Symptom
I don't aim where I think I do
The strike feels fine but the ball finishes offline, because your feet, shoulders or clubface point somewhere other than where you think they do.
This usually traces to something already true before the club moves: grip, aim, posture, or where the ball sits in your stance. All of those are checkable standing still, which is why the questions ask you to look rather than to guess.
Common ways golfers describe this
Why do I aim right of the target?
I aim left because I slice
Am I aiming wrong?
I hit it straight but not at my target
Straight but offline
- Middle of the stance
- Where the weight sits
Narrow it to one cause
Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.
A few questions · no account needed
What you will be asked
- Set up to a target, lay a club along your toes, then step back behind the ball. Where does that club point?
- Keep the club along your toes and hold another across the front of your shoulders. Do the two point the same way?
- When you walk into a shot, what gets aimed first?
- On shots you strike out of the middle, where does the ball start, and does it bend?
- Do you aim away from the target on purpose, to allow for your usual curve?
Where this can come from
These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.
Body aimed right of target
Feet, hips or shoulders point right of the ball-to-target line. Right-handed golfers do this far more often than they believe: a square stance runs parallel to the target line, so the feet point at a spot left of the flag, which looks wrong from address. Turning until the feet point at the flag aims the body right. Shots either go right with it or require a compensating move across the ball.
Read the fix
Body aimed left of target
Feet, hips or shoulders point left of the ball-to-target line. It usually starts when the shoulders swivel open to follow the eyes toward the target, or when a golfer aims left on purpose to allow for a slice. The path tends to follow the body, so aiming further left to allow for a slice reliably makes the slice worse.
Read the fix
Clubface aimed off at address
The face is soled pointing somewhere other than the intended start line before the swing begins. It usually happens when the stance is taken first and the face is squared to the body rather than the target, or when the grip is completed after the club is already on the ground. Everything the swing does afterwards is a correction for a starting error.
Read the fix
No repeatable setup or routine
Aim, ball position, stance width and grip get rebuilt slightly differently on every shot, so face angle, low point and strike location all vary with them. Address is the reference the whole swing is measured from, and a reference that moves explains misses that seem to have no pattern.
Read the fix
Ball too far forward in the stance
The ball sits ahead of where the swing arc reaches its lowest point. With an iron off turf this means the club is already climbing at contact. It also encourages the shoulders to aim left at address, which pulls the path further left and adds curve to the miss.
Read the fix
Related symptoms
These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.
- I keep taking on shots I can't pull offThe big numbers come from decisions rather than swings: going for greens out of range, threading gaps through trees and firing at every flag.Shares body aimed right of target
- My setup is different every timeThere is no set sequence before your shots, so aim, ball position, stance and grip drift from one swing to the next, and you often arrive over the ball still unsure of the shot.Shares body aimed right of target
- Bunker shots come out right or left of where I aimedThe ball gets out cleanly but starts well right of the flag after opening the face, or pulls left along an open stance, so good escapes still finish on the wrong side of the green.Shares clubface aimed off at address
- Everything is going rightYour misses all finish right of the target, some flying dead straight on a line right of it and some bending further right as they go.Shares body aimed right of target
- Great on the range, lost on the courseYou strike it well ball after ball on the range, then the same swing starts topping and chunking it, or sending it sideways, as soon as the round begins.Shares body aimed right of target
- Divots pointing left or right of the targetThe divot after the ball angles clearly left or right instead of running along the target line, which is the plainest record on the ground of which way the club was travelling.Shares body aimed left of target
What this rests on
- Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
Discussion
Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.
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