As I work my way back this year, I’m starting to notice that my alignment during my setup is somewhat inconsistent. In fact, my whole setup is somewhat inconsistent, but that’s a problem for another day. Alignment problems are sometimes not apparent, but many times they are the result of other swing flaws. Your body is smart. Sometimes you may subconsciously make little corrections that get the ball where you want it to go. The problem is, it really just masks or compensates for other problems.

Here’s how to check and work on proper alignment. At address, your shoulders, hips, knees, feet, and eyes should be aligned parallel to the target line. Remember that your body should line up parallel left of the target because you’re actually standing a little ways behind the ball. If you were to aim your body lines directly toward the target and make a good swing the ball would go a little right of the target. The analogy of railroad tracks is often used for a good mental picture. Imagine you’re standing on one rail and the ball is positioned on the other rail. The rail where the ball is sitting ends up at the target and the one you’re standing on (that corresponds to your body lines) points a little left of the target.

Sometimes it helps to hold a club across your shoulders and hips to verify that you’re actually lined up parallel to the target line. On the range, I like to place two clubs on the ground. The first points at my target. I’ll tee up a ball right next to it so the club closely approximates my target line (close enough, anyway). I’ll then lay down the second club across my toe line and use it as a guide to check my shoulder, hip, knee, and foot alignment. Then I’ll hit some balls, making sure I’m staying aligned.

If you’re really feeling brave, you can also lay down a third club perpendicular to the one across your target line to check your ball position relative to your feet. Point the grip end of the club directly at the ball.

It’s good to do this check periodically to ensure that your alignment and ball position are where they should be.

If you’ve been misaligned for a while, going through the motions of this drill will feel very strange. But that’s good. It means you’re ironing out a long-standing problem. Keep at it, and eventually you’ll learn to adapt to proper alignment. This is something that even tour pros work on regularly. Give it a try and see if it helps your accuracy.

When we play and practice so much, our clubs become almost like an extension of our bodies. We get so used to their feel, that we might not realize that they’re no longer in their optimal condition. Over time, clubs wear down. It all starts with the grips.

Many claim that the golf grip (how you hold your hands) is the most crucial part of the swing because it’s the only place where your body and the club make contact. And that point of contact is a rubber, leather, or synthetic tube that adorns the top of the club shaft. Over time that material wears down, and also becomes slick with dirt and body oils. When this happens, we can subconsciously lose confidence in our swings because the grips no longer feel quite right. That causes swing compensations that can have a very negative effect over time. If you’re thinking about your grip during the swing or if it’s just not “comfortable”, that’s a sign of trouble.

Grips should be periodically cleaned with warm, soapy water and toweled off to get rid of any gunk that has built up. A time will come when that won’t be enough anymore and there will be sufficient wear to the point where they need to be changed. It hit me this past weekend that I’m at that point. It’s starting to affect my swing, so I’m going to regrip, post haste.

If you aren’t a hands-on person, then you can have your clubs professionally regripped. Check your local pro shop or golf retailer to see if they offer clubsmith services. If you’re more adventurous, you can do your entire set of clubs yourself in an hour or two. Here’s a good regripping tutorial at Golfsmith. It’s easy to learn but a little tedious. The benefit to doing it yourself is that you’ll learn a little something technical about clubs. These are the things that make or break our golfing lives, after all.

However you choose to proceed, keep in mind that you’re altering your clubs. You need to be aware of what size grips work best for your hands. Plus, you’ll need to decide what grip style works best for you. There are advantages to a very soft grip for senior players or players who may suffer from arthritis. Advanced players may gain benefit from playing a firmer grip. Also keep in mind that grips vary in weight and so they affect the weight of your clubs. Changing the swing weight dramatically can affect the trajectory of your shots. All these things are very specific to each player so don’t be afraid to check with your golf pro or a clubsmith if you need help understanding what will work better for you.

I have a day off work tomorrow, so I’ll be spending time at my parent’s house in my dad’s shed regripping my clubs. Have a look at your own grips and if they’re getting slick or worn, get some new ones on there. Playing with worn grips can most definitely lead to some bad shots. Get those grips replaced and you might just save some strokes.

The golf swing is a complex beast. There are so many mistakes that can be made that drain power that it’s mind boggling: casting, late weight transfer, poor swing plane, getting “stuck” on the downswing. The list goes on. But one of the most fixable things that we may not be doing and don’t even realize it, is hitting the ball consistently in the sweet spot of the club.

I’ve heard it said that Bobby Jones used to wear out a spot on his irons that was about the size of a dime. That’s from hitting the ball consistently in the same spot, over and over and over. Today’s clubs are very forgiving, but missing the sweet spot by even 1/4″ can start to rob you of distance.

Try an experiment: next time you’re at your favorite golf shop, see if they carry impact tape. It’s usually sold as little stickers that are affixed to the club face. Impact with the ball causes a dark spot, making it plainly visible exactly where you’re hitting the ball on the club face. If you prefer not to spend the money on specialized impact tape, a layer of masking or duct tape will also work.

When you go to the range, choose a few clubs and hit some balls to see if you’re hitting the sweet spot (check after each shot). If you are, then good for you. If not, then I suggest you start working on it. You may find that you actually hit the ball straighter.

With a swing that would normally produce a straight shot, generally shots hit toward the toe of the club will tend to hook, and shots hit near the heel will tend to slice (or shank if you’re hitting it all the way up by the hosel).

Start trying to home in on the sweet spot in your practice. It won’t be long before you get a heightened awareness of what the ball is doing off the club face and you’ll be able to tell whether you’re hitting the ball out near the toe or thin or near the hosel from feel and from watching your ball flight.

If you’ve spent years hitting the ball off center, then you’re in for a treat when you home in and hit that first pure shot. Keep in mind that if you have a poor swing, then hitting the sweet spot might only be the tip of the iceberg, but you’ll still see some immediate improvement if you’ve been hitting off-center.

Ever since I started this journey, I’ve learned a lot about myself. Most of it is not good. That’s not negativity. That’s reality.

Recently, I happened upon the website for the Titleist Performance Institute (I added it to my sidebar links). Golf fitness is a huge part of my goals. I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can. The TPI website is a top-notch resource for all things golf fitness. For anyone that watches Golf Fitness Academy on the Golf Channel, you’ll be familiar with the TPI and it’s co-founders Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips.

As I explored the site (you have to sign up to get all the content, but it’s free), I discovered tons of exercises to help every part of your body, and also exercises geared toward specific faults and deficiencies. They even have a tool where you can view your own swing and draw lines for analysis. I highly recommend checking out the site.

Now that my unpaid endorsement is out of the way, the reason I brought up the TPI is that they have lots of tests you can perform to check the flexibility of various parts of your body. I was totally intrigued so I tried out several of the flexibility tests. I was somewhat surprised to learn that I’m marginally more flexible than a statue. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m fat and out of shape. I’m working on that and seeing slow, steady improvement. But I’m amazed at how little flexibility I have where it counts for the golf swing.

I can’t link to the exercises directly (you have to sign up), but if you check out the site, try out the 90/90 test, the open book test, and the hip windshield wiper test (under The Swing -> Swing Faults each fault has a section titled “physical causes”). I failed these tests miserably.

I can’t help but wonder: did I lose a lot of flexibility due to my back trouble, or could the back trouble have been brought on because of my terrible flexibility (among other things)? Maybe both for all I know. My swing feels mostly the same as it did before I got hurt as far as length and power and all that. One issue I’ve always had is a shortened follow-through. I think this contributes to my chicken-wing problem because my upper body is slowing down a little too soon after impact. I most certainly have trouble attaining the finish positions that you might see on TV each week.

Whatever the causes or when the decline started, the fact remains: I need to address this issue starting right away. Weight loss is my top priority, but flexibility is going to be a close second. As I try out various techniques, I’ll share the ones that I like and find the most helpful to me.

If you’ve never concerned yourself with flexibility, I recommend checking out the TPI website and trying out some of these tests. Maybe you’ll find that with a little work on increasing your own flexibility, you’ll feel better, shoot better scores, and lessen your chance for injury.

Yesterday, I was sitting at home admiring how nice the weather was outside. I had decided that I was going to take it easy this weekend to heal up because I was a little sore and tired. But with the weather like that, I figured I’d head over to the driving range and hit some balls.

The way the range is situated at my club, it’s a couple hundred yards from the parking lot. So I walked out there, all the while admiring how nice the weather was. I went to the driving range booth, grabbed a large basket, and headed for the tee.

It wasn’t until that point that it finally occurred to me how windy it was (afterward, I checked and the wind was 19 mph, gusting to 29mph). That just goes to show how oblivious I can be sometimes to what’s going on around me. I set up at the tee hitting a few warm-up wedges and I couldn’t believe how windy it was. I was hitting directly into it too.

After a few balls, I started wondering if I should go back to the booth and beg for a rain check. I thought about it for a second, and I realized that I should be embracing the conditions. I’m going to end up playing in conditions like that at some point (and I certainly have before). Now, I know that in some parts of the country, winds like that are very common, but here in New Jersey, that’s just flat-out windy.

So I set out to try and learn as much as I could about the conditions.

I practiced my knock-down shots with a handful of clubs. I hit draws and fades to see how much the wind would affect them. I hit wedges that ballooned up, so I could see how my distances were affected. I hit drivers that were teed down and moved a little toward the middle of my stance, to keep them down. I tried to hit wedges on lower trajectories. This was all in addition to the standard stuff I work on (getting my lower body to fire and not stall out, and making more consistent contact).

I decided then: from now on I’m going to embrace the weather when I practice so I can be better prepared when I face it on the course.