Meredith Kirk on Aim, Alignment & the Power of Intention

Hi, I'm Meredith Kirk, LPGA Teaching Professional. Today I'm at Pawley's Plantation Golf and Country Club, near Myrtle Beach, to give you a tip on commonly overlooked golf fundamentals – and the secret to creating the shot of your dreams!

The two golf fundamentals that we're talking about are aim and alignment. What I have here are two clubs to help us with that. The first club is going to help you with the aim; you can set your club face down on this club (in front of you), and it keeps you on the target line. Now the second club, you see it's behind my heels, and a lot of teaching professionals actually have that club on the toes but I prefer not to. I believe that when you have the club on the heels, you're going to get proper alignment because a lot of players, their toes flare out and sometimes that can be a little deceiving and give you a false read on what your alignment really is.

Now let's go a little bit deeper into the alignment. Once you're set up and you're nice and square with the club face on your target line, and your heels are back against your alignment stick, you want to make sure that your feet, your knees, your hips, your arms, your shoulders and your eyes are all square to the target. Here I am, I'm set up, I'm nice and square to my target. My aim is right down the middle. My body is square to the target. Everything is parallel at this point. That's basically what you want with aim and alignment.

Now, I want to give you the big secret to help you execute your shots with proper aim and alignment – and that secret is the power of intention, so let's talk about that. Intention is your aim, your goal, your target. The first step in your pre-shot routine should always be about intention. A lot of people say it's about finding your target – and that is true, but it's also about the intention of the shot. Intention takes place in your mind. You always want to make sure that you visualize the shot prior to swinging the club, and you want to repeat that in your mind a few times. That will help build your confidence when you go to address and you actually make the swing.

To find your intention, what you want to do is you want to step away from the ball, about 10 to 15 feet, take a look at your target, and in your mind you develop the intention. For me, on this hole, well I know that I want to go right down the middle, over that tree. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to think about that a few times in my mind. Then when I go to my pre-shot routine, I really have the confidence that I need to actually make the shot – and that, my friends, is the secret to golf. You have to believe that you can make the shot, and when you have that belief that you can make the shot, you'll be surprised at how it can change your game.