Two part question:
1. Been working on making change to S&T with your drills. When playing on the golf course I have the most difficulty with the change with hitting fairway woods. Top 30 degrees left 2-3 times a round. I have found that moving the ball further back in my stance helps get better contact. Thoughts?
2. Watching the long iron and hybrid video's raises some questions for me. When you are hitting the 9 iron the video clearly (to me) shows the ball in the middle of your stance despite the narrative saying otherwise. When hitting your hybrid the narrative says you play ball one ball inside your left heel. In the video you place club behind your heel and the ball appears to be at least one ball behind a full clubhead. It does not look like a camera angle issue. Thoughts?
Answer to #1: Oftentimes when golfers are hitting everything well except for the longer clubs it can be attributed to one of the following:
1) They don't start with - or maintain - enough weight on the front side. In general with the longer clubs we should add a little more front weight load at address - more like 60/40 instead of the 55/45 prescribed for the other clubs. This forward weight should gradually increase to the top of the backswing (70/30) and build further on the downswing - approximately 80/20 halfway down, 90/10 impact, and 95/5 finish.
2) Their hips are not continuing their lateral slide through impact. This is common with the longer clubs as the wider stance means that the hips have a greater distance to travel. If the hips stop moving laterally towards the target on the downswing then their rotation takes over, changing the low point and rerouting the club. This can produce a variety of undesirable results including fat and thin contact, topped shots and popups, straight pulls, and “banana” slices. Here is a drill from the Fixing Common Swing Problems section specific to building in more lateral hip slide in the downswing. Alternatively, if you prefer to focus on your Tailbone-to-Target action during the backswing, then your downswing will not require nearly as much lateral hip motion since they are already well forward by the time you get to the top.
3) They are not allowing the length of the club to dictate the backswing path and are getting too steep as a result. The shaft length of the longer clubs encourages more of an around the body backswing as established by the shaft plane at address. It may "feel" flat as you take it back along the shaft plane for the first few feet, but as long as you maintain the "weight forward, shoulder down, and hands in" components while allowing the club to work around you, it should put you in the proper position at the top so you can attack the ball from the inside. This KFC Club members video may help in this regard.
This is a common issue that I am regularly asked to fix, so if yours doesn't relate to any of the above causes - or if it does and you are experiencing difficulty resolving it - we can always arrange for a V1 swing video analysis to pinpoint the culprit and offer an appropriate solution.
Answer to #2: While you do have some leeway, in general once my students and members show some level of proficiency with the swing I suggest that they migrate to a stock ball position that is in the middle of the stance for short irons, two balls inside the lead heel for middle irons, and creeping more forward for the longer clubs - the farthest forward being even with the inside of the lead heel for the driver (with the stance width increasing as we move from shorter to longer clubs). From there they can make incremental tweaks to see how different positions affect impact quality and shot shape. For example, my personal preference for the shorter clubs tends to be a position that is slightly forward of prescribed. (I strongly suggest using alignment sticks when monitoring ball position - one on the foot line, a second one parallel to the first to mark the target line, and a third perpendicular to these to show ball position – as our side-on view from above tends to skew our perspective of the actual location of the ball relative to our stance.)
Rather than getting hung up in what you might believe my ball positions to be, start with the baseline provided above, adjust as necessary to suit your personal preferences, and let your ball striking and shot shape be your guide.