Tom Watsons' advise - This months mag

[One Planer]

as per the responses so far, some do and some don't!

there's also the small issue that those players rarely stand on a flat piece of ground playing a normal shot with any club either :lol:

if I had to put money on it I would bet that more retain a single ball position forward of centre as their starting point - normally just behind the low point on their swing arc.

Gotcha :thup:

 

[SocketRocket]

why not?

The answer is not simple. As the stance gets wider the ability to turn reduces but you become more stable. conversely as the stance gets narrower you can rotate easier but become more unstable. Another factor is that as the club-shaft gets longer more centrifugal force is exerted on the shaft (I know its not a true force) so a wider stance stabilises this effect. A further consideration is where you position your sternum, the club will reach the bottom of the arc in line with the sternum, with longer clubs the sternum would be very slightly behind the ball and this creates stability problems with a narrow stance.

Bearing the above in mind you would prefer a narrower stance with shorter clubs and a wider stance with longer ones.

 

[duncan mackie]

The answer is not simple. As the stance gets wider the ability to turn reduces but you become more stable. conversely as the stance gets narrower you can rotate easier but become more unstable. Another factor is that as the club-shaft gets longer more centrifugal force is exerted on the shaft (I know its not a true force) so a wider stance stabilises this effect. A further consideration is where you position your sternum, the club will reach the bottom of the arc in line with the sternum, with longer clubs the sternum would be very slightly behind the ball and this creates stability problems with a narrow stance.

Bearing the above in mind you would prefer a narrower stance with shorter clubs and a wider stance with longer ones.

sorry for the delayed reply SR - away.

I agree all the points you raise, but disagree the conclusion - if anything, for me you reinforce what's behind my argument!

Your stance should enable full control, and the necessary rotation for you to make your full swing. Whilst there are elements to these that play off against each other for many of us it is not appropriate to be finely balancing any additional dynamic forces that longer clubs may bring into play with a change to the stance width, nor is it really relevant to reduce this to enable more rotation with shorter irons (who uses more rotation in their full swing with shorter clubs?)

 

[Blue in Munich]

As per the OP. Does the ball position move forwards/backwards within that players stance to accomodate longer/shorter clubs?

"On all standard shots the ball should be spotted in the same position relative to the left foot.(I spot it a half inch to an inch inside the left heel, towards the right foot.) You can, to be sure, play the ball a shade farther forward or back - it varies from individual to individual, depending on the spot that is the lowest point in his swing. In any event, the relative position of the left foot and the ball remains constant. When you narrow the width of the stance to accommodate the shorter shafts of the irons, you do this by moving the right foot progressively closer to the left foot & toward the ball."

Ben Hogan, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf.


"As you can see, the ball position stays the same with the driver, the two-iron and the nine-iron. I believe in a constant ball position opposite the left heel, in line with the left armpit."

Greg Norman, Advanced Golf


"For the majority of my full shots, I set up with the insides of my heels no further apart than the width of my shoulders. That's a useful benchmark. Moving through the shorter irons, from the 6-iron through to the wedge, I then work on a sliding scale, and draw my right foot in a hair towards the left with every step down. The ball position, however, remains constant, played from a point approximately two inches inside my left heel. That corresponds with the flat spot at the bottom of my swing, and so helps me to strike my shots crisply without taking too much of a divot."

Nick Faldo, A Swing for Life (original version)


My belief is that the middle of the stance position is an optical illusion created by the narrowing of the stance in the shorter clubs.