How Far to Stand From the Golf Ball
Measure it once, stop guessing.
Every setup chart you have read disagrees with the last one. That is not because the charts are bad. It is because the answer depends on you: your height, your arm length and the club in your hands.
So the real question is not "how far should I stand?" It is "how far should I stand with this club?" That one has an exact answer. It takes about ten minutes to measure, and then it goes on the club so you never think about it again. We call it the Two Tape Method.
The part nobody teaches
Think about the last lesson you took. Takeaway, top, transition, follow through. Almost nothing about where you stand before any of it happens.
Setup advice stays vague because it is different for every body. Stand athletic. Let the arms hang. Bend from the hips. All true, none of it a number. So most of us set up a little differently every time, then pay for a lesson to fix a swing that was making up for the setup. We know. We have paid for those lessons.
Two measurements
Your height. Shoes off, back against a wall.
Your wrist to floor. Stand tall, arms hanging loose, crease of the wrist to the floor.
From those two numbers and each club's length, you get three numbers per club: how far to stand from the ball, where the ball goes in your stance, and how wide your feet go. Distance is measured to your ankles, not your toes. Your ankle does not move. Your toes depend on your shoes.
Why tape and not a tape measure
Nobody kneels down with a tape measure before every shot. So the numbers go on the club.
Tape one, how far you stand. Lay the club next to a tape measure, end of the tape at the butt of the grip. Put a strip of tape at your distance number.
Tape two, how wide you stand. From the same spot, put a second strip at your stance number. Stance is middle of foot to middle of foot, never edge to edge. Edge to edge is where most stance advice goes wrong, because two golfers in different shoes get different answers from the same tip.
Electrical tape works best: easy to see on a dark shaft, and it comes off clean. Start with three clubs (driver, a mid iron and a wedge) and fill in the rest later. Regrip, reshaft or change a club's length, and the old tape is wrong. Re-mark it or pull it off.
At the range
Set the club behind the ball with the far tape next to the ball, and line your ankles up with the heel of the club. Then put the heel at the middle of your lead foot, swing the club head toward your trail foot, and line the second tape up with the middle of that foot. Pick up the club, take your address, hit.
What the tape cannot do
It settles where you stand. It says nothing about where you are aimed. You can be the perfect distance away with the perfect stance and still be pointed 30 feet right. (Ask us how we know.) That is a separate problem, and it is what our app's aim tool is for.
The tape does not swing the club either. It gives you the same starting point every time, so when a shot goes sideways, setup is not one of the suspects.
Quick answers
Driver? Farthest from the ball of any club, because it is the longest. How much farther than your wedge depends on your arms and your clubs.
Irons? Closer as the clubs get shorter. A 7-iron is not a pitching wedge. One distance for everything is why short irons feel cramped and long irons feel like a reach.
Too far or too close? Too far: arms stretched out, toe of the club down, heel up. Too close: heel down, toe up, hands jammed into your body.
Why not a chart? A chart cannot know your arm length. It is right for the few golfers who happen to be exactly average.
Let the app do the math
Advanced Golf Address takes your two measurements and gives you the numbers for every club in your bag, including clubs built long or short. On Google Play, first 7 days free.