Tuesday Tips: Think Fundamentals as you Swing into Summer

Getting your game back after a long off season is often a challenging endeavor. However, getting back to basics is the quickest way to find your swing and starting your season off right. So, in order to get you right into the swing of things, let’s revisit the basics:

Get Aligned:

The most common fault that golfers tend to have early season is with alignment. In my opinion it is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood aspects of the game. Simply stated, alignment consists of two parallel lines. The first is the target line which is a line drawn from your ball to the target. The second is parallel to the target line whereby one squares up their feet, knees, hips, and shoulders.

The most common fault golfers tend to have is to line their feet, knees, hips, and shoulders to the target which causes the club face to be aimed well to the right of the intended target. Hence, the golfer must make a correction in the forward swing by altering the path producing an outside to inside swing path. This type of swing path commonly produces pull hooks and slices. If the golfer were to make a perfect swing without adjustments, the ball would travel well to the right of the target.

Get to Work:
A great drill to help reinforce proper alignment is to lay two clubs on the ground. One of the clubs will represent the target line and the other will be parallel to the target line to help square the feet, knees, hips and shoulders. Be sure that the grooves of your club are perpendicular to the target line, as this will produce a square club face. Once you have properly set up, take note of your stance and aim to help train your eyes on how the proper line and setup should look and feel.

Have fun, play well, and we’ll see you out there on May 15!

-Phillip Tobias, PGA