Rec and Sports

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.

So, just to recap the previous article, you should have the ball the distance away from you of the club and swing you’ll be using – that is, further away for the driver, woods and long irons, and nearer to you for the short irons, wedges and putter.

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.

Essentially, the longer the shaft of the club, the further forward along the line of the swing the ball should be. Starting with the driver, then, we place it up towards where our front foot would intersect with the line of the swing – that being the left foot for righthanders 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.

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.