Many golf books tell you how to line up by having you imagine that you are standing on one train track, with a ball on the other, and the track the ball is on is running straight at the target. They also warn that if you set the lane where you’re aiming at the target, you’ll be aiming the ball 20 yards to the right. This image is not useful and the warning is incorrect.
Let’s address the warning first. Tracks that are parallel to your feet will be parallel 150 yards down the range. There is an illusion that they diverge, which you see if you stand behind the “tracks” and look down, but that’s about it. This is an illusion that European painters overcame in the fifteenth century. If the tracks are parallel, the ball target track and the stance target track will stay two feet apart, say, no matter how far you go in range.
Try this experiment so you can see the truth for yourself. Get two golf clubs and place them on the ground 20 inches apart. Crouch low to the ground so you get a worm’s eye view along the right hand stick and aim it at a distant target. Place the other stick parallel to the stick on the right. Now stand with your toes against the left hand stick as if you were heading a ball that is on the right hand stick. Turn your head to look at the target. Fix the location of the target in your field of vision; remember where you are.
Now lower yourself back to the ground and point the left hand stick at the target and set the right hand stick parallel to it. Take a steering position on the left stick again and turn your head the same way you did before to face the target. The target will be in the same place in your field of view. You won’t be able to tell the difference from the first setup.
Let me say this again. Two parallel lines that are 20 inches apart at your feet will still be 20 inches apart when they are 150 yards apart. If you point your body at the target, you’ll miss by an amount that could only affect Johnny Miller in the early 1970s.
Geometrically speaking, it doesn’t matter if you line up your shot on the ball’s goal line or the player’s goal line. In practical terms, it does, because it’s more difficult to line up with the target line of the ball. If you had to aim a gun, would you hold it in front of your eye and look down the barrel, or would you hold it at arm’s length and aim down the barrel? Alignment errors occur because you are trying to set a line parallel to one that is offset from you and you are wrong.
So forget the train tracks, forget the ball goal line. Those images don’t make things any easier, they actually invite misalignment. Align with the target. Take a practice swing and stick to your goal. Where you are looking is where your swing was pointing. It’s that easy.
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