In this video, PGA Professional Alex Elliott runs down his 10 favourite ways to use alignment sticks to help golfers. He covers everything from your swing path to your putting speed with a series of very simple and effective ways to make the most of your alignment sticks.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the London Club. Now this video is all about how you use
00:04these things, your alignment sticks. This is our 10 top tips for using them not
00:09only in your long game but also in your short game as well. Now the tips in this
00:13video come courtesy of PGA Pro Alex Elliott. He'll give you everything you
00:17need to know. Right, let's get started.
00:22So number 10 on our list is the alignment stick on the ground here for swing
00:28playing. Now I like to use this if you're not on the grass, just simply
00:32place this through a basket. I like to use this for this reason. Now most of us
00:36as club golfers have that real worry of under and over, cutting across the golf
00:41ball. I like this for a perfect match. So I've roughly got my alignment stick set
00:46at a 45 degree angle to the ground. I'm gonna address the golf ball over it and
00:52match it on the way back and then feeling as though I'm swinging under it on the way
00:57through. It's a great way of getting yourself back to neutral. Definitely a
01:07great one to give yourself a better swing play.
01:12Now I love this drill for two reasons. This is great for getting clubface
01:17alignment but also committing to our start line. Now you've probably seen
01:22Jordan Spieth do this drill and he's known as one of the best putters in the
01:26world, right? So what I want you to do here is have a few puts, work out the
01:31terrain where you are, then get this alignment stick running exactly where
01:36you think you have to aim to start this putt for it to break into the hole. So
01:42that's the first area. Second area, all we're looking for is you to make a 90
01:47degree angle between your clubface and the alignment stick to make sure you've
01:51got square clubface alignment address. The final thing is having to commit to
01:56our line and hit the putt away.
02:04Next on our list is the bunker shot. Now I think where most club golfers go wrong
02:09with this is that concept of we're not actually hitting the golf ball here. We're
02:14looking to hit the sand and cushion the sand onto the ball to throw it onto the
02:19green. Now grab two alignment sticks and what I've done here is I've placed them
02:23both in the ground. The blue would highlight my ball position, the yellow
02:28highlights where I want to feel as though the club's going to go into the sand. Now
02:32this is great about this drill, you almost get a few practice goes getting
02:36used to taking some sand before the ball. So push them down, get a bit of an
02:41imprint with both, move them to the side and all I want you to do is just have
02:47two practice goes looking to take the back line and then the forward line. So
02:52one, two, readjust if you've gone a little bit ahead or a little bit before, move in
03:02looking for the line, club head inside a left heel, hit the shot.
03:13Next on our list is alignment. Now there's nothing worse than aiming in the
03:18wrong direction, hitting a beautiful swing and finding our ball is sailing out of
03:23bounds or into water. So I think you've got to use your range sessions as a
03:28great reset. I get two alignment sticks down. Now I do this in an order. Firstly
03:33set your ball to target line out and then a little bit of a trick here, use
03:38the logo of your golf ball to point directly down your ball to target line.
03:41Now because this is a reset all I'm looking for you to do is get your feet
03:47running parallel to your ball to target line. So actually your shoulders will be
03:51aiming what you perceive is a little bit left. Now this is interesting, you'll find
03:56maybe a lot of golfers, wow I feel like I'm aiming really right of target or
04:00actually I'm aiming a little bit left. Use this as a reset, get two lines that run
04:06parallel, your ball to target line and your feet.
04:12Next on our list is the one I call the golf swing checker. This is one that you
04:17can do at the range but I think it's great for you to do at home as just
04:20something to do with good reps. So grab an alignment stick, grab a golf club, place
04:25a golf ball on the ground or whatever you feel appropriate at home. Place that
04:29alignment stick just up your left-hand side and it should be touching at this
04:32address position. I want you then to follow this process. I think this is
04:37absolutely great for making sure that you're actually doing some good reps on
04:40your golf swing. So number one, keep the alignment stick on the side of the body,
04:45encourages more of a one-piece takeaway. Point the alignment stick to the ground,
04:50point the alignment stick to the ground behind you. We're now looking for this
04:54move. Now this is the key point. Most of us swing a little bit over the top. Think
04:58of your target line in front of you in this direction. We're looking for this
05:02alignment stick to point just to the right of target, encouraging an in-to-out
05:07path. Into impact, back up your left-hand side, don't let it touch the body, to pose
05:13it. You know you're making some good reps on your golf swing, so you get to the
05:16range, you can make things flow just that little bit better.
05:24Next on our list is chipping. Now I think most club golfers find that daunting
05:30chip shot with a low lofted club on such a short distance. We're a little bit
05:35scared of sometimes hitting that one that sort of travels way too far and
05:40we're left with like a 30, 40 footer or even off the green. Now this comes in
05:45when we have that unwanted acceleration like this right at the bottom. So to make
05:51this shot a more one lever motion, grab an alignment stick, grip it and get it up
05:57your left-hand side. What we're looking for is that feeling of this alignment
06:02stick never touching the left side of our body. So let's perform this shot in
06:06here now, weight on the left, don't let it hit the left side of your body. Helps you
06:11control that club head speed much easier, which therefore means distance control
06:16is much easier too.
06:21Next on our list is the frame it drill. Now this is great if you're a golfer
06:26who's struggling to strike their irons and more specifically your long irons, so
06:30your five, six and possibly four if you carry this. Two alignment sticks needed.
06:34All we want to do is make sure our first alignment stick, our red, is set for where
06:39your ball position is relative to the club that you've got. The next one, the
06:43yellow, I want you to focus that being your low point. So when you hit a shot
06:48away we're looking to strike the ball, then the turn, so really looking for your
06:53divot to start on the back of the ball and then down at its lowest point where
06:58our low point of our swing is. This is really important, low point after the
07:02ball allows you to strike down and create a more centered hit bottom to top,
07:07therefore better struck iron shots.
07:12Next on our list is a chipping drill. Now nothing more than strikes fair into a
07:18club golfers heart is having a tight lie around the green. Now this is really easy,
07:24all we're gonna need is alignment stick, we're gonna place our golf ball
07:27a club head ahead of the alignment stick. Take your normal stance, nice and
07:32narrow, weight on your left. The idea of this is is to control the low point
07:36ahead to guarantee a downwards hit, not a scooping hit, leaving you open to fats
07:42and thins. So it's nice and simple, avoid the alignment stick, get the strike and
07:49then you can have some confidence of tight lines.
07:55So next on our list is the tree drill. Now picture yourself in a scenario, you're
08:01under the trees, you get a lot more descriptive in what shot you've got to
08:05play. Now we're gonna use this slightly differently, we're gonna place an
08:08alignment stick directly down your ball to target line. I want you to get
08:13descriptive not up and down but more right to left or left to right. I'm gonna
08:19encourage you to hit two shots here, really getting a feeling of one, drawing
08:23it round the tree, reacting to environment, not necessarily getting
08:27loads of swing thoughts and another shot fading it round the tree. You will be
08:32able to find a common ground here, if you're more of a slicer I'm gonna
08:36encourage you to work more on the draw, more of a draw of the golf ball or a
08:40hooker, I'm gonna encourage you to get back to neutral feeling more of a fade.
08:44So we'll do a bit of the slice one here, club facing just the target, aiming a
08:50little bit right, picturing that ball working round our tree, letting our
08:55environment help us create a shot.
09:01Free up yourself but improve your ball flight, not necessarily just your swing.
09:11Number one on our list and one that's well worth doing before either going out
09:15around a golf with your friends or a big competition day. Tune yourself in to
09:21the pace of the greens. So place an alignment stick just wider of a grip
09:27behind the hole. So all I've done here is place an alignment stick just behind. Now
09:31I would do this on several puts, downhill, uphill and across the slope. This really
09:37gets you dialed in to the pace of the greens for the day with a bit of a
09:41consequence during your warm-up. So one golf ball only, keep rotating around the
09:46green. Can you stop the golf ball between the hole and the alignment stick? Bit of
09:52pressure.
09:59Try that before you go out and play next time and see more puts drop. So there you
10:05have it, that's Alex's look at the 10 best ways to use alignment sticks to help
10:10you swing better and to help you play better in the short game as well. I hope
10:14you found that useful. If you've got any other ways in which you use alignment
10:17sticks out on the golf course or in practice, please do leave some comments
10:20below, we'd love to hear from you. But that's it for now, that's all from the
10:23London Club. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time.