"shoulder width apart" and other body-related phrases

[MiniBlueDragon]

Since I've started playing golf I've seen a LOT of instructional phrases and drills relating to the length, width or spacing of specific body parts and it's always confused me. I understand that the majority of golf drills and tips will be for "the masses" but seemingly nothing is ever questioned. e.g.

"Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart"

Which part of the shoulder so I use as a point of reference? The outside of my deltoids? The 'crown' of my shoulders? The point where my arms meet my lats? A point directly up from my bicep?

Which part of my feet? The inside edge? The outside edge? The middle of my feet?

Just using the feet my feet are 4.5" wide; that's 9" of variance straight away with the stance, let alone adding in the shoulders to the calculation.

Ignoring the variables above, what about the amount of bracing someone would have with the ground? For example:

I have very broad shoulders. I also have short legs at 31" in-seam. I would therefore stand in a much more "braced" position naturally than someone who had 36" in-seam legs and had the same or even smaller shoulders than me.

Being more braced is a good thing with a driver but trying to keep your weight more forward to swing a wedge is fairly difficult.

"Your arms should hang down vertically"

I have an excessive lumbar curve. My arms therefore hang closer to my body when vertical than someone with a regular lumbar curve. This inhibits the swing motion for me.

And various others like:

"Stand with the ball under your left eye"

"Keep your back straight"

"Your head should be in line with your spine at address"

I just find it all a bit bizarre that some people think the golf swing can be boiled down to a few nuggets of information which clearly can't be used by a lot of people in the format given and would need to be at the very least 'tweaked' for each person if they decide to use their body as a point of reference.

This is why I don't buy golf magazines any more, I don't read tips/drills generally (and if I do I make any required tweaks for my own physiology) and I take regular lessons from a pro I trust knows the nuances of my swing.

[zeg]

"Shoulder-width" in particular is a common phrase that really can't be taken literally. There's no point measuring with any kind of accuracy beyond an eyeball---it's very approximate. It sort of works out to be as wide as you can comfortably stand with your legs still straight. Any wider and you'll want to bow them as though you were riding a horse.

This and the other phrases are useful as a starting point, but as you point out, people's relative proportions vary pretty widely. I think the key is that you don't want to have your feet together and you shouldn't be falling into the splits. I have a pretty good feel for "shoulder width" from doing it for years in martial arts, but I really don't have the slightest clue how it actually measures.

[Clambake]

I'd agree that most of these can't be taken so literally that you start pulling out a tape measure and marking things to the 1/4 inch.   But there are some guidelines.       For "shoulder width" I've seen a fairly common definition (which has been echoed by the pro I work with) that the width between your feet from the inside of your heels should be about the same as the width between your armpits with a mid iron.      Here's a picture that illustrates it better: