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, 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.
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