I've known my swing is too long. It does cause problems where my weight shift is off and things go somewhat south. I was noticing on our GC2 how high my launch angle was. Boss said " you flip the club...shorten your backswing."

So a couple weeks ago I started working on it. First off, my approach angle was awful with the long past parallel backswing...didn't realize that. I worked on it inside for a week and then played. Huge difference. Ball flight came down, accuracy is up...no pulls or pushes ( I'm amazed actually at the accuracy) and a big concern...no loss of distance. I expect distance to increase as I get used to doing it.

It's funny, I feel like I'm swinging half way back and when I watch it on the screen it's just about at parallel. I figured end of the season is the best time to try doing it.

    Typhoon I was guilty of it for years too, still get long with driver in hand, also used to flip a bit. Once I started taking “3/4” swings (actually full swings, just felt short to me), my iron trajectory got much more controlled. I’m sure you will find great success with it, I did end up gaining some distance because of the flight, so it would make sense you will too. Good luck to you, eventually it just feels like you are taking a nice easy swing and the ball just goes.

      What do you think causes the angle of attack issue with the longer backswing? Is it that the hips shift father ahead and cause a steeper descent, or is it just about the flipping due to early deceleration? I'm a poor player and a short hitter, but the best part of my game is irons, and I hit them best when I take what feels like a 3/4 swing.

        johnnydoom My theory is your body is ahead of the swing because the club has to recover from being so far past parallel, which means your hands have to make up the difference some how, just to get to the ball. You have to give the club that little extra flip to get to it in time, otherwise, it will be behind and you are going to come in with an open face and a body that’s already cleared, essentially dragging the club across the ball with a right to left motion. Translation, you hit a lot of balls to the right or you manage to get the hands just square enough that you pull the ball. So if you don’t flip it to compensate for your body being out of sorts, you get awful results.

        Shortening the swing allows the body to control more of the swing without the hands having to catch up. you can let the club kind of fall into place and do the work. With a “3/4” feel, the brain thinks there is no hurry, we are swinging easy here, no need to put that extra flip in to help square it. Magically, we start seeing shots go where we are lined up. The club is going to follow the arc of the body, assuming no funny manipulation, and that will (should) lead to a pretty good angle of decent down through the ball and back up.

            DC300 Thank you. I've never been a student of the swing and my scores reflect that, but now at the age of 55 I've had a renewal of interest and am actually trying to learn cause and effect instead of just repetition and I appreciate your insight and Typhoon sharing his experience.

              That's always been an issue for me as well. I've heard from instructors that you can have a long backswing, but if you do you'd better have great timing & skill....I do not. I tend to take the club back too far and then lose control of it at the top. I find it difficult not to take it back so far though. As you say, what feels like a half swing to me is really a full turn. I struggle with the tempo for the "half swing" though. I thought this would get easier in my 50's, but apparently I'm still quite flexible lol.

              This is something I want to try to work on this winter. I've noticed that even when I don't hit it great with a shorter backswing, my misses are so much better. Generally no big pulls, pushes, hooks, etc. if I can keep the swing under control.

                KCee my measure is simple turn the front shoulder to my chin, no further and that’s the extent of where I need to go. It might be a good reference point for starting, then you just let it rip.

                With a driver I get longer, but I don’t have nearly the difficulty timing that for whatever reason.

                    DC300 It's funny because the driver is the worst for me when I'm overswinging. I seem to be able to get away with it with my irons (to some extent), but not the big stick.

                    Getting my left shoulder under my chin has worked for me at times, but I really struggle with the tempo of a much shorter backswing. I've gotten pretty good at with short irons, but I can't always translate it to the longer clubs.

                    I did go a bit lighter with my clubs a couple of years ago and even though I'm getting older I may still need the heft to slow me down. I might build a 2nd set this winter that's the same weight as my old clubs and see if there's a difference.

                        KCee

                        I developed a huge dislike for the prior head pro at my current club, because of a couple of arrogant instances that I took issue with... which aren't worth rehashing here. He's no longer there for various reasons. But I will say this much about him - he gave me the best 20 minute lesson on the practice range a few seasons back.

                        And I say this knowing that we all struggle with different things in our swings, different aspects of the game.

                        But I went from driver being the most reliable club in my bag to suddenly flaring shots out to the left, or coming over the top with a shut face and pulling the ball to the right (I'm a lefty). No idea why. Alignment was good, posture was good, ball position was good.

                        He watched me hit about a dozen 7-irons, and I was hitting them very close to the 160 yard flag. He then tells me to hit some shots with the driver. After about 3-4 minutes, he stopped me. "With the shorter clubs - the irons - you keep the club much more on-plane. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your iron swing. But you need to swing your driver the same way."

                        And I struggled with that concept most of my life playing golf. The iron swing is nothing like the driver swing. The ball is not on the ground, it's sitting on a tee, and it's obviously much more of a sweeping motion than a descending impact motion. I think we all agree that taking a divot with a driver usually ends up being a disastrous result.

                        But he corrected my thinking. "When I say I want your swing with the longer clubs mirroring the swing with your irons - I'm not talking so much about impact. I'm talking about the backswing. When you hit those 7-irons, your right shoulder didn't drop when you took the club back. It just simply rotated under your chin. But when you hit driver, you drop your right shoulder, the club comes back way too much to the inside, and you either hit a block or a pull, because your natural instinct is to try to square the face at impact. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't. Just focus on keeping your right shoulder level as you take the club back, just like you do with your irons."

                        And in modern day teaching instruction, what he was basically saying is keep the club lower to the ground for a bit longer during the takeaway.

                        Best lesson ever in all my years of playing. And it took him 20 minutes to spot it, and it took me all of 5 minutes to apply it. My once-reliable tee game that had abandoned me was back again.

                        Now had he told me, "don't bring the club back inside so early" - I never would've felt the connection of what he wanted me to do. But "keep your right shoulder more level on your takeaway and allow it to simply rotate under your chin" - it was an "Eureka!" moment for me.

                        A lot of times we just need "simple" instruction, vs the "don't do this or don't do that."


                            PA-PLAYA I agree that, for me at least, the driver swing and iron swing are different. Maybe not completely but definitely not the same. In most rounds I'll hit my irons decently and struggle with the driver and 3 wood. At times I just pound the driver long and straight the whole round, but then I can't hit an iron to save my life. On super rare instances, not a full round of course, I can hit both. When that happens I usually have this feeling of swinging the driver much flatter than the irons.

                            The real problem is that when I find a swing key that works, it's lifespan is limited. It only works for so long. Probably because I have long stretches where I don't swing a club. Winter is usually pretty long here in New England. Even in the summer, I may not swing a club for 2 weeks due to work and family commitments. It only takes a couple of days to lose it. I drove the ball great in a round on 10/20, but was horrible yesterday. I just couldn't find that feeling I had a week earlier.

                                KCee

                                The "lifespan" of a successful swing key? That's a great topic all to itself! Yes, I agree. What worked yesterday might not work today. What might work today doesn't always work tomorrow. Somedays I'm left thinking it depends on which side of the bed you get up from in the morning. Had a 5 shot lead in the club championship 9 years ago. Shot 77 on a very windy day, first round of a 2-day stroke play championship. Thought for sure that I'd be trailing by several strokes by the time I'd finished, but went to sleep that night on a 5-shot lead. Got up the next morning, went to the range and went through my routine just like I'd done the day before.

                                Felt good. Didn't feel cocky or arrogant. But felt confident.

                                I was a 2-handicap. Shot 53 going out, 36 coming in, barely breaking 90 in the final round. Had this been a simple round with my buddies - I'm probably good for a 75 on a day with good greens and no wind. But despite good greens and no wind that Sunday - I shot 89. It was a very humbling experience for me. Learned from it, won it the next year, however. 🙂

                                Golf is just hard most of the time for me. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the experience with friends even when I'm sucking, just makes those rare good rounds even better. And "hard" is relative. But the struggles and mental demons, by and large, are pretty much the same, regardless of skill level.

                                    PA-PLAYA I'm inconsistent with the driver. When I'm on with it I'm usually just the opposite of the irons. With the irons I use what feels like a 3/4 swing, with the driver my best results have been to push the backswing to the point where my head actually moves a bit and down and through. I try to use the same takeaway, just consciously farther back. It works to the extent that I can transition smoothly, which is more difficult for me to do with the longer swing and the desire for distance.

                                      PA-PLAYA So true. I have learned though that even when you don't have a swing you can still shoot a score. The first time was almost 10 years ago for me. I found myself out of work for the summer and so playing more golf and getting better. I started shooting 85's instead of 95-105. I "lost" my swing for a couple of weeks though and was going to play with 3 guys that were all single digits. I decided to "bunt it" around so I could keep it in play and not embarrass myself too much. I shot 78 with 2 doubles, on a windy day to break 80 for the 1st time. Just recently I won our club's Fall Shootout doing pretty much the same thing.....I doubt I would have broken 80, but I got the ball in the hole when it counted.

                                        I started playing golf instinctively, without the aid/handicap of instruction. I had a repeating swing with a slight fade and would hit a string of iron shots directly at the targets on the range. That changed after reading articles in golf magazines. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. The best advise I have after years of trial and error is to emulate the impact position of the classic players, Hogan, Snead, Nicklaus, Palmer and weight should be balanced in both feet at impact with irons and 70 percent on the rear foot with a driver.

                                        Typhoon Couldn't agree more. I went to Don Trahan's swing a few years back. I've changed my swing since, but I have still retained Don's approach of shortening the backswing. It's amazing how much this "shortened" swing affects my ball-striking and accuracy. Whenever I start getting inconsistent or inaccurate, the length of my backswing is the first thing I check.

                                        (Had a recent experiment with a longer backswing, which I write about in a different thread, and the results were really poor in terms of consistency, accuracy, and pain.)

                                            johnnydoom

                                            DC300 basically was spot on 100%. And I think it's because we both hit it a long way, we get the same things going on in our swings.

                                            My driver swing is too long but I have no problems. I'll try shortening it over the winter just to see but I'm fine with it...I think I shift my weight better whereas with my irons I tend to stay over the ball and that leads to problems.

                                            So my iron swing...I stay over the ball and my over swing would sometimes get my weight going in the wrong direction...leading to a reverse pivot. To "save it" I would release early and flip it. That would lead to what DC was saying...pulls, pull draws or high and right. The early release would give me an approach angle with a 9'iron of zero or +1 degree instead of -4...about what it should be.

                                            I've shortened my backswing and its help fix the early release, any over the top move and flip. It is a much easier swing to do too.

                                            I played today and for some reason fell into a funk where I started hitting punches because of the shorter backswing. I figured it out, that I was doing that...just part of the process getting used to something new.

                                              kelco9

                                              It's funny what u say about "pain" Kelco. My pro tells me I don't know where to stop my backswing because I have no pain.

                                                  PA-PLAYA if it makes you feel any better I have shot that exact same round. I credited the hot dog and beer at the turn as the fuel needed to get it going lol. What else can you do?