The Three Big Rules Of Aiming In Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Three Big Rules Of Aiming In Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

Okay, so if we could establish three golden rules to be a better golfer in regards to your alignment, they would be; never be hurt by a straight shot, always keep your ball in play, and low side wins. They’re the three golden rules, so let's establish what they are exactly in a bit more detail, so if we play the ‘low side wins’ rule. This principle that applies more when you’re playing onto a green and when you’re looking at the slope of the green.

So, if you’re playing on to a green and the green has an angular tilt to it, if you’re going to miss in one direction, miss on the low side not the high side, because if the flag’s in the middle, you’ve got a far easier shot up than you have down. Playing up-hilling golf is generally considered easier whether you’re hitting an eye shot slightly uphill, chipping uphill, and definitely putting uphill, because it’s easier to control the pace and the distance the ball goes than anything coming down. So if there’s a green in front of you that’s on an angle, you would rather aim slightly low side than high side. Low side wins, rule number one. Rule number two is keeping the ball in play. It sounds pretty obvious a golf course might have some boundaries, some markers, whether it’s internal or external boundaries. There might be a fence around the outside of the golf course, an out of bounds fence, there might be internal issues as well with ponds, ditches, lakes, internal-out of bounds. A golf ball that goes into one of these hazards cannot help your score, it will definitely give you penalty shots or difficulty to play from, so whenever you are aiming, always consider where the penalty shots are and try and keep your ball in play and the last and final rule is, make sure that you never get hurt by a straight shot, so with that in mind, whenever you’re aiming, you should never be aiming at a bunker, or a like, or a pond. Even if you said to yourself, “but I always hit a draw, so I can aim at that bunker and I can draw it away” or “I can aim at a bunker and then the wind will move the ball across,” because the principle being that, the law of the sod, is that when you aim for the bunker, the wind will die and suddenly your draw will fail you, and you’ll hit the ball dead straight into the hazard. So, you can aim near the bunker, you can aim near the pond, but allow yourself five to ten yards of margin of error of safety, so if you did the ball arrow straight, like we all do from time to time, at least that’s not going to punish you, so if you apply those three rules when you’re playing, you should find that your aiming becomes a lot better and so do your scores. 2016-04-20

Okay, so if we could establish three golden rules to be a better golfer in regards to your alignment, they would be; never be hurt by a straight shot, always keep your ball in play, and low side wins. They’re the three golden rules, so let's establish what they are exactly in a bit more detail, so if we play the ‘low side wins’ rule. This principle that applies more when you’re playing onto a green and when you’re looking at the slope of the green.

So, if you’re playing on to a green and the green has an angular tilt to it, if you’re going to miss in one direction, miss on the low side not the high side, because if the flag’s in the middle, you’ve got a far easier shot up than you have down. Playing up-hilling golf is generally considered easier whether you’re hitting an eye shot slightly uphill, chipping uphill, and definitely putting uphill, because it’s easier to control the pace and the distance the ball goes than anything coming down.

So if there’s a green in front of you that’s on an angle, you would rather aim slightly low side than high side. Low side wins, rule number one. Rule number two is keeping the ball in play. It sounds pretty obvious a golf course might have some boundaries, some markers, whether it’s internal or external boundaries. There might be a fence around the outside of the golf course, an out of bounds fence, there might be internal issues as well with ponds, ditches, lakes, internal-out of bounds.

A golf ball that goes into one of these hazards cannot help your score, it will definitely give you penalty shots or difficulty to play from, so whenever you are aiming, always consider where the penalty shots are and try and keep your ball in play and the last and final rule is, make sure that you never get hurt by a straight shot, so with that in mind, whenever you’re aiming, you should never be aiming at a bunker, or a like, or a pond.

Even if you said to yourself, “but I always hit a draw, so I can aim at that bunker and I can draw it away” or “I can aim at a bunker and then the wind will move the ball across,” because the principle being that, the law of the sod, is that when you aim for the bunker, the wind will die and suddenly your draw will fail you, and you’ll hit the ball dead straight into the hazard.

So, you can aim near the bunker, you can aim near the pond, but allow yourself five to ten yards of margin of error of safety, so if you did the ball arrow straight, like we all do from time to time, at least that’s not going to punish you, so if you apply those three rules when you’re playing, you should find that your aiming becomes a lot better and so do your scores.