Correct Ball Position For Your Golf Wedges (Video) - Lesson 8 by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Correct Ball Position For Your Golf Wedges (Video) - Lesson 8 by PGA Pro Pete Styles

So we’ve looked at the driver in the previous video, that’s the longest club in the bag. Now we drop down towards the shortest club in the bag and we check on our ball position with the wedges. And again, I’ve got my alignment cane here just positioned down between my feet so I can see my correct ball position and you can see it on camera too. As I set up the golf ball, now I want to establish the ball position. That’s a lot more towards the center of the stance for a general wedge shot. Now I stress general wedge shot because we sometimes want to hit the ball higher or lower and we can change our ball position to encourage that but actually for standard general wedge shot I would encourage you to take the ball around about the center of your stance. Go ahead and build your stance from there, that encourages you to then shift forwards, strike down, take the ball, take the turf and get to good quality of contact.

Now having the ball too far forwards or backwards within the stance can also encourage, yes a change of height but also a change in the ability to strike the golf ball well. You might feel that the ball is too far forwards in the stance particularly for a short aim, it’s actually going to be hit fat and thin. Both these problems can ensue from having the ball forwards. I suspect most people probably hit this ball fat from this position but thin shots can ensue as well. Fat shot from here is because the club is going to strike around the center of the stance, that’s not where the ball is anymore. We get the ground first, then we hit the golf ball and the ball won’t go as far it should do because you’ve hit the ground first. But if you get quite clever and you’re used to hitting that shot, golfers are all quite clever generally. We hit that shot, we hit fat a few times, we tell ourselves, “I’m swinging too low, I need to swing higher.” So if you’re still leaning back and the ball is still too far forwards but you no longer fat the ball, fat club will start to rise and it’ll start to thin the ball. And you sometime see golfers with this problem fat the first one, thin the second one and thing they’ve made a massive change to their swing, they’ve made a tiny change to their swing, in fact. But it’s just the ball position is not in a good place where the club can come down on the ball, the ball is in a forwards position, the club’s always hitting up and getting a poor quality of contact. So the next consideration might be what would happen if the ball is too far back in the stance. Too far back in the stance, generally we’re going to see a lower ball flight if we do strike it well. If we don’t strike it well, predominantly thin shots. The club didn’t have enough chance to get lower enough before it struck the ball. So it catches the ball a bit half, a bit middle, a bit top, shoots the ball over a bit low. But because the ball is so far back, we could also be getting a steep if we get steep on the ball, we can also identify that might hit the ball heavy as well. So ball too far back thins and fats out as well. So it’s really important that we not only established the correct ball position, we established a consistent ball position. So I keep this cane on the ground and keeping the ball opposite that can should really help you encourage to keep the ball in the right place. You can see it, it’s very visual, that should help you get a better quality of ball striking, more consistently with your short aims and wedges. 2016-04-19

So we’ve looked at the driver in the previous video, that’s the longest club in the bag. Now we drop down towards the shortest club in the bag and we check on our ball position with the wedges. And again, I’ve got my alignment cane here just positioned down between my feet so I can see my correct ball position and you can see it on camera too. As I set up the golf ball, now I want to establish the ball position. That’s a lot more towards the center of the stance for a general wedge shot. Now I stress general wedge shot because we sometimes want to hit the ball higher or lower and we can change our ball position to encourage that but actually for standard general wedge shot I would encourage you to take the ball around about the center of your stance. Go ahead and build your stance from there, that encourages you to then shift forwards, strike down, take the ball, take the turf and get to good quality of contact.

Now having the ball too far forwards or backwards within the stance can also encourage, yes a change of height but also a change in the ability to strike the golf ball well. You might feel that the ball is too far forwards in the stance particularly for a short aim, it’s actually going to be hit fat and thin. Both these problems can ensue from having the ball forwards. I suspect most people probably hit this ball fat from this position but thin shots can ensue as well. Fat shot from here is because the club is going to strike around the center of the stance, that’s not where the ball is anymore. We get the ground first, then we hit the golf ball and the ball won’t go as far it should do because you’ve hit the ground first.

But if you get quite clever and you’re used to hitting that shot, golfers are all quite clever generally. We hit that shot, we hit fat a few times, we tell ourselves, “I’m swinging too low, I need to swing higher.” So if you’re still leaning back and the ball is still too far forwards but you no longer fat the ball, fat club will start to rise and it’ll start to thin the ball. And you sometime see golfers with this problem fat the first one, thin the second one and thing they’ve made a massive change to their swing, they’ve made a tiny change to their swing, in fact.

But it’s just the ball position is not in a good place where the club can come down on the ball, the ball is in a forwards position, the club’s always hitting up and getting a poor quality of contact. So the next consideration might be what would happen if the ball is too far back in the stance. Too far back in the stance, generally we’re going to see a lower ball flight if we do strike it well. If we don’t strike it well, predominantly thin shots. The club didn’t have enough chance to get lower enough before it struck the ball. So it catches the ball a bit half, a bit middle, a bit top, shoots the ball over a bit low.

But because the ball is so far back, we could also be getting a steep if we get steep on the ball, we can also identify that might hit the ball heavy as well. So ball too far back thins and fats out as well. So it’s really important that we not only established the correct ball position, we established a consistent ball position. So I keep this cane on the ground and keeping the ball opposite that can should really help you encourage to keep the ball in the right place. You can see it, it’s very visual, that should help you get a better quality of ball striking, more consistently with your short aims and wedges.