Demonstration
STANCEMATE
STANCEMATE EXPLAINED
NOVICE golfer - first lesson using stancemate
the importance of stance in your golf setup - with every club
Demonstration
The width of a good golf stance
Let’s open this can of worms with a discussion on what is the correct stance width.
Ask anyone (including golf pros) what the ideal stance width is and you’ll usually get the answer “shoulder width”. Then ask about ball position and you’ll get “middle of stance” for an iron and “inside your front foot” for Driver.
Let’s break that down. What is “shoulder width”? Is it where your collarbones are, or the outside of your deltoid muscle in the top of your arm? If you go to the gym and are built like Arnold (that’s Schwarzenegger, not Palmer), that could be a significant difference.
Also, what have your shoulders go to do with stability in your stance? Are they connected to the ground in any way? Or do you think it may have more to do with your hips, knees and ankles?
So that’s why we have built the StanceMate training aid utilising your feet and legs as the visual guide. You start thinking in those terms and before you know it your brain and muscle-memory kicks in. It’s in your line of sight, it’s measurable and it promotes consistency.
(Read more about why we use the heel, not the toes, as the primary reference point below.)
You don’t have to agree with our take on this, but at least consider using it as a starting point. After you’ve been using it for a while, if you find you produce better shots with a wider stance or a narrower stance, go with that - it’s only one screw to change it!
ball position
Now, let’s talk the Pandora’s Box that is ball position. As we discuss this, keep in mind we are talking about full swing shots here, not short game chip or pitch shots where you are adjusting strength of swing or where you grip the club differently.
Again, you don’t need to love our particular approach here either, you just need to start somewhere, measure it and adjust it to suit what works. Then use that every single time. Measurable, repeatable and customised to you.
Our theory on ball position here at Stryper is that the ball is not the “middle” of your stance. It’s towards the middle of your stance for irons, but for most of us for a full swing, it never needs to be more than about a clubhead width behind your front heel. It’s around about under your lead ear (left ear for right-handed golfers).
Many, many leading golf coaches and mentors approach this the same way. Again, if you disagree, just treat this as a starting point.
Part of our reasoning for this is, in a good swing the body moves laterally towards the target in the downswing. So as you move forward the ball is indeed getting closer to the centre of your stance at impact.
It may help to even visualize all mid-iron shots this way…. “The ball is in the middle of my stance at impact.”
Of course there are many other caveats to this. Is the centre of the swing “after the ball” so you are hitting down on the ball? Or is it Driver where you want to be hitting up on the ball? Have you got the shaft angle right at impact. There’s a dozen things that can affect the outcome - if there wasn’t you wouldn’t need help.
Back to the main point. For an average-sized male of say 32cm stance width, that’s actually like a ratio of 1:2 (from inside front heel to ball: from ball to inside heel of trail foot). You may find your best is 1:1.5. Remember…. Measure, test, assess the results.
Then, as your club length increases and the loft decreases, the swing plane gets flatter at impact and you start moving the ball forwards in your stance to compensate for the bottom of the swing plane to gain maximum distance.
STANCEMATE KEY FEATURES
STANCE-WIDTH BASED ON YOUR BODY
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all product like those cheap mats you see on Temu. It is scientific, but it can be tailored to you. Because it’s fully adjustable, it also means other family members can use it with a quick change.
ADJUSTS FROM JUNIOR TO GIANT
We’ve trialled StanceMate with kids as young as 12 with great results. The minimum stance width is 17cm between ankles and the maximum is a whopping 56cm, so even Bryson should be able to use it.
PERFECT YOUR BALL POSITION
Ball position is critical to every shot with every club, and you need to be accurate. A centimetre at the tee will be metres off-target on the fairway. Knowing what works for you is important and will boost your confidence on course.
CONFORMS TO ARTIFICIAL MAT SIZES
The length of StanceMate in its full form is less than 120cm (4’ or 48”) which is the length of 99% of artificial turf mats sold on the market and used in indoor golf ranges and other golf training facilities.
MOLLYDOOKERS MOST WELCOME
Australian slang for a left-handed person is a “mollydooker”. We’ve built both the SwingMate and the StanceMate completely compliant for our back-handed brethren.
Why are we talking about the heels and not the toes?
Again, this is not the only way, but it’s our way, and we stand by it (pun fully intended). We find it promotes more consistency to measure stance width at this point and concentrate on repeating that width, despite where your toes are.
For example, many people flare their feet at address, especially the front foot when using Driver. If you were practicing and decided to try more or less foot flare, you would get wildly different results if kept the same width at your toe and suddenly moved your heel inwards.
We theorise stance width should stay the same, and you turn your foot out. (How many of you right now are thinking… “Gee, when I last tried flaring my lead foot with my Driver, did I narrow my stance up too much because I turned my heel in?”. In a game where millimetres at one end mean metres at the other, the two would have had massively different outcomes.
Using StanceMate
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We start with your normal, neutrally-balanced standing posture. A “neutral” balance is when the middle of your ankles, the middle of your knees, and the centre of the top of your hip bone is in alignment. Sounds like a more accurate place to start, right?
Setting up StanceMate is super simple. Ensuring the small rulers are screwed tight at right angles in the 7-Iron position (as shown in the diagram), extend the two larger rulers until the two smaller rulers are in the centre of your knees. Tighten the large thumbscrew as far to the centre as you can and as tight as you can. Please note after a few uses all the parts and the screws will work a bit tighter and be less prone to moving.
This gives us stability as we move towards the target by using the ground under the feet to drive power. Even if you’ve never picked up a golf club before it shows you where to stand.
If you’ve played plenty of golf, you don’t have to love how we approach it, because here’s the thing, it’s a STARTING point. You can adjust that stance width specific to you by extending StanceMate and then know you are standing in EXACTLY the same stance every time.
As we’ve said, it also doesn’t matter if you have foot flare in your lead or trail foot, you are measuring from the point of your feet that has the least variation in the main point of stability - the ankles - and therefore the most repeatable outcomes.
Regardless, if you live and breathe by another theory, you can take a marker pen and a piece of tape and mark your own preferred club positions in relation to ball position. Just use our product as a ruler. We’re happy if you are!