Having trouble with alignment? Here's the secret

I don'tthink I could count the number of times I have had students come to me convinced the trouble with their game is they can't figure out how to aim or align their shot to the target.I hear this consistently: "I'm hitting the ball solid, but every ball goes left of my target. It must be my alignment."

It isn't your alignment. It's your golf swing that is misaligned.

How do you tell a student to aim?

I posed this question to the late great Hall of Fame golfer and teacher Henry Picard one time and he answered, "You don't tell them. The problem is always in the path of their golf swing.When you get the path of the club going correctly, the student will come to aiming correctly on their own, and not know the day or the hour that it occurs."

What a sage piece of advice this is. Like much advice I have been privileged to glean from some of the great players and teachers of our time, you will never read any of these pearls from modern methodology.

I often see golfers adhering to the well-worn practice of placing a club on the ground parallel to their intended line of play when trying to work out an alignment problem.

Worse yet is trying to get their feet and shoulders in a so-called square alignment to the target. I am not even convinced that the alignment of the feet have a darn thing to do with where you send the ball. Ryder Cup star Gardner Dickinson held this view and I tend to agree.

One of the true teaching gurus of earlier times, Alex Morrison believed that a student should be able to hit the ball 100 yards off line in either direction without moving the feet from your initial stance with an iron and 150 yards off line in either direction without moving your feet with a wood club.Have you ever tried that?You will learn something about what is important in golf if you do.

Ben Hogan aimed his feet well into the left rough from the tee and put the ball squarely in the middle of the fairway while the great Sam Snead did just the opposite. Sam placed his feet in the direction of the right rough and quite correctly put the ball in the middle of the fairway.Please tell me, which one was right? As my friend Sam said in his homespun simple way, "You can either push it or pull it."

End of story.

Several years ago I gave some lessons to some very good players at a driving range in Greenville and we had a contest between the students to aim well left of their intended target with their feet and then hit the ball, anyway they could, to the target. Then aim well right of their target and hit their ball to the target anyway they could.It was absolutely amazing how accurate the flights of these balls were to the target, using simply the human and natural instinct of making the clubhead swing in the direction they wanted the ball to go.

To summarize, in my experience, every person who complains that they don't know how to aim are always swinging their club from outside in on the downswing. Solving this problem will solve the alignment problem.

CHIPS AND PUTTS

A well-known golf course which has served the Lowcountry for many years is finally getting a well-deserved and much-needed facelift.South Carolina National Golf Course will close at this end of this month for renovations of its greens, tees and bunkers.

You mean someone has finally put their money where their mouth is and is really walking the walk?Yes indeed. Rick Grant Sr., businessman extraordinaire and CEO of Grant Golf, has announced renovations will begin on or about May 28 and the course will be reopened on or about Sept. 30.

Thankfully and hopefully this wonderful George Cobb layout itself will remain unchanged which features a marvelous routing of meandering fairways around natural waterways accented with majestic trees and plants indigenous to the Lowcountry which house an array of bird sanctuaries.

During reconstruction, a membership drive will offer low pre-opening rates to include a $2 million pool complex, exercises facilities and of course the popular British Open Pub complete with a new fine dining menu.Membership information can be obtained by contacting Peggy Hopkins at 843-524-0300.

Keith Marks Sr. is the Director of Instruction at South Carolina National Club.He can be reached at 843-683-9505 or keithmarksgolf@aol.com.