PGA Teaching Professional Todd Kolb here with another segment of Teaching with Technology; and one of the great things about using my Swing Catalyst system and teaching today is we have advancements in technology that are allowing us to look at the golf swing in ways we never did before. And today, what I want to share with you is the most basic information, but information that is key to playing good golf.
So as you can see here, we have a view from straight on, and we have a view from down the line. Today I want to focus on stance width, and where the weight is at on each foot in terms of left or right. Simple concepts, but really concepts that before we weren’t ever able to really track or to check. So as a general guideline—this can vary based on your swing style and your instructor—but what I like to see is that the stance width is roughly shoulder width apart. So in this example here, the width of my stance from ankle to ankle is roughly 20 inches. Now for me, that’s pretty good; maybe a little on the wide side, but that’s pretty good. I want to be right around shoulder width apart. The point is that whatever you have, it should be consistent; and you should be training that and tracking that. We’re able to do that now; right around shoulder width apart, as I said earlier.
The other thing that we can look at is where the weight is at on the left foot or the right foot. A lot of breakthroughs in teaching are coming these days with understanding weight and pressure points and things like that. Now, as an instructor, I like my students to be roughly around 50/50. But when we’re training, I use a phrase of 60/40; they want to feel 60 on the front, 40 on the back. Now why do I tell my students to do that? Because what I see as a general rule is people put too much pressure on the right foot initially at address, or the trail foot. So I want them to feel when they’re training like they have 60/40. That’s exactly what I have here. I have 59 on the front foot, the left; I’ve got 41 on the back.
So once again, with things like Swing Catalyst and Flightscope and this technology that we have available—that is available to you as a consumer through a golf instructor—we can track basic things. Stance width, where the weight is at on each foot, these are key components to playing good golf. Hopefully this information helps you get set up in a better position, and therefore play better golf.
