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.
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.
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.
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.
The driver is the longest of the clubs, and requires more of a rounded swing than any other clubs. Because of this, we don't want to hit the ball too early in the swing, so when we place it near to our front foot, we will be hitting the ball on the upswing rather than the downswing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The driver is the longest of the clubs, and requires more of a rounded swing than any other clubs. Because of this, we don't want to hit the ball too early in the swing, so when we place it near to our front foot, we will be hitting the ball on the upswing rather than the downswing.
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.
About the Author:
Mike Jackson runs an online golf equipment store, where you can buy golf clubs, golf balls, Christmas golf gifts, golf bags etc.
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