Golfer’s Tip Sheet – Position the Ball in Your Stance 2
Following my last article, describing where to position the ball in your stance, several of you emailed me wanting more about where to have the ball along the line of the shot direction, in relation to your feet. Re-reading the article, I see I concentrated most on distance from the body, as that’s what I struggled most 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.
Recapping the original article, it was about how you need to ball to be the correct distance from you based on the club you’ve chosen to use. The driver being the longest club means the ball with be furthest from you, with the short irons and the putter being nearest to you.
What I learned to do in terms of positioning along the line of the swing, then, was position the ball at different points depending on the club. So not only are we placing the ball at different distances from ourselves dependent on the club selected, we’re also positioning it at different positions along the swing plane, also based on the club we’ve chosen.
The longest clubs should see the ball placed further forward in your stance. That is, along the line of the direction you want the shot to go in, opposite or near to your front foot, which will be your left foot if you’re a righthanded golfer like me.
With its long shaft, the driver requires a bigger, more exaggerated swing than the other clubs. As a result, we don’t want to hit the ball too early in the swing, so placing the ball forward along the line of the shot enables us to hit the ball on the up, rather than coming down in the swing.
For almost every amateur, the only time we really think about using the driver is from the tee. Having a high tee is recommended for the driver, so this in combination with our forward placing, will see us hit the ball up away from the tee and sailing further down the fairway.
With the other clubs not requiring as big a swing, and also not needing us to hit the ball quite so much on the up, we position the ball further back down the line of the swing, with the shortest clubs having their best ball position in line with your eyes, in the middle of your stance.
Mike Jackson runs an online golf equipment store, where you can buy golf clubs, golf balls, golf gifts, golf bags etc.
Tags: golf, Golf Tips
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