Hit Down Dammit! Golf Instruction

Alignment Won't Go Away

Last week's re-visitation of alignment issues aroused a couple more doubters from the woodwork and led to some very interesting discussions and investigations. The result was the same though - in order to properly alining one's self to the target the clubface must be square to the target line, and the feet and body parallel to the target line. A vocal minority are still of the mindset that even if your clubface is aimed at a bunker right of the green, your ball will drop two feet right of the flag as long as your feet are lined up. Them's some magic shoes! Nice in theory but unfortunately that theory will lead to a lot of missed greens, hit bunkers, and damaged golf swings.

We actually found that on a 150 yard shot, using an 8-iron, lining one's feet up to the flag will lead to a 20 degree (+/- 2 degrees) alteration right of the target.  Despite this, three readers still insisted they would only miss the flag by two feet (the distance they are standing away from the ball) on a properly hit shot. As they were not convinced by my evidence, I turned to friend and colleague Ken Tannar of "Probable Golf Instruction". Ken is a great golfer, runs an extremely interesting site (www.probablegolf.com), and is a physics teacher to boot. In fact, Ken is often called upon as an expert witness in court cases involving golf courses and ranges where statistics on ball trajectory and fence heights etc. are required. I asked him how he would answer the persistent theory that as long as your feet are lined up to the flag you are only 2 feet off target, and he provided further excellent evidence and in fact dedicated his newsletter to the issue this week. To see his answer on this issue just click: http://www.probablegolfinstruction.com/mail/link.php?id=13414c6Newsletter.

My thanks to Ken for his assistance, and to all of you who wrote in on the subject.