Width

A brief one from something I've noticed and something I saw in a video about good ball striking.

It refers to mid to short irons in particular. Pros always seem to stand for mid to short irons with their feet relatively close together. They can do this because they have good balance and are not trying to pound the ball, but hit to a particular distance for a particular club.

This is not interesting in itself, but the reason for it is. It is essential with these irons and probably for all clubs, when the ball is not teed, to hit the ball first and the turf second. I'd reckon, and research has actually shown this, that most average players only rarely take the ball cleanly in this way.

In fact, the higher the handicap the further behind the ball contact is usually made with these 'fairway' clubs. This results in inconsistent contact, loss of power, lack of distance control and much worse.

The bottom line is that it is essential 'to stay over the ball'. In this way the tendency to sway ever so slightly to the back foot - never to return perfectly to the front foot - is reduced. The challenge is to retain balance, because this too will result in inconsistent contact and plenty of poor shots.

So, tomorrow when I play, concentrating on reducing the width of my stance, avoiding over-swinging and this staying over the ball for all my fairway shots. On the tee, it will be a different story - and the problem that may well arise will be about width - but in this case the 'width of the fairways'.