The beauty of golf is that for as much as it takes, occasionally it’ll give you something truly magical.
Often, that magic come as some form of golf swing breakthrough. A swing tip, a feeling, a thought or even a drill; something that just feels right, and gets you hitting better golf shots because of it.
We’ve been rifling through a few of those recently, including my colleague Drew Powell writing about the dangers of chasing too much lag, and the misconception he had that was costing him multiple shots from tee-to-green.
Now it’s my turn to share the swing breakthrough I had…
An easy driving range drill
Perhaps my favourite golf swing breakthrough came towards the tail end of high school. It’s my favourite because it was remarkably simple. One range session, for whatever reason, I decided to mix it up. Rather than laying club on the ground down my target line, I laid a second club perpendicular to it, so it formed a kind of cross. The second club (or alignment stick) was pointing directly at my golf ball, and it was incredibly helpful.
For three reasons.
1. It gives you a sense of square
The clubface is king in golf. Wherever it’s pointing is probably where the golf ball is going to go. Setting an alignment stick down like this helps give me a nice visual of what a square clubface looks like.
2. It’s impossible to screw up your ball position
Good ball position is really boring, but really important. Throwing down an alignment stick or club like this helps you nail it down every time. The stick should be in the middle of your stance for wedges and mid-irons, then gradually move up so it’s inside your left heel with your driver.
3. It helps your weight shift
I tend to stay too centred on both my backswing and downswing. This really helps me avoid that. You can see how I’m using it above, but my goal is simple: get behind the alignment stick on the backswing, and then try to get over the alignment stick on the downswing.
