3 smart ways to improve your golf swing with an alignment stick

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you become a smarter, better golfer.

Alignment sticks are some of the simplest — and most useful — training aids out there. With a simple straight edge, there are tons of things you can do to improve your swing.

If you go to any professional or high-level amateur event, you’ll see this in action. There are not many players in the upper echelon of the game who don’t use alignment sticks when they practice.

Recreational players will sometimes use alignment sticks when they practice, but it’s typically a mindless exercise. They simply throw the stick on the ground pointing at the target, and then forget about it the rest of their practice session. And while this isn’t a totally useless exercise, there are many more useful ways you can use an alignment stick when you practice.

Check out the video below where GOLF Teacher to Watch James Hong shows us three different ways you can use an alignment stick when you practice.

1. Start line

Having an alignment stick on the ground pointing down your target line is a great way to make sure you’re aimed correctly throughout your practice session. However, Hong likes to take things a step further and use another alignment stick 10 yards down range to work on start line. All you need to do is take the alignment stick and jam it in the ground so it’s sticking straight up somewhere in front of you when you’re hitting balls.

“The mistake a lot of people make is they assume that the idea is to hit the stick,” Hong says. “What I want them to do is actually start the ball just to the right of the stick.”

With the alignment stick serving as a start-line guide, you can get instant feedback on where your clubface is pointing at impact and make the necessary adjustments.

2. Body movement

Alignment sticks don’t just have to be used passively during your practice. You can also use them as an aid to see how your body is moving during the swing.

For this drill, Hong suggests holding the alignment stick across your chest so it sticks out behind your trail shoulder. This will show you where your shoulder plane is oriented throughout your swing.

“I want them to get a feel that they are turning in and getting a good feel for their chest and shoulders rotating through,” he says. “And they can see that as they swing.”

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3. Slice fixer

You can also use an alignment stick to train (or trick) your shoulders into moving different ways during the swing. For this drill, Hong again suggests holding the alignment stick across your chest with each end sticking out equally from both shoulders. Next, he says you should feel your shoulders making backward circles — much like you would doing a backstroke swimming motion.

“If you can do this with the alignment stick, what’ll start to happen, that translates more to the swing coming from the inside,” he says.

If you can incorporate this backstroke motion into your golf swing, you will start to swing more from inside to out and turn those weak slices into powerful draws.