The Unsung Hero: Why Ball Position Is Critical for a Pure Strike

Think of ball position as the hub of your swing. Your body and the club rotate around it. If that hub is in the wrong place, the entire geometry of the swing is thrown off, and you're forced to make compensations.

The key to understanding ball position is understanding the "low point" of your swing. For an iron shot, we want to hit the ball first, then the turf. This means the lowest point of the swing arc must be in front of the ball. For a driver, we want to hit the ball on the upswing, meaning the low point must be behind the ball. Your ball position is what allows this to happen correctly.

The Big Misnomer: "Middle of the Stance"

The old advice was to play your short irons in the middle of your stance and move the ball forward for fairway woods and Driver. This has led to a lot of confusion and a lot of poor ball positions. A more consistent and modern approach is to use your inside lead heel as a constant reference point. For all full shots, there are only two ball widths of difference from Driver to Wedge. That's about 90mm or 3.5 inches! So the ball's relationship to your lead heel stays remarkably consistent; it's your trail foot that moves to adjust your stance width.

Common Error #1: Ball Too Far Back

This is a very common fault, especially with mid-irons. The player thinks the ball should be in the dead centre of their stance.

• The Result: From here, the club is still on a steep downward path at impact. This leads to thin shots, as the club catches the top half of the ball. It also promotes a strong in-to-out path, which leads to pushes or, if the hands flip over to save it, low hooks.

Common Error #2: Ball Too Far Forward

This often happens when players over-exaggerate the "forward" position with their longer clubs.

• The Result: With the ball too far forward, it becomes very difficult to get your weight shifted forward enough to reach it cleanly. Your body's centre—and therefore your swing's low point—hangs back. This leads to fat shots, where you hit the ground behind the ball. It can also lead to a slice, as you might lunge with your upper body to try and reach the ball, throwing the club over the top with an open face.

How to Find Your Correct Ball Position

Let's simplify this based on a consistent, repeatable system.

• The Foundation (Irons): Your baseline is your mid-iron (like a 7-iron). The ball should be positioned so the back of it is about one iron-head width (around 90mm) inside your lead heel. This places the ball just forward of your sternum, perfectly positioned to be struck just before the low point of your swing.
• The Progression (Longer Clubs): As your clubs get longer (hybrids, fairway woods), the ball position relative to your lead foot stays the same. What changes is your stance width. You simply move your trail foot further back, away from the target. This action naturally places the ball further forward relative to the centre of your wider stance, shallowing out your angle of attack for the longer clubs.
• The Exception (Driver): The driver is the only club where the setup changes significantly. To promote an ascending strike, the ball should be positioned so the back of it is directly in line with the inside of your lead heel. This, combined with a much wider stance and a spine tilted away from the target, sets the stage to launch the ball high and far.

Stop guessing with your ball position. Use your lead heel as your guide and adjust your trail foot for the club you're hitting. This systematic approach will give you the consistency you need to make a pure strike, every time.

Ball Position Errors Recap

Ball position touches everything: low point, face‑to‑path, start line, angle of attack. Get it wrong and you’ll invent compensations that work once and vanish the next day.

• Typical mistakes
• Marching the ball forward until the path turns left and contact thins.
• Jamming the ball back and digging trenches or blocking right.

• Moving the ball around between clubs instead of keeping a lead‑heel reference.

• The working model
  For irons, think of the back of the ball two balls inside the lead heel. Keep your lead foot the constant and widen/narrow with the trail foot as clubs change. Fairway woods live nearer “back of ball one ball back from inside lead heel”; Driver is “back of ball level with inside lead heel”.

TOP TIP: Foot flare shouldn't affect heel stance width

As long as you are using you inside of your heels for measurements, the flare of your feet is not important. In fact, players experimenting with flare often keep moving their stance width to matcvh their their toes - and THAT'S why they never get consistent results!