1 ‘common mistake’ players make before they even swing, Top 100 teacher says

His student has yet to start the club back — he hasn’t pre-shot club-waggled even — when Kevin Sprecher steps in. He’s trying to head it off. 

He’s also seen this before. 

“This is a common mistake many players make,” Sprecher said. 

The GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher was talking on a video recently posted to his Instagram account — which you can watch in full here — and the subject is set-up, and an almost unnoticeable error. Sprecher said players often set their feet first, then reach to 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’s the fix?

He said it’s easy. 

“What I would prefer you to do is put your hands on, put the club down, start too close because you know what uncomfortable is — too close,” Sprecher said on the video. “And then just kind of back up to where you feel like you can play from.”

On the video, Sprecher’s student tried the tip, and Sprecher walked him through it. 

The student gripped his iron. Sprecher told him to step toward his ball with his right foot, then set his club behind the ball. Sprecher then told him to set his feet, then back up to where he was comfortable.    

“It’s easier to create space and you’ll end up net closer to the ball,” Sprecher said on the video, “than if you start too far and move in.”

Did the author check to see how he sets up the ball? You bet. The results? 

Feet first. Setting the club behind the ball first, with the right-foot first step, offered more control over the set-up. 

Notably, GOLF.com has written other stories on how a player can tell if they’re standing the correct distance from the ball — including one featuring Payne Stewart. You can read that story by clicking here, or by scrolling immediately below. Its headline is: “Are you standing too far away from the ball? Payne Stewart had one easy way to check.”

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With your left hand (if you’re a righty), hold your golf club behind the ball.

Then drop it backward, toward your left knee. 

That’s about it. 

That, Payne Stewart once said, is how to tell if you’re standing too far from the ball. Or too close. 

Or just right. 

He was speaking on an older video recently shared by the Golf Manual Instagram page, and it’s worth a watch before you continue on with this story, as are other videos with Stewart, as he was one of his generation’s fiercest ball-strikers and a talker, so you most always would walk away with something from the three-time major winner and colorful dresser. Notably, too, the Golf Manual video is especially good because it starts with Stewart saying he’d learned the tip from his dad, 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 it here.) This part was particularly interesting: 

Golf, his father and he were an inseparable threesome. From the way he dressed, to the way he putted, to the way he lived his life, the son was the father. The two of them had been on the golf course together from the time Payne was six months old. He began taking lessons from his father at four, caddying for him at six, beating him at 16. Across the bosom of Ma Bell, throughout Payne’s Tour career, the two of them went meticulously over the day’s round, divot by divot.

“Then on number 4,” Payne would say, “I hit a good drive down the left side and blocked a six-iron right.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t get that darn hand turned over.”

“I know. I know.”

With that introduction, here is the tip.

In the video, Stewart held a club with just his left hand, and he took a stance over a ball, with his club behind it. He dropped the club back, toward his left knee.

“A little tip that my father told me when I was a boy of how to check my ball position,” Stewart started on the video. “Whether I was too far away from it or too close, was when I release the club with my left hand and it falls down, if it hits right above my left knee, then I know I’m in the correct position.”

And how did Stewart know when he was too far away? Or too close? That was also easy for him to see.  

“If I’m too far away from the ball, the club will hit down here, below my knee,” he said on the video. “If I was too close to the ball, the club’s going to be hitting way up on my thigh. 

“So the tip I’m giving you is allow when you release the club with your left hand and it’s hitting just above you left knee, then you know you’re in the correct position to hit the golf ball.”

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.