Wide Stance vs Narrow Stance in Golf: Does Stance Width Matter?

Finding the proper stance width for you is one of the all time great ways to get better at golf without taking lessons. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what you can learn from the advice of golf instructors and professionals when deciding what an appropriate stance width is for you, and how wider vs narrower stances can affect your game.

How Wide Should Your Golf Stance Be?

All good players will vary their stance width situationally, depending on the shot, the lie, and the club they are using. Think of a driver swing and iron swing. Many do this subconsciously or based on “feel” or just an expertise about the impact conditions they are trying to create, and how to set themselves up to encourage success out of a particular lie or for a particular ball flight.

It’s because of these things there is not a hard-and-fast rule about stance width, but rather good golfers become educated about why certain stances are better for some clubs or some situations than others, and learn to apply these lessons seamlessly as each situation arises on the course.

As a baseline, however, let’s define a “neutral” stance width as the following:

Feet shoulder width apart for a mid-iron and a slightly wider stance for fairway woods.

Insteps of the feet just outside the shoulders for a driver stance width.

Outsteps of the feet just inside the armpits for a half wedge or putter. More narrow stance for chipping and pitching.

The above are great guidelines for a beginner or anyone who wants to start experimenting with different stance widths. Many players will have stances narrower or wider than these recommendations and still compete at the highest levels, and we’ll take a closer look at why these variations occur and what they mean throughout the rest of this article.

Benefits Of A Wide Stance

The benefits of a wide stance are generally: more “stability” as well as more power. But understanding why these things are said can also help understand when you’ve gone too far with it or when a wide stance might not be appropriate.

The key is that narrowing/widening the stance can very easily be overdone. Generally speaking, a wider stance makes weight transfer easier and can help a player generate more power by using their legs more and freeing the whole body up to pivot more and make a longer, harder swing, resulting in more distance without losing balance. Essentially stemming from a more stable base.

However - imagine, or even try out for yourself - an exaggerated situation where you are almost trying to do a split, and hit a golf ball. There is NO power and NO stability in a stance like that. There is no hip turn, your weight cannot shift from heel toe or from left to right. It’s completely the opposite of what we hope to achieve when appropriately widening our stance.

However, done properly, it is ideal for a club like driver.

Problems With A Wide Stance

If your stance gets too wide, it can become a problem. Even without the problems illustrated above with a ridiculously wide stance, even with a fairly “normal” wide stance some players can suffer some difficulties.

For most people, widening the stance allows them to turn their hips more. But for some people, it doesn’t, depending on a variety of factors. If you are somebody who can turn LESS with a wide stance, you are the exception to the norm, and will probably hit the ball better with a narrower trend in your stances.

The trade off with a wide stance is that it allows a lot more room for the player to shift their weight off the ball and back. Which can produce some miraculous results with a massive transition and slide but is also a consistency killer, and the trend with the best ball strikers is to stay more centered. Many amateurs also tend to drift onto the back foot and stay there, especially when they start to get tired.

The most obvious fallout from this is that low point control becomes very difficult, but also can throw several other things completely out of whack if you are prone to swaying too much.

Benefits Of A Narrow Stance

A narrow stance is generally associated more with “control” and “good contact” and more finesse shots.

The great thing about a narrow stance is that it completely discourages any kind of weight shift. This is why narrow stances are best suited for putts and chips that require precise contact but absolutely no power or speed, and many expert players will chip with their feet almost completely together, or about a fist-width apart.

This helps a player basically pre-set where the club is going to bottom out, and then try to guarantee great contact by having a very consistent low point.

Problems With A Narrow Stance

The issue with a narrow stance is that it is hard to make a big swing. And it is especially difficult to do so while using the ground for power and turning the body through the shot like most modern ball striking coaches tend to encourage. This can be helped somewhat with the right golf shoe, but golf shoes can only do so much.

Given these limitations, we can kind of see a range of stances that golfers can use - without going TOO wide or TOO narrow - and it makes sense that as the clubs get longer, we are going to look for more power, but the closer we get to the green the more we are going to prioritize repeatability and precision.

The cool thing about golf is that there are brands that produce clubs to help with all kinds of shortcomings from different setup conditions. 

Pro Golfers With Narrow Stances

Two famous golfers with narrow stances are Jim Furyk and Bubba Watson. These two also make a great example of how there are very few “absolutes” in golf. While narrow stances tend to promote contact over distance, we have perhaps one of the most accurate iron players of all time in Jim Furyk and one of the most prolific drivers of all time in Bubba Watson both favoring narrow stances.

Bubba is especially a great example of not overdoing it - while he has what is considered a narrow stance width for his driver, his feet are still about shoulder-width apart. You will still always see him making a huge turn, shifting his weight beautifully, and using the ground to generate power. For many, a stance that is too narrow would prevent them from doing these things, but if it doesn’t then you may be able to play with a narrower stance and still generate plenty of power.

Pro Golfers With Wide Stance

The two most iconic “wide stance” golfers might be Ben Hogan and Moe Norman. Their swings are notable also for having some of the most “slide” that you will see amongst all-time-great ball strikers, which is a possible matchup for a wide stance. The issue with a “slide” is that almost all golfers stop rotating through the shot and get “stuck” when they start to slide. This is a common cause of a hook. Ben Hogan and Moe Norman blended their slide with pure rotation through the ball and developed a very long, consistent “flat spot” at the bottom of their swings with this combination.

In modern times, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, and Matthew Wolff are all known for having wide stances, while staying very centered in their swing, and all three are regarded as some of the best performing drivers of the golf ball, which is probably not a coincidence.

Can A Wide Or Narrow Stance Fix A Slice Or Hook?

Anything is possible! And one of the best ways to “troubleshoot” any golf swing is to start with setup, grip, posture, and alignment before moving on. That said, any human swinging a golf club is going to be an extremely complex chain of moving parts, each of which absolutely affects the next - which is why “catch-all” tips implemented without the context of the other numerous habits that a golfer has are rarely effective for long.

The best way to remedy a slice or a hook is by understanding ball flight laws and then understanding how different stances, grips, and intentions can encourage different impact conditions and different face/path relationships.

The tricky thing is that every golfer also reacts to all of these factors - their perception of where the target is, where the club head is, and other factors are all being updated in real-time in a split second reaction during the downswing and - even if they are completely wrong about their perception of these things they still will react according to them. Changing something like stance width (which can also change a million other feels for the golfer or even their perception of where they are aimed) could be very good for one golfer and very harmful for another.

So in a very general sense. There are some common problems with stance width that could produce wild results, and we can keep an eye out for these:

• Golfers who set up too wide can have a very hard time shifting pressure properly. This can result in swaying onto the back foot and staying there, which could produce a slice or a block/hook depending on how the golfer recovers. The other end of the spectrum is a golfer can rely very heavily on a big slide move if they are too wide that can suffer from timing issues, produce extra wear on the body, and cause tons of face control and low point issues if not executed masterfully. This is often the cause of a chicken wing golf swing as well!
• Golfers who are too narrow can lose a lot more than just power, too. The main issue with being too narrow is you can restrict the amount of foot, knee, and hip rotation you can get both in the backswing and the through-swing. A limited, “armsy” swing is a recipe for a big over-the-top move or a big sling hook, again depending on how the golfer tends to recover from that position.

Conclusion

Stance width is kind of an overlooked aspect of the setup, but it is one of the best and most functional variables for a golfer to play around with. Because of that, you will see a wide variety of players having success with both wide and narrow stances.

VERY generally speaking, the tradeoff we are playing with is wider = more powerful, narrower = easier contact. However, like all things in golf, this statement comes with a lot of caveats and a big dose of “when a doctor gives you a prescription, you’re not supposed to take the entire bottle!”

So, some players, whether due to habit, anatomy, or personal preference, will tend to be narrower or wider in general - but practically all of them get wider than their baseline when they hit longer clubs and narrower than their baseline when they hit shorter shots.

A great reference for “neutral” - not necessarily best - is to just start with shoulder-width feet on a mid iron, then for a driver put the insteps of your feet on the outside of your shoulders/biceps, and for a wedge or putter put the outsteps of your feet inline with your armpits. Then blend between these three main positions when you are dealing with the other clubs in your set.

This is just a baseline to experiment from and keep yourself from getting too far out into left-field while you are trying things. It is good to experiment with different widths and develop an understanding of why certain ones work and certain ones don’t and develop that invaluable “golfer’s intuition.”The goal is not to memorize some method and measure inch-by-inch on every shot but to make these positionings natural and second nature, as a response or reaction to the situation or shot you are visualizing, as an athlete. Experimenting with different stance widths and testing out the extremes and seeing for yourself is paramount in understanding why it's easier or harder to do certain things from a stance that is narrower or wider than what you’re used to.

Plus it is a way more useful method of actually learning than trying to understand the biomechanical theories behind different setup positions. 

Now that you have the information to set up your own experiments and eliminate some of the more bizarre combos (like trying to win a long drive competition with your feet touching), all that’s left to do is get out there and start testing out what’s best for you!