Make The Correct Golf Set Up Adjustments (Video) - by Pete Styles
Make The Correct Golf Set Up Adjustments (Video) - by Pete Styles

I’ve talked a lot in this series about how far you should stand from the golf ball, and how you should do things really consistently because you want the same thing to happen every time so your distance away from the ball should be the same thing. But actually, if you're not trying to create the same shot, if you're trying to create a different shot, the distance you stand from the ball can change slightly. So, for example, if we’re trying to fade the golf ball, we might actually be better standing a little bit nearer to the ball, nearer to the golf ball is generally going to create a slightly higher and steeper backswing and downswing, which is going to be indicative of a better fade swing. Likewise standing further away from the ball, standing further back might create a little bit more of an around feeling in the golf swing. More around, it’s going to be a little bit flatter that it should start to draw the golf ball a little bit more. So closer for the fade, further away from the draw, can be quite a nice little change to the distance that you're standing away from the ball.

The next change you might make is when you find the ball in the rough. You might decide that actually you can get a little bit taller in the rough, so you stand up a little bit more. Because the ball is in the rough, we don’t really want to dig down and catch too much ground. So if we get to far from the ball, we might find ourselves a bit too low and hitting the ground too early, hitting fat shots from the rough. But actually that feeling of staying taller might just mean that you can swing a little bit steeper, hitting down a little bit better, but in a steeper angle of attack, and actually get a better contact on the ball, to pop the ball up into the air when you're in the rough. One last change with your distance away from the ball could be that when you're on a down slope. So what I mean by down slope, I mean ball below your feet. So I’m leaning this way, the ball is lower down below my feet. What I’d like you to do here is just got a little bit closer to the golf ball. I want just to stand a little bit closer, so we can keep our balance by actually sitting back on the hills. Now, if you're too far away from it, then you sit back on the hills, there’s a real risk you’re going to be off balance when you hit this shot. But actually if the ball is below me, I can get a little bit closer, then I can sit back onto my heels to keep my body weight planted, and then I should be in a better position to make good smooth contact. So while we’ve stressed the idea that we want to be consistent, doing the same thing every time to get the same result, if we want a different result or if the lie is demanding that something is different then we can make a little adjustment to our distance away from the ball to help improve in those inconsistent shots or inconsistent positions. 2016-09-27

I’ve talked a lot in this series about how far you should stand from the golf ball, and how you should do things really consistently because you want the same thing to happen every time so your distance away from the ball should be the same thing. But actually, if you're not trying to create the same shot, if you're trying to create a different shot, the distance you stand from the ball can change slightly. So, for example, if we’re trying to fade the golf ball, we might actually be better standing a little bit nearer to the ball, nearer to the golf ball is generally going to create a slightly higher and steeper backswing and downswing, which is going to be indicative of a better fade swing. Likewise standing further away from the ball, standing further back might create a little bit more of an around feeling in the golf swing. More around, it’s going to be a little bit flatter that it should start to draw the golf ball a little bit more. So closer for the fade, further away from the draw, can be quite a nice little change to the distance that you're standing away from the ball.

The next change you might make is when you find the ball in the rough. You might decide that actually you can get a little bit taller in the rough, so you stand up a little bit more. Because the ball is in the rough, we don’t really want to dig down and catch too much ground. So if we get to far from the ball, we might find ourselves a bit too low and hitting the ground too early, hitting fat shots from the rough. But actually that feeling of staying taller might just mean that you can swing a little bit steeper, hitting down a little bit better, but in a steeper angle of attack, and actually get a better contact on the ball, to pop the ball up into the air when you're in the rough.

One last change with your distance away from the ball could be that when you're on a down slope. So what I mean by down slope, I mean ball below your feet. So I’m leaning this way, the ball is lower down below my feet. What I’d like you to do here is just got a little bit closer to the golf ball. I want just to stand a little bit closer, so we can keep our balance by actually sitting back on the hills. Now, if you're too far away from it, then you sit back on the hills, there’s a real risk you’re going to be off balance when you hit this shot. But actually if the ball is below me, I can get a little bit closer, then I can sit back onto my heels to keep my body weight planted, and then I should be in a better position to make good smooth contact.

So while we’ve stressed the idea that we want to be consistent, doing the same thing every time to get the same result, if we want a different result or if the lie is demanding that something is different then we can make a little adjustment to our distance away from the ball to help improve in those inconsistent shots or inconsistent positions.