How to Line Up with Targets in Golf

Video Transcript

"JOHNNY MILES: In this clip, we're going to talk about having a proper practice station. Most people just aimlessly go out, get a bunch of golf balls, be they in a pyramid at a private club or a large bag of balls at your local driving range. You throw the balls down and just start whaling away. But if you really want to improve, you need to make sure that you are practicing to a specific target. The easiest way to do that is to have yourself some alignment aids. Okay, they could be your old club shafts. Heck, they could be clubs that you're not currently hitting, okay? And you want to lay one down for the face angle and then the other one for your body. Okay, when you set the club down, you want to have it aimed at the target and then you want to have your body aligned parallel into the left of the target for all right-handed golfers or parallel into the right of the target for any left-handed golfers. Okay? This is real important. If you are not practicing from a square position, you are burning calories, but you are not getting better. Okay? If you set the club face up properly to the golf ball and get your body close to it, the path of your swing is going to be too far from the inside. Conversely, or you actually could come out and over the top of it; or conversely if you get too open to it, your club is always going to swing on an out-to-end path. Learn what square is. Until you get a really good feel for it, you need to have some aids on the ground. You'll notice that when I set my club to this, align my body square to it, that club is aimed at that red flag. Everything we do in life, we do like this. Everything is in front of us as far as visually. All of a sudden we play a game of golf and instead of going this way, we're trying to go this way, so it's a different visual, okay? You need to train your eyes. You need to have some help in training your eyes. Therefore, I highly recommend having some aids that you place on the ground so you're always practicing from a square position."