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Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment / Traditional Alignment |
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Written by Craig Foster
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Sunday, 22 June 2008 |
Traditional guidelines of pre-shot alignment include checkpoints of aligning a golfer's feet, hips, and shoulders parallel to a target line. A leading hand grip with two knuckles visible is recommended for most golfers, while a three knuckle grip is often helpful for golfers with lower strength levels in their arms and hands.
Even with accurate alignment of the traditional guidelines, golfers at the game's highest level can hit shots that are wildly off target. When this happens during television broadcasts, the explanation by leading experts is that the player either was early or late in their "release". This means that the timing of hand and forearm rotation towards the target through impact was not synchronized to align the clubface in the desired configuration at impact.
The waggle is widely used and taught so that golfers can get a preview of the clubface as it reaches the point of impact (impulse) with the ball. While a waggle can be helpful in producing a desired clubface alignment at impact, it does not insure a successful shot.
The fact that the hands, wrists, and forearms can easily rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise, or pronate and supinate, during a swing is a major reason that it can be difficult to produce a desired clubface angle at impact. Such rotation can cause problems as soon as the back swing is made, causing the club to travel inside, outside, above, or below the swing plane. Unless correcting moves are made during the swing, the shot will not have much chance of being successful.
Clubface alignment is directly effected by pronation and supination of the hands, wrists, and forearms. This applies to putting as well as full shots. Comments that a golfer did not "release the putter head" following a pushed putt are frequently heard during television broadcasts.
Clubface alignment is difficult to control because of the amount of potential motion of the hands, wrists, and forearms that can become motion during a swing or putting stroke. Golfer's with elevated levels of hand-eye coordination are able to produce a high percentage of successful shots, but can also fail at inopportune moments.
One solution to the problem of synchronizing club face alignment with a target line at impact is Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment. This method takes into consideration the potential pronation and supination motion of the hands, wrists, and forearms that can occur during a swing or putting stroke. Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment uses pronation and supination as components of a pre-shot routine so that the clubface alignment at address will have a greatly improved probability of being the club face alignment at impact.
Putting accuracy can benefit greatly from dynamic pre-shot alignment because it stabilizes the hands without increased grip pressure. The golfer can relax the hands for optimum feel for distance while keeping the stroke on track throughout the stroke. A track type training aid is unnecessary because the hands and arms are naturally resistant to going off line. Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment minimizes the amount of undesirable motion that can occur during a stroke.
Chipping accuracy is benefited as well from Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment.
No gadgets or training aids are necessary to learn or use Dynamic Pre-Shot Alignment. In fact, many of the most popular training aids for keeping your putting on track, or your swing on plane become unnecessary.
For more information please visit www.dynaligngolf.com.
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