What Does "Set Your Feet Shoulder Width Apart" Mean?

[54golfer]

I have always heard, "In the setup, set your feet in the golf stance shoulder width apart."

 

(1) Some say that means to measure your shoulders on the outside of your arms and use that for the distance between your feet.

(2) Others say that means to measure the distance between your arm pits and use that for the distance between your feet.

 

Which is it? Or is it something else?

 

Thanks!

[happyroman]

Jimmy Ballard (and others) say that, for a driver, the stance width should be measured from the outside of the shoulders and the inside of the feet (heels). An excellent book I recently read, called [i]Golf from the Ground Up[/i], by Bob Mullen, says that the width between your heels is equal to the width of your shoulders (measured from the outsides of the shoulders) for the driver and teed up 3-wood. The stance is one shoe width narrower for fairway woods, hybrids and mid irons, and 1 1/2 shoe width narrower (than the driver stance) for short irons and wedges.

Personally, I think it's entirely dependent on how one is built. I have very short legs (29" inseam) and having my stance as wide as described above for the driver is very uncomfortable.

Shawn Clement says to think of your stance with the club in hand as a tripod. As the club (third leg) gets longer, the feet, which represent the other two legs of the tripod, must get further apart for stability. The shorter the club, the closer together the feet can be.