Help with alignment on the course

I struggled with this for a couple years in the 90s. This and overactive feet. I killed both birds by crossing my arms with a club against my shoulders and using the shaft to determine my shoulder line. I did this without shoes and focused on feeling the ground while turning my shoulders on plane (or at least my version of on plane). Eventually I discovered some loft / lie angle problems that were leading to erratic ball flight in spite of good swings. If I'd started with the loft/lie check the process might have been shorter.

I have a buddy (lower hcp) mentoring me. Yesterday at the range he told me to pick a target. So I picked one about 145 yds out. Grabbed my 7 iron and lined up what I thought was the target. He stopped me and put a club at my feet and told me to back up and look at the club DTL. I could not believe how much right I was from the target. at least 20 yds WTF??

He gave me a tip which is basically the same process you have.

So I did just that, but about 5-10 yds to the right for my draw. I nailed close to my target 3-4 times and my misses were not bad either.

After I line up my feet, he said to make sure my lead shoulder (left) is pointing at the target. I was amazed how off I was.

This is my new setup routine. Also, incorporating an 80%  swing to keep my left arm straight. My right arm was bending over 90°, which bent my left arm at the top of the back swing introducing all kinds of unnecessary angles. The feeling of keeping my right elbow straight (even though I am not) during the back swing prevents me from overextending. This and the new setup have me hitting pretty well to my target.

Not so much advice, but if you can pick anything out of what I said, then I hope it helped a little. you are a lower hcp than me so sometimes I don't feel my advice is helpful.

I personally do this...

Align club face to target about 1' in front of ball

Adress ball with feet together and make sure my shoulders are perpendicular to club face

Widen stance left foot first then right.

Keeps the ball in the right position and my shoulders aligned parallel of target.

If your feet were square to your target line, then yes you might be aiming way out there. Some players can aim there feet one way and aim there body another, so its not full proof that way to check your alignment. Like lets say you flare your left foot, now your going to think you aim more left when you don't actually. Just a word of warning there.

For me, i stand behind the ball and trace a line from my target to my ball, and back up, i find a mark from 1 foot to 3 feet infront of the ball. I line up my body parallel to that line,