Many golfers fixate on the how or what movement they need to change to “fix their swing.”
“Is my left arm straight?” “Did I stand up?” “Am I cocking my wrists?” If we are focused on the body parts and movements, it not only takes away our focus, but we may be missing an aspect of the golf shot which is responsible for our swing’s pattern and consistency. We need to understand how the target and our set up to the target affects how we swing and how they work together.
Think of other sports we’ve played. If we swing a racquet, are we focused on when our wrist cocks or releases? When shooting a puck, are we focused on our body rotation? Ridiculousness!
If it were this complicated, young kids would not play. It would take all the fun out of it. What kids have over us is they are programmed to learn, which means for them, it is ok to fail. They’ve accepted that not every shot is going to be perfect. If we are teaching a kid, we have to keep things very basic: grip the club, set up, swing the club back and through to hit the ball to the target.
We control two things in the golf shot that result in hitting the ball to the desired target: 1) Set up/alignment, 2) The golf swing. The golf swing can be complicated, but an efficient swing works in conjunction with proper alignment. Alignment is not complicated, and yet most golfers spend most of their time focused on physical changes to their swing technique and very little time on alignment. Do you practice your alignment skills?
Alignment is so critical because it is where we begin to learn a proper pattern of a swing motion. A pattern that can then be modified to work in conjunction with our alignment. This is where we learn to find the bottom of our golf swing with our various clubs and learn proper ball position – FOR OUR SWING.
Alignment is the key driver to our swing pattern and consistent shots. However, we have to learn how to work on this and work back to this time and time again. This is why PGA Tour players always have alignment sticks on the ground at the range with their coach behind them. They’re constantly evaluating their swing pattern as it pertains to proper alignment. Alignment is the constant; the swing is variable.
Golfers need to understand that when we are working on any portion of our golf swing, or when we listen, read or watch a golf tip, the instructor is always assuming that we are set up with proper alignment to a target. This is taken for granted and thus missed by most of us.
I challenge you to use alignment sticks, or the driving range mat, to define where your target is. Set up square to the target line and glance at your target to train your mind’s eye that this is the proper target. Now swing with this physical target as your goal. Let your swing evolve, allowing physics to help you understand and work towards a more efficient swing pattern. Now you can tweak or have a pro help you define what you really need to work on in your swing to improve. You cannot improve your swing without considering the target.
The next step is defining the target line without any help from the sticks.
