Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
Quite often on the lesson tee I'll ask the golfers that I'm teaching what are you thinking about in your technique What are you working on to try and improve your golf shots and very rarely will they ever answer they're working on their feet. It's just not a topic of conversation that particularly is exciting or sparks debate with a lot of golfers they pretty much just plunk their feet down whether they feel comfortable and then go ahead and hit some shots. That was in reality when you watch the world's best players their feet and I thought work is different for almost every shot they hit on a round of golf because every club that they have might have a different foot position the shape of shot the trying to hit might have a different position the distance. They are away from the green might have a different foot position so I just work through a couple of key fundamentals and see where your feet should be for different shots if we start off initially with a pitching weight and let's imagine we're hitting a one hundred yard shot or less so might not even be a full pitching wedge here. What we might find is that the stance is so hip which part not massively wide but comfortably why here and also square and pointing at target now if we imagine a pitching wedge shot that goes a shorter distance let's say inside fifty yards we might start to see the close closing in a lot but this time inside hip width I would stress still balance I don't really like to chip like this it's a little bit off balance so comfortably hip width apart is nice imbalanced.
We then also might see the golfer start to angle their feet round sort of aiming left of target for the right hand golfer effectively opening the stance so there's a wide wide stance there's a narrow wide stance and there's my open wide stance and that's a shot that I'm not going to hit quite as hard and might even open the face so I can open my feet up and then hit the ball a little bit higher so two three four different feet positions just for a pitching wedge then as you move through the bag and we go to a seven iron to things happen with a seven iron one is the golf ball going to move further forwards in the stance the ball would now be positioned slightly off center so effectively my feet move slightly further back this way my foot stance is also wider now so more towards the width of my shoulders this is because I want to hit this club a little bit harder my wedge I want to generate a bit more power so I need a a wider platform and a wider base and another thing for down the line here you can see that because this club is longer than the pitching wedge. I'm actually going to stand further away from the ball so no longer am I here and on top of the ball I've actually stood a lot further back created the room that I need to make the swing because the club is bigger created the wider stance to create more power and also create a ball position that's more ahead of center and from here and more position in a better place from my seven iron and then taking that one stage further to the driver again we make similar changes so this time the ball will go even further forwards in the stance so position just off the left instep to stand tall bit wider for a drive which going to create a more solid platform because we are trying to hit the ball a little bit harder and then again even further back away from the wall from this position because the club is longer so I naturally stand further away so you can see the difference in my stance between my driver and my little chipping pitching wedge not only is my stance which changing my distance away from the ball is changing the ball position is changing and also the open and close nature of my stance is changing so next time a golf pro ask you what you're thinking about thinking about my feet position to every set up with every club is quite a good answer and it's certainly something you should be working on to improve your golf.
2018-08-20 Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
Quite often on the lesson tee I'll ask the golfers that I'm teaching what are you thinking about in your technique What are you working on to try and improve your golf shots and very rarely will they ever answer they're working on their feet. It's just not a topic of conversation that particularly is exciting or sparks debate with a lot of golfers they pretty much just plunk their feet down whether they feel comfortable and then go ahead and hit some shots. That was in reality when you watch the world's best players their feet and I thought work is different for almost every shot they hit on a round of golf because every club that they have might have a different foot position the shape of shot the trying to hit might have a different position the distance. They are away from the green might have a different foot position so I just work through a couple of key fundamentals and see where your feet should be for different shots if we start off initially with a pitching weight and let's imagine we're hitting a one hundred yard shot or less so might not even be a full pitching wedge here. What we might find is that the stance is so hip which part not massively wide but comfortably why here and also square and pointing at target now if we imagine a pitching wedge shot that goes a shorter distance let's say inside fifty yards we might start to see the close closing in a lot but this time inside hip width I would stress still balance I don't really like to chip like this it's a little bit off balance so comfortably hip width apart is nice imbalanced.
We then also might see the golfer start to angle their feet round sort of aiming left of target for the right hand golfer effectively opening the stance so there's a wide wide stance there's a narrow wide stance and there's my open wide stance and that's a shot that I'm not going to hit quite as hard and might even open the face so I can open my feet up and then hit the ball a little bit higher so two three four different feet positions just for a pitching wedge then as you move through the bag and we go to a seven iron to things happen with a seven iron one is the golf ball going to move further forwards in the stance the ball would now be positioned slightly off center so effectively my feet move slightly further back this way my foot stance is also wider now so more towards the width of my shoulders this is because I want to hit this club a little bit harder my wedge I want to generate a bit more power so I need a a wider platform and a wider base and another thing for down the line here you can see that because this club is longer than the pitching wedge. I'm actually going to stand further away from the ball so no longer am I here and on top of the ball I've actually stood a lot further back created the room that I need to make the swing because the club is bigger created the wider stance to create more power and also create a ball position that's more ahead of center and from here and more position in a better place from my seven iron and then taking that one stage further to the driver again we make similar changes so this time the ball will go even further forwards in the stance so position just off the left instep to stand tall bit wider for a drive which going to create a more solid platform because we are trying to hit the ball a little bit harder and then again even further back away from the wall from this position because the club is longer so I naturally stand further away so you can see the difference in my stance between my driver and my little chipping pitching wedge not only is my stance which changing my distance away from the ball is changing the ball position is changing and also the open and close nature of my stance is changing so next time a golf pro ask you what you're thinking about thinking about my feet position to every set up with every club is quite a good answer and it's certainly something you should be working on to improve your golf.
