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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Set Up And Ball Position

Learn why ball position is critical for hitting the ball solidly. You want to have your stock swing ball position just forward of center, but behind the left shoulder. Some good reference points for this position are your lead ear, a logo on your lead chest, or the 1st belt loop on the target side of your pants. All of these reference points are in the same general vertical plane, and can prepare you for a good swing with a shallow angle of attack, yet still take a divot after the ball, and the low point being 3-4 inches in front of where the ball was.

Playlists: Beginner Program

Tags: Set Up, Drill, Beginner

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This drill is the help you with your ball position in your setup posture.

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So ball position is critical in that we want to make sure that the ball is positioned in

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a specific place depending on where the bottom of our swing is going to be and what

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shot we're trying to hit.

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So if we're trying to hit the ball solidly and we have it kind of right here, we want

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to make sure that the bottom of our swing is going to be somewhere in this range or ahead

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of the golf ball for inches, three inches, somewhere around there.

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The better you can get it ahead the better.

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What you'll see in the impact section is the way that we do that is by having kind of our

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weight on the left side enough shaft length.

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Well, if we set up with the golf ball way back here and I got my weight on my left side

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and I had this good shaft length, I would almost miss the ball.

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Also, if I set up with it way here, way forward of my stance like so.

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And I got into good position, I would hit behind the golf ball and it wouldn't be a very

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good shot or I'd have to really adjust for it.

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So it's important when you're practicing to use something just to give you a little bit

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of a visual, at least when you're doing your mechanical practice.

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You want to have a visual that helps you kind of make your ball position consistent.

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We'll go through in the pre shot routine section how to make that established.

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And I'll give you the snapshot of it here.

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Essentially, after you've taken your grip, which you've been practicing and you set up

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to the golf ball, you can use a formula of basically a left foot forward, right foot forward,

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your left foot, right foot to just have a constant place of reference.

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So I'm always starting with the ball pretty much even when my stance.

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You'll see many, many tour pros do it this way.

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And then you'll step your left foot six inches past the golf ball and then you'll adjust

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your right foot depending on which club and which shot you're hitting.

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So that's one way to look at where the ball position is compared to your feet.

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Now it's also important to look at where your ball position is compared to your upper body.

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So if compared to my feet, I want my ball position slightly ahead of center because I'm

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going to be coming in relatively shallowly and getting the bottom of my swing to be somewhere

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around this left thigh left shoulder blade somewhere around in here.

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Then I want to make sure the ball is slightly back of that.

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Okay?

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So the other important thing to look at with your upper body is your general ball position

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is going to be somewhere just ahead of center from your upper body as well.

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That's because what you'll see in the release is you're going to get your hands ahead

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but with your upper body far enough back so that when you release the club powerfully it

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creates a shallow angle of attack and a solid strike on the golf ball.

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So a good reference point is to have the ball position somewhere on this plane, which is

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going to be depending on what feels comfortable right around your left ear.

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If you had a insignia on your shirt, which mind does here from the Olympic club, or the

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first belt loop right around here.

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These are all kind of off of the same plane which helps standardize that ball position.

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That way you're not getting in a good posture like so where it looks like this is great

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and then I set up here.

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So because if I'm set up like this does it look like the ball position is in the middle

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of my stance, yes it looks like it's in the middle of my stance but compared to my body

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it's way too far forward.

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This thing here it looks like it's in a good position slightly forward in the middle

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of my stance but often we'll see kind of a setup like this.

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Both of those are missing the alignment or missing the setup position with your upper body.

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So there's two things to look at.

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Set up position and ball distribution with your lower body as well as your upper body.

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And setup is one of the fundamentals that you can work on that you really don't have

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to an excuse for getting wrong.

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When you're on the course and you're taking your swings it's very easy to have your backswing

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your transition your release kind of change day to day but you should be making sure that

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your setup is pretty consistent every time you go out there because it's completely under

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your control.

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It's not something that you have to necessarily react to or do and it takes no real strength

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to hold that position for a few seconds before you swing.

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So the process that I use and that I like for a lot of my players is you're going to take

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your grip first then you're going to step in so that you're about the right distance

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away from the wall.

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Go left foot forward about four or six inches right foot back a little bit more so six

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eight inches with a driver it might even be a foot in a half but you'll be able to work

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on that when you watch the stance with the video.

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And then now I've got a good reference point.

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From there you can adjust your foot rotation you can adjust your spine tilt but at least

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now we've got a solid reference point for that upper and lower body to basically apply

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something consistent that you can then build off of.

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So work very diligently on your setup.

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Use some form of feedback to make sure that the ball slightly ahead of center and it'll

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help make backswing transition and release much more repeatable and much easier.

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