Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
A lot of golfers will come to lessons and tell me that they can play really well on the driving range, but then when they go out on the golf course somehow it – the good golf they played on the driving range totally eludes them. Now one of the reasons that this can be happening is because on the driving range it’s very easy to hit straight shots out of the bag. There are a lot of straight lines around you. You have the edge of the mat you have a bay divider or a wall, and so you’ll set up parallel to all of these straight lines and then you’ll start to swing parallel to these surrounding, parallel to these straight lines. When you then go out on the golf course these straight lines disappear all golf course designers are very clever at setting tee-boxes up so they are pointing into trouble.
So for the unsuspecting golfer who just walks onto the tee and sets up with the way the grass has been mowed sets over the parallel lines of the tee boxes they then just set up and they are swinging with those lines and all of a sudden the shot goes into the trouble because the tee box the parallel lines of the grass cutting has pushed them over there. So what you want to work on doing is when you are on the driving range, is you notice you are actually setting up to this parallel lines but you’re also setting up to your body’s natural alignment. So if we put an alignment pole just through the front hooks on our trousers there, this will show us our body’s natural alignment so yes we are aligned with the mat with the straight lines around us but look at the fact you actually also aligned with your body’s natural alignment. Start to hit with your bodies natural alignment then start to work on targets that aren’t directly straight out of the bay. So now stand at more of an angle and again work on., this is how I’m aligned this is where my alignment is, so I’m going to swing with the alignment of my body the alignment of my hips and toes rather than with the environment around me.
When I now go out on the golf course if I stand behind the ball I and look at where I want to actually hit the golf shot to if, I draw a straight line back from that target and pick a spot just out in front of the ball, I can align the golf club so the face is pointing at that spot. If I place my feet together, so my feet are now in line with the grooves on the golf club and then split my stance I now have my body’s natural alignment and I can work on swinging in line with my hips and my toes, which is my natural alignment rather than following that the surroundings that are around me which would push me into trouble on the golf course.
So try working in that, hit the target that aren’t directly out of the range bay, hit that targets that are across and not parallel to the lines of the range bay and your surroundings. And work on swinging more with the alignment of your hips, the alignment of your toes so that you’ll hit straighter shots when you are out on the golf course and find that you start to miss the trouble.