How Does Golf Ball Position Impact Golf Shots? This Test Explains originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
If you’re a beginner golfer (or even an average one!), you probably overlook a key factor when it comes to hitting successful golf shots: Your golf ball position!
While many players might overlook the importance of a repeatable pre-shot routine or a driving range plan, when your golf ball position isn’t consistent, your shots will suffer.
So why does ball position matter, and how can you figure out the proper spot for certain types of golf shots? The Rainmakers Golf crew tapped top-ranked golf coach Tom Stickney to provide some answers — check out the video below.
Why Golf Ball Position Matters
While it’s important to know your stock yardages for each club in your golf bag, an elevated skill is being able to control distance by taking a little off when you need to.
For instance, you may have a total distance of 163 yards with your 7-iron, but if you need to hit it 155 yards, can you? A lot of amateur golfers can’t — which means you’re just hitting and hoping most of the time.
But when you need to change your ball-flight pattern (like hitting a stinger shot) and overall distance (like a knockdown shot), Stickney says the first thing you should consider doing is updating your golf ball position.
“One of the biggest problems that people have is varying the height of their ball flight,” he says in the video. “A lot of times, people hit the same shots and they go the same distance.”
This is why your golf ball position is such a big factor, as it can help determine how your ball-flight will look — despite using the same club — depending on the ball being in the front of your stance, middle of your stance, or the back of your stance.
“The first thing we do is look at our ball and [see] where it’s positioned in our stance,” Stickney adds. “For a 7-iron, the ball position is somewhere off the left side of my sternum — which is my normal ball position.”
But if you want to (or need to) vary your ball-flight with your 7-iron, this Stickney says you should start by moving your golf ball position.
“If I want to hit it higher, I’m going to place the ball more forward, which allows the club to come into the ball with more loft — making it go a little higher and likely not as far,” he shares. “If we want to hit it lower, we put the ball in the back of our stance a bit, which eliminates the club loft, reduces the spin, and the ball’s going to come out with a flatter trajectory.”
By simply playing with your golf ball position, Stickney says you’ll see better shot results and less of a wide dispersion — leaving you closer to your desired target.
“If you experiment with your ball position, I promise you’ll see different ball flights — and help you hit more greens, regardless of where the pin position is.”
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.
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