Drill Skills: Why your alignment is dictating the rest of your golf swing

Alignment is to your golf swing what the ignition is to your car. If it isn’t properly working, it doesn’t matter what’s under the hood, you’re not going anywhere. But while getting set up correctly should be as thoughtless as turning a key, too many golfers struggle finding the right positioning.

In this week’s edition of Drill Skills, GOLF Top 100 Teacher VJ Trolio explains why poor alignment leads to mishits and shares his tips for getting properly set up.

The reason why setup can be so tricky for some golfers to execute is that it’s dependent upon four correct components: feet, knees, hips and arms. If one of the components is off, it can mean disaster for the rest of the swing. As Trolio explains, if the feet are pointing the wrong direction, it pulls the hips, knees and arms out of place, leading to mishits and shanks.

Rather, a good thing to keep in mind is working from the ground up. Beginning with your feet, use an alignment stick to keep your toes pointed in the right direction. From there, you can focus on bending your knees and sinking your hips to find a comfortable athletic position for your swing. Once you’ve checked off those boxes, all that’s left to do is keep your arms fully extended over your toes.

It may seem like a lot of work, but good setup is all muscle memory—it’s as easy to learn good habits as it is to learn bad ones. Once you’ve found your natural alignment, all you need is repetition until it’s second nature.

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