Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Stop Making This Critical Mistake With Your Ball Position"

Do you struggle to hit high, launching drives?

Or do you tend to thin your wedges?

It could be a critical mistake you’re making with ball position.

Today, Professor Q is going to explain this very common error…

…and he’ll explain exactly what should be the determining factor in your ball position.

This is a deep dive into ball position with several surprising facts!

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Quentin Patterson    

Video Duration: 9:42

Video Transcription:

Q: I see a lot of golfers make a critical mistake with their ball position. I want to make sure that you're not doing the same thing. So tell me if this looks like you let's say that this stick here represents the middle of my stance So it's right in between my feet here when you hit a nine iron You may play your ball position right here just forward to the middle of your stance Then when you go to a longer club like a five iron You may go to this yellow ball and play it a little bit more forward.

And then when you hit a fairway wood like a three wood, you may play it toward this front ball, this American flag ball, really far forward in your stance. The problem with this is that you're letting the club dictate the ball position and really what you want to do is let the shot dictate your ball position.

So, for example, if I push my fairway wood ball position this far forward and I'm hitting the shot off of the ground, it's going to make it very, very difficult for me to make ball first contact because I have to have a little bit of a downward angle of attack into the ball. If the ball position is that far forward, I'm going to tend to want to hit up on the ball or swing more level with the ball.

And if the ground is in the way, that's going to make it very difficult. Now, if the ball is elevated on a tee, or let's say I have a lie where the ball is really sitting up on the grass and I have a little bit of air underneath the ball to be able to hit up on it. And I want to kind of launch a three wood higher than, yeah, that would be a good ball position for that.

I'm letting the shot dictate the ball position, but I see so many golfers put the push the ball position so far forward with those longer clubs. And then they tend to chunk and thin and top those shots, or even worse, they may come over the top in an effort to be able to hit this shot. Because if I come way over the top, if I come over the top like this That pushes the bottom of my swing forward and allows me to hit down on the ball more easily.

But the problem with that is I'm going to hit really bad shots if I come way over the top. So I don't want to push that ball position forward too far forward if the shot doesn't allow me to do that. So we want to let the shot dictate the ball position. Not the actual club. Now, you may be in situations where you hit certain shots with certain, certain clubs, but you're still letting the shot dictate the ball position.

So, what would be some instances where I may put the ball position back in my stance? Well, let's think about what putting the ball back in your stance does. It does a couple things. It makes it easier for us to hit down on the ball. So, let me move it just a little bit back like this. All right. So I got it maybe two balls back of the middle of my stance here.

What would be a situation where I would play it there? Well, if I want to have a more downward angle of attack on the ball, it makes it easier to do that because I'm going to be able to chop down into it. So if I'm in some really deep rough. right? Where I have, I don't have a lot of space behind the ball.

I really kind of have to hit down on the ball to be able to get clean contact on the ball. I may play the ball more back in my stance to make it easier for me to hit more down on it, right? If the ball is back in my stance, it's a lot easier to attack the ball from the inside, right? So if I want to hit a big hook, Right.

Maybe I got to hit around a tree and I want to get a big hook curve on the ball. I may put it back in the stance, close the face, and then that's going to make it easier for me to attack this ball from the right with a closed face to allow the ball to hook. Right. Now with my wedges, right, what I like to do, again, this, this would be just kind of my stock standard kind of shot with a wedge.

I actually like to play the ball a little bit back of the middle. because that promotes a more downward angle of attack. It also helps me to get my hands a little bit more ahead of the ball. So what that's going to allow me to do is that's going to allow me to launch it lower. When they look at tour players, they see that with their wedge shots, especially like those distance wedge shots, like 70, 80 yards, they launch it between 27 and 30 degrees.

So if I put that ball, a ball back in my stance, that makes it easier for me to launch it at that angle, but I still keep that spin on there. Because I'm getting that downward angle of attack on the ball that gives me that, that lower launch high spin kind of shot that the pro players hit that makes it a lot easier to control your distance.

And then when it lands, it likes to stick right there instead of caroming over because you have the spin, right? So. But let's say I'm in a situation where I want to hit a really high wedge, right? I don't want to hit hit a low 20, you know, maybe I have a tree in front of me, right? Well, I wouldn't play the ball position here.

I have to let the shot dictate my ball position So I'm gonna do is I'm gonna move the ball position a little bit Maybe a little bit forward of the middle of my stance and that's gonna allow The the club to release a little bit more as it gets to the ball Right and that's gonna allow the the club to have a little bit more loft on that contact to allow the ball to go up Up, right?

So that would be a situation where I might move the ball up in my stance. So back in my stance promotes more downward angle attack, lower ball flight, and it makes it easier to swing from the inside. On the other side of that, if I put the ball more forward in my stance, right, that's going to promote higher ball flight.

That's going to make it easier for me to attack the ball from outside in. If I want to hit kind of a big slice, right, I may put the ball a little bit forward in my stance to make it easier for me. to attack that ball, come, come in more out to end to be able to have that open face on it and create that, that slice kind of spin, but you have to be a little bit careful with this, especially if you're hitting shots off the ground, if you don't have a lie where, uh, you know, if you don't have like a cushy lie, this can be a very difficult thing to do because what may end up happening is you may actually end up coming in thin because the ball isn't sitting up really nicely.

And when you hit it thin, yeah. Right? The ball is going to go lower, right? Because when you hit it thin, the face will twist down. And that's going to make the ball go lower. And that's going to get the opposite effect of what you want if you move it forward in your stance. Right? If we're talking about the driver, let's pretend like this is a driver.

If I want to hit a really high launching drive, right? What I'll probably do is I'll play that ball really far forward. If this is the middle of my stance here, I'm going to play that ball really far forward because what, what's going to allow me to hit a high launching drive? Well, what's going to allow me to do that is to one, I want to let that club release a little bit.

I don't want to have a ton of shaft lean on this ball at impact. So having the ball more forward is going to allow me to have, you know, little to no shaft lean at impact. It's also going to allow me to hit up on the ball. right? And if I hit up on the ball, that's gonna allow it to launch higher. So that's why you see a lot of tour players when they really try to launch one, they'll tee it higher.

When you see the long drive guys, right? They're going to tee it really high because that's the most conducive thing to distance is to hit it higher with less spin and putting the ball forward in your stance and tee it up higher allows me to come in and have that very upward angle of attack on the ball.

Now I can launch that ball super high. But let's say I'm in a situation where I don't want to do that, right? I don't want to launch it super high. I want to have kind of like a lower, like maybe I'm hitting into the wind, right? I don't want to launch the ball super high into the wind because the more, the higher the ball goes up in the air, the more that wind can, can have time to affect it, right?

So if I'm hitting into the wind, I may want to keep it a little bit lower so the wind doesn't affect it as much. I'm going to have a little bit more control of it and then hopefully I can get a little bit of rollout afterwards. So, so what I might do is I might, I take it and only tee it up about that high, right?

So that allows me to still be able to hit it in the middle of my face with my driver, but my ball position is going to be not quite as far forward. So if I say this is kind of the middle of my stance here, it's a, it's a little bit forward of that, right? But I'm going to be coming in more level on the ball.

Now I don't really want to hit down on my driver that can produce some spin that I don't want when I'm trying to hit it lower. I really just want to come in very level with it. And I want to hit that ball in the middle of the face, right? And in order to do that, it's typically going to be about right here.

Now you may need to experiment with it to find the perfect ball position that works best for you. Everybody swings a little bit different, but for me, that's going to be a ball position that's going to be about right here. Now my club is going to come in very level with the ball. I'm going to have a little bit more shaffling at contact, which is going to help me de loft it a little bit.

And I'm going to hit it in the middle of the face instead. Uh, you know, before I might've tried to hit it a little bit above the middle of the face because that allows me to get a little bit higher launch and lower spin. But for this, I'm not trying to get a high launch. I'm trying to get a lower launch.

So I'm going to be aiming for the middle of the face. And again, this is for a driver. I know I don't have a driver in my hand here, but this is for a driver. This would allow me to come in and have an, you know, almost like a stinger like drive, uh, with it, with the driver, that's going to allow me to keep it lower.

So. Critical lesson here is let the shot dictate your ball position. Don't let the club dictate your ball position. Now ball position is a key for consistency, but one of the other keys to consistency is our stable and fluid spine. We want to make sure that we're nice and angled away at address. We want to stay that way as we get to the top and we actually have a great video.

in the stable fluid spine course where we use an alignment stick just like this right in the middle of your stance. So if you're a member of the website, you can go and work on that video, really increase your consistency to get to it. All you have to do is click the instruction tab, then click the top speed golf system, then go to the straight or go to the stable fluid spine.

From there, you'll see the stick drill, the nose behind the stick drill. That's really, really going to help you to be able to increase your consistency. Hope you're playing well. I'll talk to you next time.