Reason for better drive with wrong and more centered ball setup?

[hartz peter]

I'm not even a beginner, as I've only been on the driving range a few times to wack some balls in persuit of determining if I want to take up this grand sport.

A few years back I visited a driving range a few times with a smaller and short driver, but the results weren't great and I lost interest quickly. This year I arrived at the range with my new 11,5 loft regular flex driver and hit some straight shots that I lost sight of during flight, but I could hear some trees crackling at the other side of the range, which, according to google maps, puts these shots somewhere around 265 yards.

Now I wanted to hit the balls a bit further, as to the left and right of these trees the range allows for drives up to 350 yards. So I referred to some technique videos to improve my swing. First off, I saw that I was placing my ball to far to the center of my stance. Say, having the ball at your front hell is 100% and having it centered is 0%, I was placing my ball at 30%. I then changed this to about 80% - 100% and thats were the trouble started: I hit really high shots, or shots that balooned after a 150 yards piercing flight. Moreover, I started slicing and could only fix this through activily turing my wrists which however often resulted in unintended hooks.

So I reverted back to my 30% setup, and the piercing and longer shots were there again while the balls all flew straight.

Is there any explaination that would make placing the ball at 30% a "correct" technique, or is this always considered "wrong"?

I'm 6"1 and regularly do weight lifting, so I would expect that I should be able to hit these balls further physically.

Thanks for your insight.

[sgt1372]

I'm just a beginner and, if you can hit the ball 265 years, you certainly don't need any help from me.

However, FWIW, from what I've read & heard, in order to drive the ball effectively, you need to center your swing about 3-4" BEHIND the ball so that the driver hits the ball off the tee on the upstroke in order to get sufficient loft angle on the ball which will maximize distances as long as you hit the ball in the center of the face of the club with sufficient club head speed resulting in max ball speed which ideally will result in a 1.50 smash factor (or as close to that as possible); smash factor = ball speed divided by club head speed.

So, if 30% is equivalent to placing the ball about 3-4" behind the ball, then I'd say you're doing it correctly (or at least as I've read or heard it should be done).

Good luck!!!