Okay, I've taken lessons from Ben Doyle, and he says all balls are played off the left heel (for a right handed player, naturally). This isn't the first time we've heard this philosophy on ball position. I'm pretty sure both Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan say the same thing in their books. I've also heard that the ball should be played in relation to the upper body, playing the shorter irons from more of the center of your chest and as the irons get longer, the ball begins to move more left of the center of your chest. Lately, I've been trying to play most shots from somewhere around "off the left heel". However, I am not hitting it as crisp from that position. I would think the easy answer would be, "move it back in your stance", but, if I do that, am I just compensating for some other problem? Is ball position something that we need to just experiment with and see what works for us, or should we be playing the ball from a certain position and learning to hit it from there? I'd love to hear from Yoda or any of the other G.S.E.D.'s that post here, but that isn't to say I wouldn't love to hear from anyone at this point.
I use the manzella one ball position....however there is a critical thing you have to remember:
As the club gets shorter, narrow up your stance.
Yes, good point Jim. Even if the ball is always inside left heel, it will be more and more behind low point as your stance narrows. So you are actually changing ball location, because ball location is defined as the distance of ball from low point, even though the ball has same relation to stance. This leads some people to think that they have constant ball location for all clubs.
From my experience, playing the ball near low point (0-4 inches behind low point) with short clubs (9 iron - lob wedge) is not good with most players. Definitely would not recommend it!
Everyone has two choices: change ball location, or change aiming point. The one ball location theory requires aiming point to change for each club. Why? Because the law of conservation of angular momentum says that shorter clubs will reach its in-line condition much sooner than longer clubs. So aiming point needs to be changed (moved forward for shorter clubs) to hit the ball effectively. However, if you change ball location instead, the you can achieve a constant release point feel with all clubs.
I use the manzella one ball position....however there is a critical thing you have to remember:
As the club gets shorter, narrow up your stance.
Ben Doyle teaches one Ball Location with regards to the Left Heel -- specifically, "one inch inside." However, he simultaneously insists on varying Stance widths, e.g., Chip Shot width, Pitch Shot width, and so on. [This post assumes conventional positioning and does not apply to specialty Plane Line / Stance Line applications such as Cut Shots.]
Given the static Location with regards to the Left Heel, the wide Stance automatically locates the Ball forward in the Stance and narrow Stance locates it more back. Similarly, the wider Stance locates the Ball just behind Low Point (opposite the Left Shoulder) and the narrow Stance locates it well aft.
So, while Ben teaches a constant Ball Location with regards to the Left Heel, his methodology results in multiple Ball Locations with regards to the Left Shoulder. And in the end, that is all that matters.
Hybrid Mode
