The converse is that having the hands randomly too far ahead, or randomly too far behind the ball at impact is a major factor in producing randomly off-line shots.

When the hands are too far behind the ball at impact, pulls and hooks (and even topping) tend to occur, as the clubface tends to have more time to be closed by impact.

When the hands are too far ahead of the ball at impact, pushes and slices tend to occur, as the clubface tends to remain opened at impact.

In the old days when waggling is employed, the positioning of the hands at the moment of ball impact can be rehearsed before the shot. Now days, this ability to controlling the position of the hands at the moment of ball impact has to be made mentally, as now days few use the waggle. For example, facing pages 152 and 153 of Woods’ book illustrate this.

Even the top players can have their hands too far ahead (or behind) the ball at impact, as a few years ago, a US Open was lost when the hands were way too far ahead of the ball (ie. late) at impact on the drive on the last hole, and resulting in a bad push deep into the tree line.

The proper positioning of the hands can be practiced until it is instinctive to the extend that subconscious mid-course corrections can be automatically made by the mind. This automatic mid-course correction ability is an important ability to develop, because the speed of the arm swing can vary based on how far from the ball the setup is, which can vary (specially on uneven ground,) based on the physics law of the conservation of angular momentum, so that the arms automatically swing faster when the arms are closer to the body, and they swing automatically swing slower when the arms are farther from the body, so that when the arms swing faster than expected, the hands tend to get too much in front of the ball to promote pushing, and so that when the arms swing slower than expected, the hands tend to get too much behind the ball at impact to promote pulling.