3 ways to improve your golf stance

There are few other sports where the majority of the game takes place with the main participants standing motionless and fixed to the spot. This is why your stance in golf is so important. It’s the bedrock on which to build your swing, and can also be the source of your inconsistencies and problems.

Here are a few ways to change your swing that could help you improve your golf game in 2017…

Adjust your foot position

Let’s start with the feet – your anchor to the ground. How you place your feet will affect your whole body position. Get this wrong and you’ve got problems.

Firstly, your feet should be around shoulder width apart. When using middle irons, this means putting the inside step of your feet in line with the outside of your shoulders. Narrow it slightly for shorter irons and go a bit wider for long irons and woods.

Start with your feet parallel to each other, then slightly swivel the foot closest to the hole outwards slightly. Don’t push it further than a 45 degree angle. This helps create a more open swing.
   

Bend from the hip

This might sound like common sense advice, as all golfers need to bend from the hip. But there is a key word in the phrase – ‘hip’. This means you shouldn’t be bending from your waist, as many golfers do.

To practice doing this, try keeping your back straight and then bending. This action forces you to move your hips, not just slouch over from your waist.

Bending from the hip allows you to move and swing from a constant axis – your hips. As this is a more solid hinge than your waist, it means your swings should become more uniform.

Ball position

There’s a bit of debate about this. Some say that you should adjust the ball position in relation to your stance depending on the club you’re hitting.

Though for amateurs who are not so able to make such judgement calls, a good tip is to simply widen your stance depending on club choice.

Position yourself so the ball is almost in line with your forward facing shoulder – maybe with the ball just a fraction behind it.

Then you adjust your back foot – putting it further back for the shorter irons and bringing it in for the woods. This means you have a fixed point to work from, instead of coming in and trying to change your whole stance depending on the club choice.

With these three simple tips, you should develop a solid stance that you can repeat time and again. Now you just need to fix your swing.