Alignment

The Importance of Alignment

By: Bruce Munch
Head Professional, White River Golf Club
Rochester, VT

Ever look down a set of railroad tracks? In the distance they appear to merge, right? Well we know that it is a good thing that they don’t. What we are seeing is an optical illusion. It is this optical illusion that creates problems for players in correctly aligning to their targets.

Many players feel that if they aim their feet, knees, hips shoulders and eyes at the target they are aimed properly. In fact for perfect alignment for a right handed player, you must be aimed left of the target by the same amount as the distance you are from the ball. The line of the body and the intended path of the ball are parallel to one another. Now, if I aim my body at the target and hit a perfect shot, as a right-handed player, my ball would land right of my target by the same distance I am from the ball. At 100 yards or more, I am thrilled, but if I do that on my putts, I will miss all my putts to the right of the hole.

Most players, however, have alignment problems that are far greater than that. These problems are either a result of lack of disciplined attention to lining up correctly on every shot or more likely a poor perception of what is correct alignment.

Typically, players who consistently line up right on their putts also line up right on all their shots. This is because this alignment “looks” correct to them. At address, when they look at their target before making the shot, they think they are correctly aligned to their target. It looks right to them. This is because their perception of correct alignment is incorrect.

Now, it is far easier to correct a bad swing than it is to fix a person’s incorrect perception. For putting perception, I have a T-square with a string attached to the middle of the T. On a flat putting surface I ask the player to aim their putter at a designated target about 10 feet away (indoors, on a carpet with a coffee cup as a target will work nicely). When they feel they have it right I have them hold still as I set the T-square against the front of the putter and then run the string down the center line of the T-square and see where it ends up relative to the target. If the string ends up at the target, their perception of alignment is correct. If they are either right or left of the target, I note how far off they are and ask them to step away, and repeat the process. Usually, after three or four tries, a pattern becomes very obvious. What they think is square to the target, is not.

Now there are some putting systems out there that are based on the idea of leaving the players incorrect perception alone and bending the face of the putter so when they think they are square, the face is now square. I don’t agree with this method. Two wrongs do not necessarily make a right. I believe it is important to correct the players perception. To do this, I set up a stick for the players toe line that is correctly aligned to the target, and have them set up to the putt and look at the target repeatedly. What I am trying to do is to show them what the target position should look like when correctly aligned. After a short time, this correct alignment will look “right” to them and we will have retrained their perception of what correct alignment looks like.

To perform the same exercise on the full swing, at the range, take two clubs and place them on the ground with one club pointing directly at the intended target, and another club parallel left of the first (for a right handed player), about 2 feet from the first club. Use another club or a stick to measure between the two clubs to be sure both ends of the clubs are the same distance apart. You have now set up a parallel hitting grid. Place the ball a few inches inside the outer club and align your body with the inner club. Once set up a address, turn your head to look at your intended target (be sure not to move your shoulder position) and try to remember how the target looks when correctly aligned. If at first this looks incorrect, your perception of correct target alignment has been wrong all along. It is a good idea to set up this grid often when you hit balls, to ensure that your perception of the target remains correct.

Now we all know that we cannot use clubs or sticks for correct alignment on the course, so do what the pros do. When you get behind the ball before a shot, envision a line from your intended target, back to the ball and in doing so, pick an intermediate target (a piece of clover, the inside edge of an old divot, a burned out spot, etc.) make an imaginary line from that intermediate target to the ball then set up parallel to that line. It takes a little concentration to do this but if you do it on every shot and every putt, your game will improve. Remember you should start this process while your playing partners are hitting so you don’t slow up play.

Once you have learned to hit the ball straight using a perfect parallel set up, you will be able to start to fade or draw the ball on command by changing that alignment.

Remember, we never hit as many good shots as we would like during a round, so lets take a little time to align ourselves properly to our target on every shot, so we don’t waste any of them!