This tip for high-handicappers and beginners was one of our most popular of 2024, and it's an easy guide for a proper setup position.
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We published hundreds — thousands? — of instruction tips on GOLF.com over the last 365 days, and that’s just a small fraction of it all when considering everything that has also run in GOLF Magazine or videos or clips that cycle through GOLF.com’s social channels.
Some are consumed or watched more than others, but there was one particular high-handicap or beginner tip that was more popular than the rest. The best part? It’s extremely simple yet helpful.
GOLF staffer Nick Piastowski wrote about this tip back in July, but we’ll rehash it here. It comes via an Instagram post from Sam De Sira, an instructor based in British Columbia, Canada.
The tip: How far should you stand away from the ball?
In the video below, De Sira takes you through his simple step-by-step guide.
Pick a club and set up over your ball is if you are about to hit it. If you want to know if you are too close or too far away, simply drop your trail hand and let it hang. It it falls closer to you, you are standing too far away. If it falls away from you, you are standing too close. Find that middle ground and it should feel comfortable. That’s where you want to stand.
Easy enough, right? You can follow De Sira and get more of his tips here.
As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.