ABSTRACT
The use of a golf club or other form of straight line to assist the alignment procedure is common in golf teaching, particularly for junior golfers. The underlying rationale is based upon developmentalist views of children’s ability to visualise a straight line from ball to target in order that they can stand parallel to this imaginary line. Contemporary mathematicians have expressed a view that today’s children may be far better at visualisation than adults. If this were true then golf teachers may find it more useful to teach alignment from the start without the use of an external aid. Tests were undertaken by 23 juniors between the ages of 9–17 years to examine their understanding of the term parallel, their ability to align their feet parallel to a fixed line, and their ability to align to a distance target without the assistance of an external aid. Results showed that they could all recognise parallel lines and that there was no significant difference in their ability to stand parallel to a given or an imaginary line. The commonest stance was closed.
