Dialing back the power

I've been swinging about 80% lately and have been hitting my irons a lot more consistently, without losing much distance.  I was wondering if you guys are doing the same, or swinging closer to all-out.

alot of the time when someone says they are swinging at 80% or such and getting better results are probably swinging at their maximum efficient swing

what you feel is 80% and working for you now is porbably the best for you,.....to swing harder and maintin the good game you have will take alot of work.

but to answer your question i outhit all my golfing buddies and dont swing hard at all,...whilst they all swing for the fences,....

80% thought never worked for me. I think about hitting with the pace and swing of a 110 yard PW. It is a full swing, controlled to make a yardage. If I had to, I could stretch my PW to 130. 110 is my "80%" swing, controlled with perfect contact. So, when I play well, with all clubs my thought about tempo and how hard to swing is "Hit this like a 110 yard wedge."

Since I got Mizuno irons, I love the feeling of "perfect" contact and I swing easier to make that happen. Like hitting a wedge 100 yards.

A pro once told me that his way of slowing down is to think of hitting the club less distance.

EX: If you hit the 5 iron consistently 160-170 yards, he will think of hitting it 140-150yrds.

He thought that if you always thought "hit it like a 110yrd wedge", you may on occasion slow down too much and screw up your swing

I played baseball most of my life and have not found a consistent way of slowing down although I hit it longer and straighter if I

I am able to slow down. Mentally, I think of a slow swing and start a slow backswing and then accelerate to 250 mph on the forward swing which gets me all out of position

I took voice lessons for several years. What made my voice teacher so great was that she continued to try ways of explaining the same things when the first, second, or third way did not work for me.

I find my golf pros to be the same way now. What image or swing thought works for others may not work for me an vice versa.

It seems most guys relate to the 80% thing because it is dominant in teaching -- include with my pros. For me, I started to get it with my wedge thought. For someone else it may be shortening the distance on each club. Those multiple ways of teaching the same thing are another reason I like golf school (five instructors) instead of just private lessons. Most teachers are not as gifted as my old voice coach. But now I wondering from the original post.

I'm balls out every swing. I keep my head still and my weight is balanced. Check out my swing video.

I try to play a few holes a round where I take one more club than I need in order to calm down my swing.  I kept finding that those were the shots where I hit the ball the best, kept my balance, had good tempo, etc.  So now I try to swing like I have an extra club unless I have to land the ball quickly.  That helps to negate the side spin (as well as backspin).

I like this idea, as I also, have not had much success swinging at "less than 100%."  I just seem to naturally swing my wedges with a slower and smoother tempo.  It gets stronger and more forced with additional club length.  I'll give it a shot - "pace of a wedge."  Thanks for the tip.

BTW, dialing back the power does not mean less distance. It is really about dialing back the hard swinging -- the power is there. I really thought about this today and ended up much longer all day. Lots of wind today and this "swing like a controlled wedge" thought had me boring through the wind and much longer than normal. Actually cost me a few strokes because I went past my intended layup three times and was past the pin all day with a nice controlled swing. Perfect contact makes for a long ball. If I keep it up I'll need to adjust all my yardages. Shot one over my personal best on the front nine. Reverted to the mean on the back but still with nice ball striking.

You probably 1. Hit the ball closer too and more frequently on the sweet spot and 2. You probably generate more club head speed. Believe it or not a lot of times swinging "easier" actually allows you to generate more club head speed.

You are right that overswinging can hurt your execution.  For clarification, however, I suspect that when you say 80%, you mean 80% of the effort you were making previously.  I doubt that you were actually swinging with 100% of your effort.  As a practical matter, you'd probably have a few bent shafts if you did.

Having said that, what works best for me is to accelerate GRADUALLY through the ball.  If I accelerate too quickly from the top of my swing, it's difficult to maintain good balance, a flat swing plane, and consistent clean contact.  I make it a point to come to a full stop at the top of my swing for a split second.  This allows me to gather my balance and for my lower and upper body to gather and work together before I begin my downswing.  From there I would estimate that I begin my downswing at about 1/3 of my maximum effort and gradually accelerate to about 2/3 of my maximum effort through contact, and then decelerate on the follow through.

That's what seems to work best for me.