Many golfers casually grip the club, align their body to the target, and then align the club face to the target line or their body by manipulating their hands. This haphazard process for club and body alignment is a major cause of inconsistent results. The best way to improve your aim and alignment is to develop a fundamentally solid pre-shot routine and use it consistently.

A pre-shot routine is just a series of steps you go through, prior to every shot, to properly align your body and club face and prepare yourself mentally for the shot. All good players have one. However, learning a fundamentally correct routine without the aid of a good instructor is difficult. The AccuSpirit training aid makes learning one yourself a lot easier!

While there are a lot of differences in the pre-shot routines of even the best players, there seems to be common elements incorporated into almost every better player's routine. Let's go through them and explain how incorporating the AccuSpirit will ease the learning process and improve the accuracy of your alignment.

1) Take your grip with the leading edge of the club face pointing directly away from you (i.e. square to target line). With the AccuSpirit attached to your club, it's easy. First take your stance and ground the club. Then just rotate the shaft until the bubble is centered between the reference marks, and take your grip. It is important to square the club face when you initially take your grip because it gives you the best chance of keeping it square to the target line at impact. On the other hand, if you haphazardly grip the club and then rotate your wrists to align the club face to the target line, the hands are no longer in the correct hitting position. This makes it much more difficult to square the club face at impact.

At this point, you may want to take a practice swing to prepare yourself for the shot.

2) Stand behind the ball and find the target line. Most instructors recommend finding a spot (on the target line) a short distance ahead of the ball to use as a reference point for aligning the club face. It's easier to align the club face to a spot that's close rather than the flag in the distance.

Approach the ball from the side with your feet close together and the tips of your feet approximately parallel to the target line. Ground the club behind the ball and align the leading edge of the club face perpendicular (square) to the target line, using the spot as a reference point.

3) Separate your feet with the tips of your shoes falling on a line parallel to the target line (just left of target). It is critical that you align the club face first and then your feet and body and not the reverse. It is also important to remember that aligning the club face properly is not enough, the direction of a shot is greatly affected by the alignment of your feet, hips, and shoulders because your swing path will naturally follow your body alignment.

At this point you can check your overall alignment with the AccuSpirit training aid. If the bubble is still centered, that means your club face and body are properly aligned and you can swing away.

If the bubble isn't centered, then one of two things could have happened: the first possibility is that the club face is aligned correctly at the target but your feet and body are aligned left or right. The second possibility is that your feet are aligned properly but the club face is open or closed. You have to experiment to figure out which of the two is ocurring, and eliminate the problem.

Establishing a solid pre-shot routine and using it faithfully will greatly improve your body and club face alignment; the result being greater consistency and lower scores. The AccuSpirit golf training aid will get you that solid pre-shot routine in far less time by initially showing you what proper alignment looks like, and providing you a means to constantly check your progress. Even those golfers who already have solid pre-shot routines will benefit, as they can fine-tune the precision of their club face and body alignment.