When Lining Up Square is Wrong
For as long as I can remember I was taught to line up square to my target line in efforts to hit the ball with minimal curvature. The only time I was taught to alter this relationship was when I wanted to hit a ball that curved big one way or the other. I wonder how many of you out there do the same when you set up to the ball?
With the advances of club and ball flight monitors such as Trackman we now understand that your body alignments must be altered in order to “zero” out your path so you can hit golf shots that have the minimal curvature that you see on the pro tour.
Interestingly enough the only person I have seen write about this fact was Ben Hogan in one of his books which talked about different stance arrangements based on the club he was using.
While he didn’t know much (or anything) about the d-plane he figured it out on his own by aligning his feet on his shorter irons more left and aimed his body more right on the driver.
More about why he had to do that in a second.
Here is a screenshot of a sample player showing his path (the blue line) coupled with the data of that particular swing just below.
If you take a look you can see that his path is a touch right of his target line at 5.9 degrees from in to out. So this ball started a touch right and then curved back to the target – the classic push draw that most players desire.
However if you look closely you can see that this player’s alignment is a touch LEFT of the target line.
Why you ask?
If you are swinging the club 6 degrees from in to out and you line up square then you would have to produce a face angle that is well left of your path in order to move the ball back to the target.
This would also produce a curvature amount that is hard to consistently reproduce; thus, this player lines up a touch left in order to balance out the 6 degree path.
Imagine if we could measure his alignment at address with the same numbers as above… if he aligned himself 3 degrees left of his target line and made the same swing then his resultant path would not be 6 degrees from in to out relative to the target but only 3 degrees from in to out, which is a more manageable number to play from in a “perfect” world.
Now obviously we are not robots, nor do I expect my players to hit the same delivery path each time, but I will say that we all have tendencies and by using your alignment to buffer these tendencies you can play better golf.
How to align your body to hit the straight golf shot
Using alignment to make up for exaggerated paths is very easy and can be done by player of all levels, all you have to do is chart your true path on Trackman and you will have an idea of just how much you need to alter you alignment at address in order to make up for the down and out type of path you have working at the current moment.
So… A good rule of thumb is to aim the body more left on your shorter irons (because you hit more down on them moving your true path more right) and as you get to the driver you should move your alignment a touch more right (because you tend to hit more up on the driver moving your path more left.)
Experiment with your body alignments relative to your target line and I bet you will see straighter shots as a result!
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Tom Stickney, Straight shot