Positioning the Golf Ball in the Stance Part 2
In my last article I described where you should place the ball in your stance. Many people got in touch with me to explain further where the ball should be in terms of being forward or back in your stance, and on reading the article again, I notice I spent more time on distance from your body as that’s the area I had most problems with.
By the sound of most of your emails, though, it seems many of you are more interested in the positioning along the line of the shot, rather than from the body. Golfers truly do come in many shapes and sizes! From my original notes I’ve put this second part of the article together for you.
To quickly recap the first part, you should place the ball away from you based on the club you’ve chosen for the shot at hand. With the driver having the longest club shaft, this means the ball will be furthest from you for the driver, and nearest to you for the shorter clubs.
So what I was taught to do once I’d mastered that, was again based on the club selected for the shot, and placing the ball at different positions along the line of the swing. So there are 2 elements of positioning that are dependent on club selection – distance from the body and placement along the line of the shot.
Based on the length of the club shaft again, the ball will be further up the line of swing for the longer clubs. With the driver being the longest club, when using this we should place the ball right near the front of the stance, along the swing line. ie opposite or nearly opposite your left foot for righthanded golfers.
Because the driver requires a big looping swing (with it having the longest shaft of any club), we don’t want to hit the ball too early. The ball needs to be positioned forward in the stance, so the club head hits it on the up, rather than on the way down in the swing.
Amateur golfers will only use the driver for the vast majority of the time on a tee shot. The combined effect of placing the ball forward in the swing, and having a high tee which is also recommended for a driver, will see us hitting the ball up from the tee, thus sending it further.
The other clubs, of course, are not as long, so don’t require a forward placement of the ball. Staying on the line of the swing, we should place the ball for the shorter clubs back from our front foot towards the middle, with the ideal position for the shortest clubs being directly in front of our eyeline, in the middle of the stance.
Mike Jackson runs an online golf equipment store, where you can buy golf clubs, golf balls, golf gifts, golf bags etc.
