Great Tips To Improve Your Golf: 5. How Far from the Ball?

Next comes the question of how far to stand from the ball. There is general agreement we should not reach for it. It is easy to stand too far away but impossible to stand too close. This is an exaggeration.

If we stand very close to the ball the proximity cramps our swing and forces it to too upright a plane. A flatter plane is more desirable, and we will not get it if we crowd the ball. If we stand very close we get the feeling that there is not room for our hands to go through. This tends to throw us outside, where there is plenty of room but also ruination.

It is very easy, though, to stand too far away. In fact the tendency is to do exactly this. The average player, once he gets the idea that he must hit the ball from the inside out, promptly moves farther from the ball so he'll make it easier to come from the inside. This is a fallacy, of course, but that's what he does.

For the average player it is a fact that standing an abnormal distance from the ball makes him bend and reach to hit it. He bends at the waist and he gets his hands too far from his body. He will also invariably move his weight forward onto the balls of his feet.

All this is wrong. He thinks he is giving himself plenty of room to bring the club head to the ball from the inside. Actually, every move he has made is one that tends to make him throw the club from the top and hit the ball from the outside. The pronounced bend at the waist, the distance of the hands from the body, and the weight pitched forward —each alone is an invitation to throw from the top. All three put together make such a disastrous move almost a certainty.

How, then, do we know what is the right distance? Well, strange to say, your club, if it is the standard 43-inch driver, will tell you. Measure the length of the grip. It will be about 11 inches. Next measure from the lower end of the grip to the little colored plastic band or collar which the manufacturer has put at the top of the hosel. You will find that the distance is 28 inches. This is the length of the bare or naked part of the shaft.

If you are from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 4 inches tall, the length of this naked shaft is the distance you should stand from the ball for a drive. And by distance we mean the distance from the tee to a line drawn from the tip of one toe to the tip of the other.

The simple graph below shows how easy it is to measure the distance you should stand from the ball, depending on your height.

Simple, isn't it? Almost too simple to be true, but that's the way it works out for the vast majority of players of average build using the normal driver. Adjustments have to be made, of course, for persons with abnormally long or short arms and those with big waistlines.

But the basic formula is sound. Lower your driver to the ground with the hosel collar at the tee and place your feet so that the line from toe to toe is where the grip begins. You should now be about 28 inches from the ball.

Players shorter than 5 feet 10 will stand farther away, persons taller than 6 feet 4 will stand closer, with the same standard-length driver. A person 5 feet 8, for example, will stand about 31 inches from the ball; one 5 feet 6 will stand about 33 inches from it.

The formula holds for the other wooden clubs too, the Nos. 2, 3, and 4, in which the length of the naked shaft shortens slightly with each, and with each of which we stand a little closer to the ball.

Unfortunately, no such measuring rod can be used for the irons. The shorter the iron, the closer we stand to the ball, but in varying degrees. For instance, a person 6 feet 2 will stand a distance from the ball which is about 1½ inches less than the length of the naked shaft with a 2 iron. But for a 9 iron he will stand a distance of more than 5 inches less than the shaft length.

For the 7 iron, a favorite for practice, for loosening up, and for instruction, we have given the approximate distances for persons of different heights in the following table.

Fortunately for the convenience of the formula, all the leading club manufacturers have used the same length for their driver grips—11 inches—for several years. If at some time in the future they change, the convenience would be affected but the distance we stand from the ball would not change. Knowing what the distance should be, it would be simple enough to measure it on our club and put a mark of some kind on the grip or the shaft, depending on which was affected.

DISTANCES FROM BALL
Driver No. 7 Iron

These distances, we repeat, will be altered by arm length and girth. Otherwise, they are a reliable guide for persons of normal buil