How you align your body is critical for your long game golfing consistency and success. And unlike what others have probably taught you, I believe your alignment should be a fraction left with all parts of your body instead of aligning everything parallel to your target line.

How much left?

Well for starters, your feet should be aligned to the left by about an inch with all clubs in your 

Because this feet positioning helps to restrict the turn of your hips and body rotation on the backswing. And this builds up torque and power so you can then explode down and through the ball.

But some people see that advice and get worried that they're going to start slicing everything if they align slightly left. So I want to put your mind to rest if you're thinking that. The alignment I suggest is only an inch open. That's not alot open and most people will not even notice it. Aligning an inch open will not help to produce a slice.

Now with alignment it's very easy to get into bad habits because often what we feel we're doing is a lot different than what is actually happening. So you need to check yourself regularly or get someone else to do it. But here's a simple way to get your alignment correct.

Simply setup to a shot as normal and then once setup place a golf ball behind the heel of each foot like this...

Then move away from your setup position and walk behind your ball and you'll be able to see quickly and easily the alignment of your feet.

Now as I said earlier, every part of your body should be slightly open. But remember this is by no more than an inch. So again, this will in no way cause a slice.

Finally, the way you align your shoulders and arms is critical for your golfing success. So your shoulders should be slightly aligned to the left (open). And your left arm should hang down from the club and be relaxed but virtually straight. Whereas your right arm on the other hand (no pun intended) should be flexed slightly at the elbow.

From the down the line view you should be able to see some of your left arm. If you can't that means you haven't flexed your right arm enough at the elbow and this will cause swing problems.

So if you want to become a great ball striker you need to make sure you get your alignment correct and you need to make good alignment a habit so you can do it consistently without thinking about it.

So look at these two golfers setups and see if you can predict which is the better golfer just by looking at their setups.

Golfer A                                                               Golfer B

Now I hope you chose Golfer B because that's a picture of my setup.      And I play scratch golf whereas Player A does well to break 100.

You see, it's very easy to tell a good golfer just by the way they setup. So if you want to become a great ball striker you need to perfect your setup. Trust me, it's well worth the time and effort to setup as well as you can. And you can do exactly that, you just need to know exactly what is involved and practice and perfect it.

 Everyone can have as good a setup as any pro. It just takes the right knowledge and then some time and effort to make it into a habit. The rewards for doing so are great, i.e. consistent ball striking.