Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

With your stance you need to make sure it is adaptable for the types of clubs that you are using. Now I have three examples here, I have got iron, I have got a wedge and I have also got my driver. But you can really go through in detail of every single club if you wanted to. If you have 14 clubs in your bag, potentially you can have 14 different ball positions depending on the type of shot that you want. Although there are simple rules of thumb which can condense it down a little bit further, but here we are just going to talk about how you can start adjusting your ball position in relation to your stance and then the width of your stance in relation to the club that you are using.

Now first of all, I am just going to start off here with my sand wedge. Now if for example, I was going to be playing what I would class as a normal pitch also about 50 yards, ball position is important. The further back in my stance, the steeper the angle of attack, the further forwarding stance, the more shallow the angle of attack. Let’s say I am going to play a nice standard pitch shot, I am going to place the ball around the middle. Now you will notice here when I take my stance that my feet are quite narrow and there are also angled slightly off to the left, now again, this is to help output of my hips and to clear them as I come through the point of impact.

But my stance position here is quite narrow, because I am getting setup, the swing isn't going to be that big. And this will help me bottom out the club, in my arc, just after the ball. If you are ever struggling by the way, striking the ball, hitting shots with your feet together will help you find the bottom of your swing arc. So I am only going to have a very slight separation with my feet and that will pull the ball position in the middle of my stance. And it will allow me to bottom-out my swing arc correctly. Now we move on to the 7-iron, and the iron shows which I have just spoken about already. And all I am going to be doing here is a little step left and the little step right. My left toe is splat outwards and my right toe is also splat outwards slightly as well. Feet are about shoulder, width apart.

Now when they are in this position, my club is going to be able to bottom itself out in this arc, correctly, again to go very, very pure strike and have my feet close together, because when my feet closer together, I can’t make the full turn that I need to, to add a power. And that’s where stance width becomes important. The bigger the swing, the more speed you are going to be putting into the club, that’s when you need the stance to be wider. And that is why, when you shift to the big stick and when we shift up to the driver, you want the ball position forward in the stance just inside the left heel generally because the swing arc needs to be approaching, up through the points of impact but also the stance now is just outside shoulder width apart because I need the extra strength and I need the extra stability within the stance. Because there is so much more power being put through the shot with the driver, I need that extra support. So there is a very quick work going to the ball positions and the stance widths, that you need within your iron shots but there are a lot more videos on here regarding those positions.