Did you see what happened on Sunday at the Masters? Watching Jordan Speith make a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3 12th hole was tough to watch. What a great champion Jordan is, though, and I thought he handled himself extremely well in the post round interviews and obligations. He’ll be back.
When listening to the announcers on TV talk about Jordan’s first errant shot on the hole, they spoke about his body being aimed left while he missed his shot to the right. With that in mind, let’s warm up for the golf season by reviewing the importance of aim and correct alignment.
Setting yourself up to the target correctly will help you strike the ball more solidly, straighter and, therefore, longer. And if you do hit a wayward shot, it will also make your miss more predictable, which also helps your playing strategy.
Improving your alignment starts during practice. While watching professional golfers practice, you often notice them hitting balls with alignment sticks placed on the ground.
Alignment sticks allow a golfer to ensure he is aimed properly every time so he can focus on practicing other parts of the swing.
But what does he actually align, himself? The ideal alignment for most golfers is when your feet, hips and shoulders are aimed together on the same line and also parallel to the target line, which is where you want the club face aimed.
Any time your feet, hips and shoulders are out of joint to your target line, the sequence and the timing of your swing will be off, making it difficult to deliver the club face along the path on which you want to ball to go.
To get started, lay a rod down at your toes to help align your feet, hips and shoulders, and then lay down another rod or two for your swing path and target line. While you’re at it, place a rod between your legs and point it at the ball to help you with your ball position. All of these alignment rods make up a little system to help train your alignment and aim.
The most common alignment error for golfers is when the shoulders are aimed way left of the hips and feet. This causes the player to swing the club on an outside-to-inside swing path and cut across the ball, resulting in a wicked slice.
To fix a slice, work hard to align your shoulders with your hips and feet. For extreme slicers, you can even aim your feet, hips and shoulders a touch to the right of your target to help force a swing path from the inside.
It’s the start of the season: Grab a few alignment rods and work on your aim and alignment first.
It’ll help steer you in the right direction.
Peter Harris is the director of golf at the Fore-U Golf Center in West Lebanon. His column appears in the weekly Recreation page during the golf season.