Positioning the Golf Ball in the Stance Part 2

After I'd written my last article, about where to put the ball in your stance, many people got in touch with me asking to explain more about distancing the ball between your feet. Looking back, I realise that, because I'd struggled more on distance from my body, I spent most of the last article discussing that aspect.

Whereas, it appears most of you are more concerned with the other aspect of the ball position. Just proves once again how varied we are as golfers! I revisited the notes I made during coaching, and realise there is more to say on the subject, hence this second part of the article.

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.

99% of the time for amateur golfers, the driver will only be used from the tee, so placing the ball on a high tee will combine with this technique of hitting it late in the swing, to hit the ball up off the tee and give us a clean and long strike.

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.