The fix for Ball too far back in the stance
Fixing a ball position that is too far back
What is actually happening
The ball sits well before the low point, so the club is still descending steeply when it arrives and delivers less loft than the club actually carries. Flight is low and the ball meets the face while the path is still travelling right, which is why a back ball position so often adds a push or a hook.
- Middle of the stance
- Ball position
- Where the weight sits
- Neutral reference
The fix
The ball is sitting well before the point where your swing bottoms out. The club reaches it while still travelling steeply down, with the shaft leaning further toward the target than it should, so the face presents less loft than the club actually carries. This page is written for a right-handed golfer, and left-handers should mirror the directions.
Less loft at impact means a lower launch, and height is usually the first thing to go. Irons come out lower than their loft suggests, and long irons and woods struggle to get airborne at all. Contact can feel clean, because a club that is still descending reaches the ball before the ground. The turf tells the rest: divots start at the ball and dig deep, because the club had not finished coming down when it got there.
It also sends the ball right. Before the club reaches the bottom of its arc it is still travelling from inside the target line toward the outside, and a ball sitting back is struck during that part of the swing, so the path at impact points right of the target. Start direction comes mostly from where the face points, and curve from the gap between face and path. With the face pointing roughly along that path, the ball starts right and stays right. With the face closed to it, the ball starts right and hooks.
To check, put your phone at hip height a few paces in front of you, square to your chest, and take your normal address. Find the middle of your stance, halfway between your heels. For a full shot the ball belongs on that line or ahead of it: in the middle for a wedge, a little ahead for a mid-iron, at the inside of the lead heel for a driver. A ball behind the middle is too far back for every full shot in the bag, and the same photo will usually show your hands well ahead of the ball. A low punch under branches is played from further back on purpose, and that is a choice rather than this fault.
The change happens at address. Build the stance around the ball rather than dropping the ball in after the feet are set: stand with your feet together and the ball opposite the middle of them, then step apart. For a wedge, step both feet out the same distance. For every longer club, step the trail foot further than the lead foot so the ball finishes ahead of the middle. Your hands will sit closer to level with the ball than you are used to, and the club will look as though it has more loft. It does, and that loft is the missing height coming back.
A back ball position often starts as a cure. After a run of fat shots, moving the ball back feels like insurance, because the club finds the ball before the ground. The instinctive fixes for what follows make it worse. Low flight gets a scoop, the hands flicking the clubhead up at the ball, which moves the bottom of the arc behind the ball and brings the fat shots straight back. The push gets the hands rolling the face closed through impact, which is how a push becomes a hook. Each new fat shot then sends the ball a little further back.
If fat shots return once the ball is in the right place, the back ball position was hiding a low point problem, and the fix for that is in the swing rather than the setup. Two other faults share this page's misses. A body aimed right also starts the ball right and hooks it, but at a normal height and with the ball correctly placed, so a club along your toes will show it and a face-on photo will not. A ball too far forward is the mirror image, with thin contact and shots that start left or slice. Low flight, deep divots and a ball starting right, together, belong here.
Drills
Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.
Two positions, one swing
With a mid-iron, hit three balls from your usual spot behind the middle of your stance, then three from a ball or two ahead of the middle, making the same swing both times. Watch how high each group flies and how deep each divot is. Repeat the pair of groups twice more, then finish with ten from the forward position. Success is seven of those last ten flying at a normal height for the club, with divots that start at the ball and stay shallow. After that, run the same comparison with a longer club.
Needs nothing but a club
Stick at the middle of the stance
Lay an alignment stick on the ground at right angles to the target line so it points at the ball and runs between your feet, exactly at the middle of your stance. Hit ten wedges with the ball level with the stick, then ten mid-irons with the ball a ball or two ahead of it, taking a fresh stance for every shot. Make the first five of each set half swings and the rest full swings. Success is no ball ever set behind the stick, and at least seven of each ten flying at the height you expect for that club. Once both sets pass, take the stick away and move on to the routine below.
Needs An alignment stick
Feet together, then step apart
Before every shot in a bucket of twenty, stand with your feet together and the ball opposite the middle of them. Step the lead foot toward the target and the trail foot away, stepping the trail foot further for anything longer than a wedge, and never shuffle the ball back once the feet are down. After every fifth ball, leave your feet where they are, lay a club on the ground from the ball back between your feet, then step away and see where it crosses your stance. It should cross at the middle or a little ahead of it. Success is four clean checks out of four, and two sessions like that make the routine ready for the course.
Needs nothing but a club
Practice plan and log
Practise this fix, day by day
Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.
Checkpoints
What to look for to know whether the change has taken.
- Face on at address, the ball sits on or ahead of the middle of your stance for every full shot.
- At address your hands sit only slightly ahead of the ball, not pressed well toward the target.
- Divots start at the ball and stay shallow rather than digging deep.
- Iron shots fly at the height you expect for the loft on the club.
- With your body square to the target line, shots start on that line rather than right of it.
Feels
A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.
- The ball feels as though it has moved well forward, closer to your lead foot than feels safe.
- The club brushes the turf at the ball instead of stabbing down into it.
- Your hands feel level with the ball at address rather than pushed toward the target.
Symptoms that lead here
Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.
- I never know where the ball should be in my stanceThe ball sits somewhere slightly different each time you set up, and the strike changes along with it.
- Chips come out too lowEvery chip leaves the face on a low, flat line and runs out, so you have no shot that stops quickly when you are short-sided or have something to carry.
- I strike it well off the ground but badly off a teeShots off the turf behave, but once the ball is teed up the strike, the height and the direction all fall apart, because nothing in the setup or the delivery changed for a ball sitting above the ground.
- Ball flight is too lowShots leave on a flat line, never climb to a proper height, and land short of what the club should carry, even when the strike feels acceptable.
- Suddenly can't strike it at allBall striking that was reliable last month has collapsed on the range and on the course alike, with a new miss such as a shank, a top or a chunk that was never part of your game.
- My hands are too far ahead of or behind the ball at addressBefore the swing starts the handle sits well ahead of the clubhead, or level with it, or behind it, which changes the loft and the face aim you are starting from.
If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots
What this rests on
- Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
- The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
Did this help?
One answer, and nothing is published from it. A fix that keeps getting a no is a fix that is wrong, and this is the only way that shows up.
If something here is wrong, or contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
The weekly fix
One fault a week, written the same way this page is.
Discussion
Golfers who have worked on this fault, on what helped and what did not. Read it as experience rather than evidence.
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