How good your swing, rhythm and alignment are…pale in comparison to the importance of good balance.

A good swing, good rhythm and proper alignment are very individual things, but balance is not.

There is a very simple test that a friend or just someone hitting balls next to you on the range can do.

Balance is all about keeping your feet under you in the setup, back swing, down swing and finish.

If your upper body moves too much from side to side, toward or away from the ball during your swing, your feet are not under you anymore and you are out of balance.

It doesn’t mean you have to be flat footed.

What it means is your weight, center of gravity, whatever you want to call it needs to be over your feet the whole swing or you will be off balance.

It’s hard to describe what that means in print, but here is a test.

Take a setup(position 1), take a back swing and stop(2), then make a finish and stop(3)…hard to do this test during the downswing. Just find someone who is not too bright and needs a 5 iron to the noggin.

Have a friend stand on different sides of you and see how much force it takes to push you off balance in all three of these positions from different directions.

That will tell you where your weak balance points are and just use common sense to fix it.

For example, if at the setup you have too much weight on your toes, if someone just nudges you on the back, you will fall on your face.

If you stop at the top of the back swing and your upper body has made too big of a lateral move…your right shoulder is outside of your right foot and you can be easily knocked over so your right ear hits the dirt.

…and so on.