Eliminate Incorrect Ball Position and Transform Your Entire Golf Swing
Let us discuss the effects of improper ball position on your golf swing. Having the ball out of position by even a few inches — whether it is too far back or too far forward in your stance — is going to create two significant problems:
- It is going to affect the way you set up to the golf ball.
We dedicate a great deal of time to discussing how critical the golf setup is, and how the fundamentals of a biomechanically correct setup ensure that you are in an optimal position to execute a proper golf swing.
It is something you should be able to do correctly 100% of the time, once you understand the fundamentals and have invested some focused practice.
- It is also going to compromise the rest of your golf swing.
It is extremely important to understand the cascading effect that improper ball position has on your swing, particularly on weight transfer and the origin of movement from the top of the swing.
Having the Ball out of Position Affects Your Body
Our bodies are far more intelligent than we give them credit for when it comes to this game. The body can instinctively sense when something is not right, and when failure is inevitable, it automatically tries to compensate.
You are obviously not going to develop a consistent golf swing if your body is constantly compensating for setup errors.
We have found that approximately 8 out of every 10 golfers who take lessons — whether online or in-person — struggle with this exact issue, and 90% of those golfers are setting up the golf ball directly in front of their sternum, as shown in the photo at right. The golf ball is placed on the center line of the body, directly under the sternum or the chin.
Why do so many players make this mistake?
Frequently, golfers who are struggling with hitting the ball fat start to ease the golf ball back in their stance, believing it will help them make cleaner contact.
Others complain about excessive ball flight height, which may actually be caused by something entirely different in their swing mechanics. They may already have the ball in the correct position, but because they do not like how high the ball is flying, they start scooting the ball back, thinking it is a quick fix.
There are no quick fixes in this game, only temporary ones. Moving the ball back in your stance is simply a Band-Aid solution, and eventually Band-Aids get wet and fall off.
Where Is the Bottom of the Swing Arc?
First, let us discuss the swing arc. When you understand where the bottom of the swing arc is located, you will begin to comprehend exactly where the golf ball should be positioned relative to your stance.
Ask a dozen golfers about the bottom of the swing arc, and you will get a dozen different answers. This confusion is a direct result of the inconsistent golf instruction most of us have received over the years, but we are going to settle this question once and for all. To see how your own ball position and swing mechanics measure up against an elite standard, try a free AI swing analysis.
The bottom of the swing arc is directly opposite your lead shoulder, and in a biomechanically correct golf swing, that never changes. That is where the lead arm reaches maximum extension in the golf swing, and it is the absolute lowest point of the swing arc — the bottom of your divot.
It stands to reason, then, that in the correct setup position, we want to place the golf ball slightly behind the bottom of the swing arc.
Since the bottom of the swing arc is opposite your lead shoulder, a simple reference point is to line up the golf ball off the logo of your shirt.
That is a reliable point of reference. If you do not own any logoed shirts, go get one. Get something with a small logo, and it will serve as a consistent guide to help you get the golf ball in the correct position every time.
A second reference point you can use is your lead ear. You want your lead ear to be positioned slightly behind the golf ball at address. Your head should never be out in front of the ball.
Lining up your lead ear slightly behind the golf ball at address provides you with proper axis tilt, and it simultaneously ensures that the golf ball is in the correct position.
What Happens When You Set Up with the Ball Directly Under Your Sternum?
Let us examine exactly what happens if you line up the golf ball off your sternum and position it directly beneath your chin. Start by observing what this does to your setup.
If you set up incorrectly with the ball directly underneath your sternum, you will find that your head is now positioned out in front of the golf ball. Furthermore, you will have almost no axis tilt because your shoulders are nearly completely level.
What is the result?
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You set yourself up to be out in front of the golf shot from the very start.
Obviously, we never want our head to get out in front of the golf ball once we begin the transition and come down into impact.
If you are already set up with your head ahead of the ball, you will be forced to compensate in the downswing to prevent getting even further out in front.
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Once you remove the proper axis tilt from your body, you have fundamentally altered the path and the plane that the golf club is going to follow on the backswing. This is extremely detrimental to the rest of the golf swing.
Let us examine the two most common swing faults that result from the golf ball being placed too far back in your stance, lined up with your sternum.
Line up the ball with your sternum and get into your address position. Bring the club back, and then start down. If you do everything properly — transfer your weight so you sit into your lead heel, pull with your lead oblique — as you can see in the photo, as the club comes down you are not even close to the ground yet.
Your club is going to bottom out approximately three inches in front of the golf ball, opposite your lead shoulder, but the ball is positioned way back under your sternum.
Theoretically, if you make a proper weight transfer with the ball in that position, you should either:
- Top the very edge of the golf ball, driving it directly into the ground so it pops straight up in the air, or
- Whiff altogether.
Obviously, neither outcome is desirable, and both are rather embarrassing when your playing partners are watching. You are going to lose that $2 Nassau match, guaranteed, if you are hitting shots like that all round.
Your Body Tries to Compensate
If you are here reading the Rotary Swing Tour articles and watching the videos, you are probably a reasonably good athlete with solid hand-eye coordination — otherwise you would not be able to play the game at all.
However, as we mentioned, our bodies are far smarter than we are. What happens is the body begins to recognize that it is in trouble. You may top the ball once or whiff it once, but your body is not going to allow that to happen repeatedly. It starts to compensate using pure hand-eye coordination to prevent the same failure from recurring.
The next time you set up with the ball in the improper position, you take the club back and begin to transfer your weight. Your body senses, "I am in trouble if I continue to rotate properly," and the rotation of the lower body shuts down, letting the arms and hands take over the golf swing.
Now you have an overly handsy, slapping motion at the golf ball, usually tending to be over the top. You have not been able to keep the club on plane because you have an improper origin of movement from the top of the golf swing.
The second major problem we see — and the most common result of this ball position error — is that you take the club back and begin the transfer, but once again your body recognizes the trouble.
This time, you never shift off your trail foot as you come down into the impact zone. You remain hanging back on the trail side, as clearly shown in the photo.
Many golfers exhibit a very flat-footed appearance at impact, and more often than not we can trace it directly back to their ball position keeping them stuck on the trail side.
It seems like such a minor detail, but positioning the ball back under the sternum is incorrect and produces a dramatic negative effect on your entire setup and downswing.
You Can Overdo It Both Ways, All the Time
Conversely, you can go too far in the opposite direction. That is the beautiful thing about this game — you can overdo it both ways, all the time.
Problems in this direction are much less common, but we will examine them because inevitably there will be some players who have the golf ball positioned too far forward in their stance.
Once again, improper ball placement creates problems at setup. You will have excessive axis tilt, which your spine does not tolerate well. The spine is not designed to handle that degree of lateral side bend, and the discs in your back are not going to be happy with that position.
Again, that unnatural position is going to affect the path and the swing plane as you take the club back. The body will try to get comfortable and compensate for everything that is going wrong.
The primary consequence is that you are never going to reach the golf ball before thumping down into the ground behind it, probably by an inch or two.
The divot, in theory, should travel farther than the golf ball, but once again your body is not going to allow that to happen. You will inevitably slide your hips forward, trying to get back to the ball.
You can see the result in the photo to the left. With your knee outside of neutral joint alignment, all the stress and rotational forces are being absorbed by the lead knee. You will feel it in your hip as well, not to mention that your momentum is no longer working correctly.
Your lead hip should be working behind you to create rotary movement and harness the centripetal forces you are trying to generate. Instead, you have linear movement down the target line with your entire body.
You have lost all your speed, all your power, all your consistency, and your swing path is once again nothing more than a weak, handsy slap at the golf ball because you have slid forward. You have nothing to use as a stable grounding point.
All that good work you invested at setup — trying to ground yourself and use your lower body for base and leverage in order to plant that lead heel, rotate, and pull with the lead oblique — you simply cannot brace yourself when you have slid forward like that. Getting the ball too far forward is, once again, extremely detrimental to your entire golf swing. For a complete assessment of how your ball position and setup mechanics are affecting your game, try a free AI golf lesson that evaluates your form in real time.
Not paying attention to a few inches at setup is going to cost you many, many yards out there on the course.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Many golfers line up the ball with their sternum
Line up the ball with the logo on your shirt
The club has not reached the ground
Hanging back on the right side
Excessive axis tilt with the ball too far forward
Incorrect alignment caused by improper ball placement
