During impact when the putter meets the ball, the position of the ball on the ground relative to your stance can have a huge impact on the direction the ball comes off the putter face and where the ball actually strikes on the putter face (towards the heel or the toe).

The majority of golfers are completely unaware of how extremely important having the ball in the correct position in your setup is. They usually just walk up to the ball, place the putter behind the ball, adjust the rest of their body, and take their stroke. Then when the ball misses the hole they automatically blame the putting stroke, condition of the green, and even the putter itself.

If the ball is just a fraction out of place in your set up, you've already increased the likelihood of missing the putt before you've even struck the ball.

Whether the ball is too close to your body, too far away, too far forward in your stance (towards your front foot), or too far back (towards your back foot), each one of these errors, if even just a fraction off, can send the ball as much as 6 inches offline in as little as a 10 foot putt.

If you look at the best putters on the PGA Tour right now you'll notice that the position of the ball in their setup never changes… never It doesn't matter what type of putt they face, they know exactly where their ball needs to be in their setup to assure that they leave no margin for error in their set up so that they have the best chance of successfully making each putt.

Now you and I are no different. We each require an ideal position for the ball in our set ups in order for the putter to strike the ball in the proper place on the putter face and to strike it at the best possible angle to achieve a pure "square to the target" stroke. So how do the rest of us weekend golfers find our ideal position since we don't have access to $5000/day coaches, million dollar high speed cameras and computer software?

Well, since every golfer is different and there is no one single ideal position for everyone, there are fundamentals that must be followed to assure a proper ball position each time.

#1. The ball needs to be in a position forward enough in your stance that the putter strikes it in the first moment of the upswing while the putter is in an ascending motion. Catching the ball at this brief, ideal moment will put the truest roll on the ball. If the ball is too far back in your stance, the putter will strike the ball while it's still in a descending motion, pushing it into the ground and causing it too skip offline in the first few inches of roll. Too far forward and the putter catches it too far into the upswing lifting it from the ground.

#2. The ball must be out far enough away from you to be in an ideal position for you to see the line of the putt while standing over the ball. This also lets you strike the ball in the center of the putter face. Striking the ball towards the heel or the toe of the putter causes the putter to twist and send the ball right or left of the target.

You should now see how important it is to be able to put your ball in this ideal position each and every time you stand over a putt. Since correct ball position has absolutely nothing to so with your putting stroke, this is one act you can do to help out your putting that doesn't even involve having a putter in your hands.