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 going to address the golf ball over it
00:52and match it on the way back and then feeling as though I'm swinging under it on
00:56the way through. It's a great way of getting yourself back to neutral.
01:06Definitely a great one to give yourself a better swing play. Now I love this
01:14drill for two reasons. This is great for getting clubface alignment but also
01:19committing to our start line. Now you've probably seen Jordan Spieth do this
01:23drill and he's known as one of the best putters in the world, right? So what I
01:28want you to do here is have a few putts, work out the terrain where you are, then
01:33get this alignment stick running exactly where you think you have to aim to start
01:38this putt for it to break into the hole. So that's the first area. Second area, all
01:44we're looking for is you to make a 90 degree angle between your clubface and
01:48the alignment stick to make sure you've got square clubface alignment address.
01:53The final thing is having to commit to our 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, we almost get a few practice goes getting used to
02:36taking some sand before the ball. So push them down, get a bit of an imprint with
02:41both, move them to the side and all I want you to do is just have two practice
02:47goes looking to take the back line and then the forward line. So one, two, readjust
02:58if you've gone a little bit ahead or a little bit before, move in looking for
03:03the line, club head inside a left heel, hit the shot.
03:08Next 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 balls 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. Next on our list is the one I
04:14call the golf swing checker. This is one that you can do at the range but I think
04:18it's great for you to do at home as just something to do with good reps. So grab
04:22an alignment stick, grab a golf club, place a golf ball on the ground or
04:26whatever you feel appropriate at home. Place that alignment stick just up your
04:30left-hand side and it should be touching at this address position. I want you then
04:35to follow this process. I think this is absolutely great for making sure that
04:38you're actually doing some good reps on your golf swing. So number one, keep the
04:44alignment stick on the side of the body, encourages more of a one-piece takeaway.
04:48Point the alignment stick to the ground, point the alignment stick to the ground
04:52behind you. We're now looking for this move, now this is the key point. Most of
04:56us swing a little bit over the top, think of your target line in front of you in
05:00this direction. We're looking for this alignment stick to point just to the
05:05right of target, encouraging an in-to-out path. Into impact, back up your
05:09left-hand side, don't let it touch the body, to pose it. You know you're making
05:15some good reps on your golf swing, so you get to the range, you can make things flow
05:18just 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 who's
06:26struggling 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.
06:34What we want to do is make sure our first alignment stick, our red, is set for
06:39where your ball position is relative to the club that you've got. The next one,
06:43the yellow, I want you to focus that being your low point. So when you hit a
06:47shot away we're looking to strike the ball, then the turf, so really looking for
06:53your divot to start on the back of the ball and then down at its lowest point
06:57where our 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 golfer's heart is having a tight lie around the greens. Now this is really
07:23easy, all we're going to need is alignment stick. We're going to place our golf ball,
07:27a club head ahead of the alignment stick. Take your normal stance, nice and narrow,
07:32weight on your left. The idea of this is is to control the low point ahead to
07:37guarantee a downwards hit, not a scooping hit, leaving you open to fats and thins.
07:43So it's nice and simple, avoid the alignment stick, get the strike and then
07:50you 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 going to use this slightly differently, we're going to place
08:08an alignment 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
08:19going to encourage you to hit two shots here, really getting a feeling of one,
08:22drawing it around the tree, reacting to the environment, not necessarily getting
08:27loads of swing thoughts, and another shot, fading it around the tree. You will be
08:32able to find a common ground here, if you're more of a slicer, I'm going to
08:36encourage you to work more on the draw, more of a drawer of the golf ball or a
08:40hooker, I'm going to encourage you to get back to neutral, feeling more of a
08:44thing. So we'll do a bit of the slice one here, club facing just the target, aiming
08:50a little bit right, picturing that ball working around 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 the
09:21pace of the greens. So place an alignment stick just wider of a grip behind the
09:28hole. So all I've done here is place an alignment stick just behind. Now I would
09:32do this on several puts, downhill, uphill, and across the slope. This really gets
09:37you dialed in to the pace of the greens for the day, with a bit of a consequence
09:42during your warm-up. So one golf ball only, keep rotating around the green, can
09:47you stop the golf ball between the hole and the alignment stick? Bit of pressure.
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
10:10help you swing better, and to help you play better in the short game as well. I
10:14hope you found that useful. If you've got any other ways in which you use
10:17alignment sticks out on the golf course, or in practice, please do leave some
10:20comments below, we'd love to hear from you. But that's it for now, that's all
10:23from the London Club, thanks for watching, we'll see you next time.