Hi Tom, The ball positions for fade and draw in the grid are not on the target line. They seem to be inside the tar line. Is this for the purpose of explaining? In your set up lesson, we extend our arms and drop the club and that’s where the ball is placed either for a draw or fade. i just need more clarification on this! That said, no one else has better explained than you the reasons why the ball is going in a given direction. The grid is very valuable and clears up lots of misinformation we have ingrained in our minds by watching Golf Channel and Golf Digests. Thank you very much for very clear explanation Tom! Rajan
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Great. Thank you for your help. I agree that i should focus on playing the stock shot and aim at the middle of the green. Cheers.
@rajanmasih - Not sure if you are aware, but Tom will be out for about a week so he may come back and answer this later, but I will explain as best I can and try not to confuse you as this is actually a high level topic. The majority of people (yes, even the pros) run into issues trying to work the ball both directions. So, I would always recommend playing your "stock" shot majority of the time.
Ultimately, being able to hit a draw or a fade is all about club face control. Path is important, but a closed club face to path will always produce a draw whether the path is to the left or right and vice versa for an open club face fading.
The purpose of the grid is to get you to understand the path of the club, your hand path, and the low point of the swing. Changing ball position is mostly done to affect the angle of attack into the ball, which is why the driver is slightly forward, and wedges are slightly back, but, you can play golf with one ball position for every club. WHEN you change ball position, it will always be on the angled lines of the grid and not the target line because that is the path your club head is traveling on. So, to answer your question. It's inside the target line so we can make contact with the ball with the same swing!
Finally, S&T is a draw swing by design. To fade the ball, you will need a ball position slightly forward of normal (1 to 1.5 balls), less forward shaft lean at address (forward shaft lean points the face to the right, not ideal for hitting a fade), and aim slightly left (remember opening your stance changes ball position so do this first!). What you're actually doing is purposely aiming to the left and hitting a small PUSH FADE because the face is open to the path but the path is still more or less in-to-out.
Hope this helps!