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His apprentice still hasn’t gotten the club back – he hasn’t hit it in front of the club – when Kevin Sprecher enters. He is trying to push her away.
He has seen this before.
“This is a common mistake many players make,” Sprecher said.
of GOLF Magazine’s Top 100 Teachers was speaking in a video recently posted on his Instagram account – which you can watch in full here – and the subject is configured, and an almost imperceptible error. Sprecher said players often set their feet first, then reach for the ball.
It’s a no-no, he said.
“It’s an arbitrary distance that way,” Sprecher said. “What the reference point is is from your hands to your body.”
So what is the fix?
He said it’s easy.
“What I’d rather you do is put your hands down, put the club down, start really close because you know what’s uncomfortable — really close,” Sprecher said in the video. “And then just go back to where you think you can play.”
In the video, Sprecher’s student tried the tip and Sprecher passed it up.
The student grabbed his iron. Sprecher told him to go for the ball with his right foot and then put his stick behind the ball. Sprecher then told him to lift his legs and then return to where he was comfortable.
“It’s easier to create space and you’ll finish the net closer to the ball,” Sprecher said in the video, “than if you start too far and move.”
Did the author check to see how he places the ball? You bet. The results?
Feet first. Putting the club behind the ball first, with the first step with the right foot, offered more control over the setup.
Notably, GOLF.com has written other stories about how a player can tell if he’s standing the right distance from the ball — including one with Payne Stewart. You can read that story from by clicking hereor by moving immediately below. Its title is: “Are you staying too far from the ball? Payne Stewart had an easy way to check.”
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With your left hand (if you’re right-handed), hold your golf club behind the ball.
Then jump back towards your left knee.
That’s it.
That, Payne Stewart once said, is how to tell if you’re standing too far off the ball. Or very close.
Or as it should be.
He was talking in an old video recently shared by the Golf Manual page on Instagramand it’s worth watching before you go on with this story, as are the other Stewart videos, as he was one of the fiercest ball strikers and a talker of his generation, so you’d always come away with something of three times main winner and colorful dresser. Also, the Golf Handbook video is particularly good because it starts with Stewart saying he learned the tip from his father, Bill.
Bill Stewart was a player himself. A 1987 Sports Illustrated article written by Rick Reilly described the man, along with the father-son relationship (and you can—and should— read here.) This part was particularly interesting:
Golf, his father and he were an inseparable trio. From the way he dressed, to his clothing, to the way he lived, the son was the father. The two had been on the golf course together since Payne was six months old. He began taking lessons from his father at the age of 4, caddying at the age of 6, beating him at the age of 16. In Ma Bell’s lap, throughout Payne’s Tour career, the two of them meticulously went round the day, split day after day.
“Then on No. 4,” Payne would say, “I hit it well to the left side and blocked a six-iron forehand.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t put that damn hand back.”
“I know. I know.”
With that introduction, here is the tip.
In the video, Stewart held a bat with only his left hand, and he took a stance over a ball, with his bat behind him. He dropped the club back, towards his left knee.
“A little tip my dad gave me when I was a boy about how to control my ball position,” Stewart began in the video. “Whether I was too far or too close, it was when I let go of the club with my left hand and it goes down, if it hits right above my left knee, then I know I’m in the right position.”
And how did Stewart know when he was too far? Or too close? It was also easy for him to see.
“If I’m too far from the ball, the club will hit here, below my knee,” he said in the video. “If I was too close to the ball, the club would hit too high on my thigh.
“So the tip I’m giving you is to let when you release the club with your left hand and it hits just above your left knee, that’s when you know you’re in the right position to hit the golf ball.”
