When it comes to golf, the way you move your body can make an enormous difference. If you find the ball never goes as far or as straight as you’d like it to, then you need to examine how you are standing and the way you hit the ball in various situations.

Hitting the ball correctly is vital if you want the ball to travel straight down the course, rather than veering off into the woods. Sometimes if you haven’t played golf in a while, it can be difficult to remember exactly how you used to stand for the best result. Take some time to try and get the feel of your stance back again, and then focus on connecting well with the ball again. Golf is similar to riding a bike; you never really forget, but sometimes you can get a little rusty and need to refresh your memory.

It’s very important to align your body properly. Having poor alignment can result in balls disappearing into the woods or in a bunker or sand trap, which can mean you lose the hole, the whole round, or just make you feel silly. Spend some time on a driving range to improve the way you hit ball. It’s not expensive, and it’s a great way to practice as much as you need to without anyone else watching. Try out various stances, until you find one that gives you the best result.

There are two parts of the stance that you need to look at. Firstly, if your legs aren’t properly aligned, it’s difficult to hit the ball straight. Try moving your feet into different positions while you’re practicing, and you’ll soon find out that your ball will go in all sorts of different directions. The shoulders are important too, and should be aligned squarely over the ball. If they’re not, you’ll be off center when you connect with the golf ball, with poor results. Again, try changing the position of your shoulders, until you find one that gives you the best result.

The other main aspect of golf is the mental side of the game. Golf is all about lines, both in aligning your stance and in working out what lines you want the golf ball to travel along and making it happen. So you need to develop your ability to think in lines. Where do you want the ball to go? How do you need to hit the ball to make that happen? Try and work in straight lines for this. Then, think about how you need to line up your body compared to the ball to make it go where you want. By getting all the lines to work harmoniously, the end result will be the golf ball traveling alone the line you imagined and ending up in the right place.