I look up I feel comfortable pointing at my target. We see a lot of golfers spend time behind the ball here, they check this line out, they make sure they're aiming straight, yet as when they move into the ball, they get comfortable, they look up and they actually look at the wrong target, probably because their alignment hasn't been very good in the past.

So they are looking in the wrong target, they then just make a little simple, just then they feel comfortable. But now you can see I've got my alignment wrong, I could be encouraging myself to hit some bank shots off target, or worse make some bad swing that will hike the ball back round on target, that's a very short term gain for a actually a long term loss that you are creating about swing. So next time you are on the practice ground strip everything back to basics, get your alignment sorted, make sure that’s pointing at target, that one's parallel to target and most importantly you feel comfortable looking at your target. Get it simple; get the basics right and start hitting the ball a bit straighter.