Ball Striking Consistency – Part 2

Ball Position

“Poor ball position is a silent killer. If you don’t place the ball precisely in relation to your stance, the ball will be playing you instead of you playing the ball. You’ll have to conjure up some type of weird swing movement just to get the club on the ball, and because of that you’ll never be consistent.”

Tiger Woods

When you swing a golf club to the best of your ability you do so without any conscious thoughts. Or in other words you swing the club automatically using your subconscious mind. And the better and more consistent your setup the more you’ll be able to swing automatically.

But one huge determining factor as to whether or not you become a consistent ball striker will be where you position the ball in your stance and how consistently you get the ball positioned where it needs to be for each club. Because if your ball is positioned poorly then you’ll need to make a lot of compensations as you swing and this will mean you’ll greatly lack consistency.

So now you know this, here’s where you need to position the ball in your stance to become a consistent ball striker.

• For your Driver and 3 Wood your ball should be positioned directly off your left foot instep.
• For your 2-iron through to 6-iron your ball should be positioned a ball width inside your left instep.
• Finally for your 7-iron through to 9-iron your ball should be positioned two ball widths inside your left instep.

So there you go. That’s where you should position the ball for all the clubs in your bag.

But after reading this you may be wondering why I teach three ball positions when it would be so much easier to have just one ball position. Well, here’s the reason.

When you swing a driver you need a more sweeping motion than you do with say a 5-iron. And if you had just one ball position for both of these clubs then you would have to adjust your swing consciously to produce the correct swing motion (i.e. a sweeping one for a driver and a more downward blow with a 5-iron) and that’s not good.

Even though this may look a bit complicated at the moment, just trust me that these three ball positions are just a habit that you need to create. And if you become a student of mine (you can do that here on a 21 day free trial) I’ll teach you how to turn these ball positions into habits by showing you how to create a ball position template.  Once you’ve done that you’ll then be able to practice the correct ball position over and over again.  By doing this it will help to give you amazing ball-striking consistency.

“Addressing the ball in the proper position is the most important fundamental because it determines the kind of swing you will make.”

Peter Thomson

All right, let’s now look at your….

Posture

The posture you assume when you setup to a golf ball has a huge affect on your golf swing. For example, your posture determines whether or not you can shift your weight and turn fully and without restriction away from the golf ball. Also, your posture position at setup will largely determine how well you maintain your balance as you’re swinging and how forcefully you can swing down and through the ball, thus determining how far you can hit the ball.

Yes, the posture you set at address really is that important!

“You need to be in an athletically ready position so you can respond to movement quickly, smoothly and without losing your balance.”

Tiger Woods

Luckily, having a good athletic posture position is really, really easy to achieve. But unfortunately most golfers either don’t place enough importance on posture or they think their posture is OK. And sadly, most amateur golfers have terrible posture and they don’t realize what a huge detriment their posture is having on their swing itself.

However like I said a second ago, it’s really easy to have good posture and in the practice plan I give my students (which you can try free here) I tell them step-by-step exactly what they should do to improve theirs. But here are the main points of posture that you need to get correct…

• Your knees must have the right amount of flex in them.
• You must be bent over the correct amount for the club you’re using so that you’re standing neither too far from or the ball or too close.
• You need to know how to position your feet and how far apart they should be for each club.
• And you also need to position your hands in the correct position.

Now the final thing I want to talk about in regards to posture is balance. And to have great balance during your swing you must have it at the setup position.

So to do this, make sure your weight is evenly distributed between each foot so you can move easily in both directions. And your weight should be slightly more towards the balls of your feet to give yourself a very athletic stance.

OK, let’s now look at…

Alignment

“It goes without saying that it is no good having a perfect setup, perfect grip and perfect golf swing if the whole thing is misaligned. It sounds obvious but many players simply do not spend enough time getting themselves on target.”

Nick Faldo

How you align your body is critical for your long game golfing consistency and success. And unlike what others have probably taught you, I believe your alignment should be a fraction left with all parts of your body instead of aligning everything parallel to your target line.

How much left?

Well for starters, your feet should be aligned to the left by about an inch with all clubs in your bag.

Why?

Because this feet positioning helps to restrict the turn of your hips and body rotation on the backswing. And this builds up torque and power so you can then explode down and through the ball.

But some people see that advice and get worried that they’re going to start slicing everything if they align slightly left. So I want to put your mind to rest if you’re thinking that. The alignment I suggest is only an inch open. That’s not alot open and most people will not even notice it. Aligning an inch open will not help to produce a slice.

Now with alignment it’s very easy to get into bad habits because often what we feel we’re doing is a lot different than what is actually happening. So you need to check yourself regularly or get someone else to do it. But here’s a simple way of checking your feet alignment.

Simply setup to a shot as normal and then once setup place a golf ball behind the heel of each foot like this…

Then move away from your setup position and walk behind your ball and you’ll be able to see quickly and easily the alignment of your feet.

Now as I said earlier, every part of your body should be slightly open. But remember this is by no more than an inch. So again, this will in no way cause a slice.

Finally, the way you align your shoulders and arms is critical for your golfing success. So your shoulders should be slightly aligned to the left (open). And your left arm should hang down from the club and be relaxed but virtually straight. Whereas your right arm on the other hand (no pun intended) should be flexed slightly at the elbow.

From the down the line view you should be able to see some of your left arm. If you can’t that means you haven’t flexed your right arm enough at the elbow and this will cause swing problems.

So if you want to become a great ball striker you need to make sure you get your alignment correct and you need to make good alignment a habit so you can do it consistently without thinking about it.

OK, that’s all of the major elements of the setup that you need to focus on getting right. And before we look at physical and mental pre-shot routines I want you to take a little pop quiz to see how well you’re taking in everything I’ve talked about so far.

So look at these two golfers setups and see if you can predict which is the better golfer just by looking at their setups.

Now I hope you chose Player B because that’s a picture of my setup.   And I play scratch golf whereas Player A does well to break 100.

You see, it’s very easy to tell a good golfer just by the way they setup. So if you want to become a great ball striker you need to perfect your setup. Trust me, it’s well worth the time and effort to setup as well as you can. And you can do exactly that, you just need to know exactly what is involved and practice and perfect it.

Everyone can have as good a setup as any pro. It just takes the right knowledge and then some time and effort to make it into a habit. The rewards for doing so are great, i.e. consistent ball striking. So to make a start at putting this into action go here and signup for a 21 day free trial to my online consistent golf school.

Alright, in the next part of this ball striking consistency series we’re going to take a look a pre-shot routines so stay tuned for that.

Tags: ball striking consistency, Tiger Woods