Poor Alignment is a Swing Killer

One of the most overlooked flaws in golf is poor alignment of the feet, knees and shoulders to the target. It's the #1 problem I see on the course, even with single digit golfers. Below is a list of what I see on the course every....single...day.

Feet, knees & shoulders are all lined up to the right of the target. Due to the visual of the club head being aimed at the target at address, the swing path follows the aim of the club face and the path starts outside of target line. If the club face was aimed per the rightward alignment, the player would most likely hit the ball to the right-hand target. I often hear "I hit it right again...I need to fix my swing!". They may have other swing issues but HOLY COW...at least stop aiming one way while the club is aimed another way. LOL.

Feet, knees lined up to the target, shoulders to the right of target. The takeaway will follow the shoulder line and the club travels inside of target line early in the takeaway. People will swear that they need to "fix" their inside takeaway when it's simply due to bad shoulder alignment. More on this below.

Feet and knees lined up right of target, shoulders at the target. The swing path will start outside of feet alignment. Relative to their feet alignment, leading to an OTT move on the downswing. Essentially they will swing across their body from outside in. The player will work hard to get the club on a more inside path, but will find a quick fix which is arm swinging the club more inside which only compounds the problem.

Feet and knees lined up left, shoulders lined to target. More often seen in <50 yard shots, especially on chips and pitches. Folks tend to open their stance as shots get shorter, but they fail to align their shoulders to their open stance toe line. Thus the club head travels back inside target line relative to their toe line. The result is a bladed or chunked shot, or the dreaded shank.

SnT and Line Up at Address. The thing I have found with folks who have "tried" SnT and it "didn't work" is most often they had moderate to severe alignment issues that NO swing program could fix. There is one particular thing I have to watch at setup in SnT. At setup, with my weight 55/45, or 60/40, my lead hip can jut outwards towards the ball at setup, and jut more as the lead side weight increases. When this happens, my lead shoulder moves outward at address as the two are connected. Therefore, it's easy to setup with my shoulders closed to the target. I have to do mirror checks all the time because when I setup properly. My shoulders feel open, but they're not, they are aligned to the target with my knees and toe line. Now this may be my problem only, but I bet if I ran into this issue, others have too, and/or some folks may not have discovered this as of yet. It's not a fault of SnT, it's just that the weight distribution has a propensity for my lead hip, thus lead shoulder, to move slightly outward at address. Tom, have you run into this in your alignment teachings? I'm curious if it's just me, or is it possible? I think it could be due to the right knee being "too straight" at address vs. some flex.

As for alignment issues, I have gone to the range many times and hit shots directly at one particular flag. No problem. Then I start hitting to a flag to the left of the first flag. Oddly enough, after a couple of balls I will start hitting thin shots, and even shanks. WTH? The issue was as I pivoted to the left flag, my shoulders did not follow along, or they remained more aimed to the right flag (closed to the target). This causes an immediate inside takeaway relative to the target line, plus a flatter, more laid off backswing, and promotes "throwing" the club head out at the ball on the downswing. I rarely shank on the course because I calibrate my line up for each particular shot, and watch my lead hip at address, thus I'm not pivoting to hit different spots on the same hole. Makes sense now.

Poor alignment leads to all kinds of bad shots. Those bad shots lead to chasing phantom fixes. Then folks rush to Rotary Golf to "keep the right knee bent" because THAT'S the problem!, or Top Speed Golf where the "ax chopping" drill will lead to a pro tour golf swing. (just kidding, Top Speed and Rotary Golf are great sites for those who want to continue shooting in the 90's....Lol).

I think of myself as being a machine that needs to be setup to hit a ball. The first thing a person would do is to make sure the machine's pieces do not deviate in terms of setting up the machine's components to execute movements to hit to a specific target. Otherwise the machine could hit the ball anywhere. The machine's pieces are the feet, knees, and shoulders. After that, me, the machine, takes the club back on the same path relative to the target line with minimal variation. That said, a shoulder driven backswing with extension is a must have, not some half-baked, no extension arm swing! LOL.

Finally, be careful alignment. Check out the "railroad track" line up protocol.