Ball And Feet Positioning For Longer Golf Drives

It’s amazing….where you place the ball in your stance and how you position your feet as you setup to hit a golf drive has a HUGE effect on the type of golf shots you can hit.

In this article I’m going to explain the how’s of ball and feet positioning so you can hit longer golf drives.

Ok, let’s look at ball position first.

If you have a slice problem you should look at your ball position to make sure it’s not too far forward because if it is it will promote a slice.  So you should place the ball back further in your stance so it’s about a ball width inside your left heel.

If you have a hook problem you should check that your golf ball is not too far back in your stance.  If you find it’s in the middle of your stance move the ball position further forward so it’s just inside your left heel.

So here’s a general rule for ball position:

•    Ball positioned further forward (e.g. off your left heel) encourages a fade/slice

•    Ball positioned further back (e.g. in the middle of  your stance) encourages a draw/hook

All right, let’s now look at feet positioning because a lot of people do not know that the way you position your feet at setup has a big influence on the shape of your golf drives.

If you have a slice problem then you should make sure that your front foot is not flared out a lot towards the target.  If you want to favor a draw/hook when you hit your golf drives your front foot should be turned out about 10 degrees towards the target and no more.

If you suffer from a hook problem and your front foot is quite square to the target at address you should definitely experiment with turning out your front foot by 20-30 degrees towards the target. This will help you to get through the ball easier with your lower body so your hands can lag behind.

So here is a general rule for your front foot when setting up:

•    To encourage a draw/hook make sure your front foot is only flared out by about 10 degrees

•    To encourage a fade/hook make sure your front foot is flared out by about 20-30 degrees

Your back foot doesn’t have so much influence on the shape of shots you can hit but it does influence the length of your backswing.  So if your swing is very long you can have your back foot square to help restrict your backswing.  But if you want to swing longer in your backswing you can flare your back foot away from your target.  Doing this will help you to swing longer naturally.

Ok, so that’s some things for you to experiment with as far as ball position and feet positioned is concerned so you can hit longer and straighter golf drives.