How to Aim on the Golf Course
This section is dedicated to helping you aim better on the golf course and the practice range. We will cover some key check points when it comes to aiming your golf clubs correctly.
It’s to no surprise that aiming on the golf course is the single most important part of the game. Golf is all about aiming your club face and hitting the golf ball to your desired target. It is one of the most important fundamentals as well as the perfect golf grip and finding the right ball position for all clubs. Have you ever been in the middle of a round and hit a great shot but it just started left and stayed left or right and your playing partner chimes in with “that’s right where you were aiming.”? Most of the time we tell ourselves that we were certainly not aiming there but thats just because we haven’t learned how to aim yet.
Aiming correctly in golf: Your Swing Path
Alignment is something that is often overlooked in golf. Bad alignment can cause a lot more swing problems – for example, you’re aiming too far right (for a right handed golfer), this can cause you to cut across the ball resulting in a big slice or pull hook. Think about this for a moment, you’re body and club are aimed 20 yards right of your target but your mind is looking at the green. Instinctively, your body is going to head in the direction of where your mind tells it to. Causing us to swing hard left (towards the target) with our body aimed right. Your swing path and aiming path (our stance) lines are now crossed promoting poor results with our golf shot.
Lets Check Our Alignment
Got to the practice area or range and pretend like your hitting a ball to a target. You can really do this anywhere, doesn’t have to be on a range. Aiming is aiming, whether I’m aiming at a flag or the mailbox done my street. Place a alignment stick or club on your heel line and then step back and see where you’re aim at.
Your lines with your feet should be perfectly parallel to your target line, a nice track of two lines running out to our intended target. If you’re lined up correctly on the golf course then your foot line will be just left of your ball line. If you notice that the lines are not parallel or are crossing each other, set back and make the correct adjustments until you feel what being square to your target truly feels like.
Shoulders Alignment Always Wins
Sometimes our feet are aimed correctly but our shoulders are open or closed. This can be due to tight muscles in the arms or back or a variety of reasons. But nevertheless, you want to make sure your shoulders are stacked and parallel at address. One easy way to check this is by holding your shaft of your golf club across your shoulders pointing toward your target and then checking your feet to make sure this line matches your feet line. This also will help with the proper shoulder tilt in the golf swing as you want your irons to be more parallel to the ground and your shoulders to be tilted
Use a spot in front of your ball - Spot Alignment
Pick a spot a foot or two in front of the ball when you’re standing behind the ball looking at your target. This is where you want to align your club face when you set up to golf ball. Imagine the ball going directly over that spot off the club face after impact. From there, develop a great pre shot routine that consists of everything you do before you hit the golf ball. Find your spot, align the club behind the ball and then get your body set and parallel to those lines.
You always want to be aiming exactly where you want the ball to go at address, but with that being said, it’s important to understand that if you naturally hit a cut then we will be aimed just a bit to the left of our target and opposite if we naturally draw the ball. Always take into account the natural shot shape we are playing.