Hand position???

Hi everyone,

I've been playing for about 5 years now, my game is steadily improving. I play ok, decent drive would be about 280+, 3 wood about 250. Like many beginners, I struggle with my long irons. For one, I don't play with them very often, so the nervousness and lack of practice really gets magnified on the course. While I have decided to work on my long irons this year, I have reached a very important question which is inbedded in my game.

The question is what is the ball position in relation to the distance of the body? So to clarify on that, I'm not talking about moving the ball right to left as the club gets longer (RH), I am referring to how far should I stand away from the ball. My setup position is decent, arms relaxed and dangling with slight bent at the elbows, but what bugs me is that at that particular position, the bottom of my long irons do not address completely flush to the ground from heel to hosel. Now in my mind, I'm thinking logically in order to hit the ball consistently and get the most club on the ball, the bottom on the club should sit flush which hopefully would translate to contacting the entire ball, and not hitting in at an angle.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

You are looking at this the wrong way. What you are asking is how to adapt yourself to the club. Never do that, instead you need to go to a club fitter and have the club adapted to you, with a lye board. Then your normal setup and ball position will result in the correct lye thru impact. You can't really do this statically, because dependent on the shaft flex, stiffness, your swing speed, etc...the deflection of the shaft to allow the lye to be correct at impact can vary a great deal from person to person. You and I can be physically the same height, weight and still have completely different lye angles for the exact same club.
Hope this helps clarify....

Like GoNavy wrote, the position that matters is the one at impact. Whatever position you put yourself into at address or at any other point during the swing matters little as long as impact position is correct. It would help to establish a correlation between address and impact so that you can address the ball knowing you'll strike it properly from there. Generally, address position will have the toe pointed slightly up for a flush strike. But then that's a matter of personal preference.

Which one is it then? It seems these two statements are saying that it doesn't matter how you stand to the ball if your impact position is good, however you should set up to the ball in a way that allows you to get to a good impact position.

You asked what distance you should stand from the ball. I think you kind of answered that when you said your setup position was good with arms dangling.

I find the best way to determine the distance is to take a grip on the club, hold your arms straight out in front of you so that the shaft points slightly upwards on the natural set of your wrists, flex your knees then bend from the hips until the club touches the ground.

Yes that's what I meant.

Once you establish a correlation between the two positions, it matters little what position you start with as long as it's within a range of positions that allows a successful impact position with the appropriate adjustments if need be. Have you ever watched an american football game? The kicker has established a correlation between the starting position and the impact position yet the two are quite far apart compared to golf's positions. He could just have started closer or farther as long as it ends with a successful impact with the ball flying between the posts.

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It sounded all too wishy-washy and far more complex than it needed to be, to me.

However, if I put it like this:

Address in one position and maneuver into another for impact, as long as it includes a few related positions.

That seems to me to be more like a brief description of a golf swing.

Address and impact are, of course, not the same but for a few similarities.

Am I on the same page as you now??

Hi, thanks for everyone's recommendation and comments. It appears at address, having only the hosel contacting the ground with the toe slightly elevated may not be such a big issue. Practice and time will tell.

Thank you.

Watch the "Posture Video". Towards the end he give a simple drill that can be done to verify that you are the correct distance from the ball. It seems to work quite well for me.

http://consistentgolf.com/blog/?p=46

Now and in the previous post too.

Hi. if you are not getting the most from your club at impact then you may need your clubs fitted to suit you. like you may need them altered either a degree or two upright or flat depending on what part of the club grounds first the toe or heel. my clubs had to be altered 1 degree upright and made all the difference.
Craig.

great, thank you all.

The drill Brian provided you with is one way to try to determine the correct distance from the ball, and a similar drill has been advocated by the likes of David Leadbetter, Nick Faldo, and Ernie Els.
http://www.golf-tuition-online.com/g...l#post10550201 (Hand position???)

The thing I don't like about that drill is it leaves lots of room for variance. Depending on the position of your shoulders, the tension and position of your arms, and how much you bend from the hips and knees your position and distance from the ball could vary.

In Ernie Els short game book he advocates getting balanced and applying presure to the top of your thighs with a club in a way not too diffrent from a weight lifter with a bar-bell. That may be useful in helping you establish your posture and distance from the ball.
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5...posturefs2.jpg

Steve Elkington recommends in his book setting up to the ball and then letting go of your club. He says if you're the correct distance from the ball when you look behind you (with out comming out of your stance) you should see about half the grip extending from behind your heels.

Steve Elkington and Nick Faldo have both said they believe the every day golfer of the same height would be uncomfortable standing in their foot prints and addressing the ball. They both believe that most people stand too far away from the ball.

On page 55 in the setup chapter of Swing Like a Pro the following is said about distance from the ball:

"The proper distance away from the ball (toe-to-ball distance) is dictated mostly by the length of the typical club. The length of the driver produces a distance of about 32 inches, while the shorter 9-iron requires only about 20 inches. This distance can also be affected by numerous body characteristics, including height (taller-closer), shoulder and hip width (narrow=closer), arm length (shorter=closer), and even foot size (larger=closer)."

If you aren't oddly proportioned their numbers should be a good starting point. There is probably a mathmatical formula you could use (based on the toe-to-ball distance numbers and length of the clubs) that you could use to calculate the distances for the other clubs in your bag. I'll leave it to you, or one of the other members of the forum who gets excited by mathmatical computations.