I was reading some blogs after an article I wrote about alignment and a lady wrote in asking a question. She said that her husband, who is a really good player, constantly tells her that her alignment is bad. She asked if bad alignment can cause bad shots. ABSOLUTELY!
Let's begin by re-stating my two Alignment Surgisms that I believe tell it all. 1. '90 to 95 percent of all swing problems arise out of Bad ALIGNMENT.' 2. Alignment'¦Alignment'¦Alignment'¦Don't play golf without it.'
Causing swing problems 90 to 95 percent of the time makes alignment a pretty big problem. Heck, even if it was only 70 percent or as low as 50 percent, it is still a serious problem and a detriment to hitting good shots. Let's look at why bad, poor or misalignment wrecks such havoc on our swings.
Let's first look at where it all begins. It's on the driving range, practicing or warming up, before playing. From the first shot, even if it is a little pitch shot, you must have a target and thus be target oriented. If you do not practice and warm up target oriented, you are just beating balls. Alignment awareness and working on a setup routine to walk into a setup that will be properly aligned begins on the range. The setup routine, the sight and the feeling of correct alignment, can easily be worked on and developed on the range. That is because you can place shafts, sticks, boards and even clubs (which I don't recommend as a careless practice swing or step can bend or break one) on the ground for reference points.
Every shot on the range should be hit towards a target. The first thing I always do in every lesson, before students hit a shot, is give them a target. Without knowing the target, I cannot tell if they are properly aligned. I also can't tell other important issues like clubface aim and is it square to the target. I can't know if they are taking the club away slightly inside or outside the aiming line.
Also important to practicing on the range is that if you have problems aligning on the wide open space of the range, how do you expect to line up correctly on the course? On the course, many tees are tucked close to the trees. There are dogleg fairways and fairway bunkers, streams, and woods down one or both sides. All these places you do not want to go or hit into easily cause the mind to look away and aim away from them. In essence, that brings them into play. Or that problem on the other side of the fairway, especially if you play with the mindset of saying don't hit it into that bunker or stream or woods, distracts you. I always tell my students that whatever right or left of your target you tend to aim on the range is likely 'doubled or more' out on the course because of all the visual places you see and don't want to be.
The swing problems from alignment happen because most golfers are trying to hit the ball relatively straight. To do that physics says that the club has to approach the ball ON the aiming line, strike it while still ON the aiming line and be square to it and leave ON the aiming line, accelerating. I call this the ON-On and ON principle. The bad swing from bad alignment comes from the fact that the club has to be swung back to and get on the aiming line and be square at impact to hit it straight to the target, which cannot happen if you are misaimed.
Aiming right of the target (left for lefthanders) is a closed setup. This means the body is in the way to swing the club on a straight line from the top of the backswing to the target. Thus, the swing has to go around the body to get on the line to hit the ball, causing the outside to in path. Or the player spins the body out of the way, likely causing a reverse weight shift, to get the club approaching on line. These two are the basic and most likely swing compensations that happen from bad alignment.
Aiming left of the target (right for lefthanders) is an open setup. This means the swing has to make the ball be blocked, pushed or sliced toward the target. There is a tendency for the torso to slide forward in the forward upswing and for the hands to under release (the lower hand turns skyward), opening the clubface causing the ball to fly right.
What it all comes down to is ON-ON and ON cannot be violated if you want to hit a relatively straight shot. Setting up to hit a ball in bad alignment likely guarantees one of two bad shots. If you make a good swing down the actual aiming line, which is not at your intended aim/target, you will hit a good shot to the wrong place. If your mind senses in the swing that you are misaligned and sets the compensation and corrections into action, the swing is now messed up and the consequences will be a bad shot. Occasionally we hit a third type of shot which somehow, with all the compensations and corrections, goes to the target. And you find yourself saying something like, 'See I can do it. But why can't I do it more often?'
Bad alignment is a major cause of bad swings and hitting bad shots. So, if you want to make good swings and hit good shots straight at your target, you must do as the second alignment Surgism above states. Alignment'¦Alignment'¦Alignment'¦Don't play golf without it!
The Surge!