You're Correct!

The correct ball position is often overlooked or taken for granted by the majority of golfers as they tend to look at more advanced aspects of what is going wrong in their game.

A correct ball position can easily be the difference between striking the ball to the best of your ability and those horrible thin or fat strikes we hate so much. Ball position is also relative to a players swing path as this angle determines where the bottom of their swing arc actually is.

For example, a player swinging out to in would normally have their ball positioned further towards the left foot as the bottom of the swing arc happens later than players who swing in to out.

Getting the fundamentals correct is vitally important to any golfers development, a player adjusting ball position to fit a bad swing will suffer severe consistency issues.

Ball Position Guide

Driver: The ball position with a driver should be placed inside the left heel in order to give the player more time to make the transition from back swing to down swing, release hands and rotate through impact. Also catching the ball on the up will aid the height, distance and trajectory of the ball as the loft on drivers tends to be between 8-13 degrees.

A ball positioned more centrally in the stance will cause the club head to strike the ball from an open position as it has not had sufficient time to straighten up before impact. Or if the player had a steep angle of attack it can cause the ball to come off the top of the driver club face and be skied.

Mid irons: Mid irons have much more loft than a driver and a shorter shaft so hitting up on the ball is not important. If a player places the ball in the same position with a 7 iron as a driver, the majority of strikes will be thin. A thin strike is caused when the bottom of the club head strikes the middle of the ball and shoots off at a low trajectory.

If the ball is positioned too far towards the right foot in the set up the angle of attack into the ball will be increased therefore causing huge divots, uncomfortable strikes otherwise known as fat shots.

We all want a fast, powerful looking golf swing. However, increasing club head speed is rarely a good way of trying to fix a fault in golf. When the club head speed increases, the quality of control during the swing certainly decreases, thus causing worse strikes.

Increased club head speed should be done with control and when your swing is at the stage of consistency and repeatability.

If a player slices the ball, for example, increasing club head speed will cause them to slice the ball even more because the amount of spin imparted on to the ball will be increased.

The grip - the most hated change in golf. It is the only part of your body connected to the golf club so it is not something we rush to change. A grip change can have a positive effect on a clubs angle into the ball, however, it often changes the angle of the swing path, therefore working more directly with shot direction as opposed to shot strike.

Amongst most amateurs, alignment is a very difficult aspect of setting up for a shot. It is incorporated within a pre-shot routine which not enough amateurs actually have. It deeply affects the balls direction and where a golfer finishes in relation to the intended target.

It would be an extremely important aspect for any golfer to work on and maintain, however, it does not have any implications for how the golf ball is struck.