Dear Golf Guru,

This morning I headed out to hit a bag of balls at the oval before work. I planned to concentrate on tempo, timing and rhythm. I began well and got progressively worse. I couldn’t end the session there so I gathered them up and hit another bag worth.

At this point I decided to shorten the swing to concentrate on path and impact. To my amazement I began to hit them solid, straight and just as far as with a full swing.

My questions are:
is the extra backswing just wasted? or
Is the extra backswing simply spoiling my timing etc?
Does it just feel like 3/4 backswing and is in fact a full backswing? and so might my full backswing really be an ‘overswing’?

I ‘hate’ rediscovering time and again that good timing is the key to my hitting well.

Cheers,
AF

AF,

I’ve been working hard on getting my arms to stop when my body stops rotating. It significantly shortens my swing, because my left arm doesn’t bend so much (it will be straight eventually). Do a search in the golf school for keeping the left arm straight and it makes controlling swing length a matter of rotation, not arm movement, which has helped me a lot. As the article explains, it maintains the radius of your swing, which makes a flat left wrist at impact a little/lot more achievable

OC

AF: Many players are shocked to find what they consider their 3/4 swing is in fact a good full one. Not everyone but the majority go past the point where all the loading is done already.

Ask yourself :
How is my posture changing between 3/4 and Full?
Have I still a FLW at the top or have I just wrecked that?
Have I still got my club on plane?
In my Transition have I more wobbly bits in the full swing?

Extensor Action (Keeping the Left Arm Straight article) gives you a heap of clues to where your swing is going AWOL. Just knowing the left arm is straight helps heaps. Better players can get away with it bending a little at the top but most of us in the forum probably do not fit that level of ability:)

This is spot on for me Guru. If I get someone to watch or video my “full” swing it has a bent left arm, cupped left wrist and across the line. If I then do what feels like a 3/4 or even half swing….......BINGO, great extensor action, FLW, on plane, effortless power and a happy golfer.

Excellent!
Thanks for the responses. They really give me confidence to just keep swinging to 3/4. I find it really encourages me to accelerate through the hitting area instead of ‘casting from the top’.
Cheers,
AF

My pro wants me to work on a longer swing once I have locked in the basics on my current “3/4 model” – I have the video and it is compact. But I might resist his push for more power as I am happy with accuracy and control for the sake of a few yards. We’ll see at the next lesson where this goes. My stock club to clear 150m on the fly is a 6 iron – if I make changes to crank this up to a 7 iron I probably won’t gain a lot so far as scoring is concerned.

Hi Whhitednj,

In his Short Game Bible, Dave Pelz states that in regard to the wedges, the distance of a 3/4 swing is 90% that of a full swing. If this translates to the longer irons then it might not be worth risking accuracy for the extra 10%. Though 10% for your 6 iron is another 17m.

Anyone who is flying a 6 iron 150m with a 3/4 swing is doing ok in my opinion, and I bet many others.

Also one man’s 3/4 is another man’s full, its all relative. I’ve said it before, that straight left arm article should be mandatory study for every golfer and if you get it done with a 3/4, leave it alone and go for a longer club for more distance.

Common sense rules OK.

Least number of moving parts to get the ball X distance to score with. If its X+1 then pulling out the next club with the same swing sounds good to me.

Baz37 & Guru – spot on for my current thinking. Golf is a game of opposites so there is so much going on to make it simple – does that make sense? I’d rather have a swing with a FLW any day than more power from a longer backswing – the improvements from 50m in are worth it alone.

My golf mate is an ex state hockey player with the smallest backswing I’ve ever seen and where I hit 6-iron, he hits 8&9s. Beats me how he generates the clubhead speed in such a small arc.

Yep, simpler the better. Problem is ego’s get in the way, who cares how far anybody else hits anything, its rarely relevant to your game.

Its an oldie but a goodie “it’s not how, it’s how many”.

Play a whole round or two with what you think is your 3/4 or “controlled” swing and try and play as many holes as you can with the one ball ( i.e. keep it in play no matter what ) and see if your scores don’t improve.

Golf is a precision game not a power game, until your on +1 or better, playing professionally or long driving.

I play regularly with a guy off 4 or 5 who beats me off the stick most of the time until we play at a course where there’s lots of water then its no contest. If 3/4 equals straight I’m all in favour.