I am asked on a weekly basis where should i position the ball in my stance. It is a question that has a very simple answer, it should be in the same place for all the irons and woods that are hit from the ground, moving forward towards the target only with the driver or a wood played from a tee.
Ball position is fundamental to a consistent strike on the ball, yet people fiddle around with ball position with regularity. Almost as though they actually have no idea where to play the ball from. Each golfer is different but with the full swing the ball should be positioned at the lowest point of the golf swing, for anything played from the ground.
It is my belief that this promotes far more consistent golf shots than moving the ball backwards or forwards depending on the club that you are hitting. If we think about this logically, the lowest point of our swing arch is always going to be in the same spot, if we swing the club in the same way, regardless of whether we have a 9 iron or a hybrid. By moving the ball, we are encouraging ourselves to make a different swing, and I for one can not be consistent enough if I need to learn a different swing for each club that I am going to be hitting.
Ball position only changes when we change to a shot from a tee with a wood or driver. Why? Because with the driver we want to impact the golf ball on the upswing, rather than the downswing to help generate launch angle and ultimately achieve longer drives. To do this we move the ball closer to the target by a half ball or full ball width at most.
The same is true of chipping, we want to play all chip shots from the same place in our stance. Unlike with the full swing where we are stood parallel to the target line, many golfers choose to stand slightly open when chipping which means the ball needs to be placed in relation to the body, rather than the position between the feet (optical illusion), so we paly the ball from the sternum.
For putting we place the ball underneath our target eye, to ensure that the ball is always positioned correctly to encourage a strike that is slightly on the upswing.
Ball position always stays constant, remember to be consistent we need to prepare consistently.
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