Backswings: Fast Early or Fast Late?

[iacas]

One of the tips you might hear in the golf world is to take the club back "low and slow." Jack Nicklaus says it worked for him, and I'd tend to agree.

But you and I aren't Jack Nicklaus, and I see a lot of players who might benefit from doing something a bit differently.

The clubhead travels over 12 feet during the backswing (and it may be over 15 to 18 depending on what club you're using). If your backswing takes about a second, then you've gotta move the club pretty quickly at some point!

The question becomes this: is it better to move it quickly during the early part or the late part? Should you be fast down near the ball, early in the takeaway, or gradually build up speed with a "low and slow" takeaway?

Let's take a look at a video which represents something I see fairly often from my students.

Let's take a look at the pictures (fast late is on the left, fast early is on the right):

Of course, that kind of gives it away. Look at the difference in the blur of even my arms on the right. I'm moving the clubhead fast here, early in the backswing.

At this point in the backswing, my "fast early" swing (right) is slowing down, while the "fast late" swing (left) is just getting going.

Because the "fast early" swing (right) is under more control, it coasts to a stop much earlier, leaving me in a more controlled (and "shorter") backswing leading into the transition.

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In the "Fast Late" swing (left), I'm trying to take it back nice and slow, but unless I want to take three seconds, I've gotta speed it up at some point, so I speed it up late. On the right, I whip the clubhead back comparatively quickly, being fast early, and then just kind of gliding out or coasting to the top.

I think you can see, and probably would agree… that in my examples the right side — fast early — is the better looking swing. Why?

Well, in the "fast late" swings (left), I'm fast really close to the transition. When I want to have the club under control the most, I almost have it under control the least.

On the right, in the "fast early" swings, I throw the clubhead back pretty quickly, then sort of "catch it" near the top and slow it down under full control.

Everyone's unique, and this video is only a 43-second glimpse into it, but give this a try: instead of trying to take the clubhead back slowly, take it back fast and then try to "finish" the backswing by just coasting out not long after the clubhead reaches knee height.

[GolfLug]

In my experience slow early can build some tightness in the arms and torso, which loosens up later into a mini collapse. So yeah, if I played/practiced half as much as Nicklaus I would be much looser and follow his advise. 

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

In my experience slow early can build some tightness in the arms and torso, which loosens up later into a mini collapse. So yeah, if I played/practiced half as much as Nicklaus I would be much looser and follow his advise. 

Did you watch the video and read the above? 🙂 

I don't know that "low and slow" is "the best" just because Jack did it.

[GolfLug]

13 minutes ago, iacas said:

Did you watch the video and read the above? 🙂 

I don't know that "low and slow" is "the best" just because Jack did it.

Yes I agree. Maybe my post is ambiguous. Low and slow builds tightness. Not good for me. Maybe ok for Jack.

23 minutes ago, GolfLug said:

In my experience slow early can build some tightness in the arms and torso.

 

Not good for me as a collapse follows at the top. 

[saevel25]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

The question becomes this: is it better to move it quickly during the early part or the late part? Should you be fast down near the ball, early in the takeaway, or gradually build up speed with a "low and slow" takeaway?

After seeing how much a slow start of the backswing, and having it collapse at the top of the swing, I am a believer that the swing needs to get the club moving faster earlier in the backswing. 

It makes sense from an acceleration and velocity standpoint. The clubhead, at the top of the swing, comes to a stop for a moment as it has to change direction. So it is decelerating from some point in the backswing.  

Looking at my Gears graph for clubhead speed. It looks like the inflection point from accelerating to decelerating is slightly before A2. I probably could make that a bit quicker. Half the time of backswing is from A1 to slightly before A2, and the remaining half of the backswing is A2 to A4. So, it is slower from A2 to A4, which makes sense. 

When I was looking at Jack's swing. He is pretty aggressive taking the club back. The swing, even though it looks smooth, is very fast from A1. He really does fling the club back with some aggressiveness even though he saws low and slow. 

 

[Vinsk]

I think you’ve made one of those ‘seems simple’ yet just gets overlooked idea here. I really like this. Going to work with this at my next session!

[Darkfrog]

I'm going to give this a try today. I'm stuck on constantly fixing my backswing (my fault of course)

• I've been told in lessons to try speeding up backswing - it usually looks better when I do that
• I remember an AMG video where one of the guys started with the club parallel out in front of them and did a backswing from that position, and when I did that my backswing also looked pretty good
• I think when I try the slow takeaway, I manipulate the club too much with hands/wrists/arms and don't turn torso and then start stacking compensations from there
• I also think going slow gets the rest of my body out of sync with my arms, also leading to compensation

[iacas]

12 hours ago, saevel25 said:

It makes sense from an acceleration and velocity standpoint. The clubhead, at the top of the swing, comes to a stop for a moment as it has to change direction. So it is decelerating from some point in the backswing.

Yes. I think that point is too late in many players.

12 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Looking at my Gears graph for clubhead speed. It looks like the inflection point from accelerating to decelerating is slightly before A2. I probably could make that a bit quicker. Half the time of backswing is from A1 to slightly before A2, and the remaining half of the backswing is A2 to A4. So, it is slower from A2 to A4, which makes sense.

Is it?

That's just one swing from October, but… that's way later than A2.

12 hours ago, saevel25 said:

When I was looking at Jack's swing. He is pretty aggressive taking the club back. The swing, even though it looks smooth, is very fast from A1. He really does fling the club back with some aggressiveness even though he saws low and slow. 

Yeah.

10 hours ago, Vinsk said:

I think you’ve made one of those ‘seems simple’ yet just gets overlooked idea here. I really like this. Going to work with this at my next session!

Let me know how it goes. I recommend adding speed early with the chest rotation, then letting the wrists hinging "absorb" a lot of the energy. Since the clubhead is slowing down early, you're actually applying force in the downswing direction pretty early. Here, it felt like shortly after the clubhead got past the back edge of the mat.

22 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

• I remember an AMG video where one of the guys started with the club parallel out in front of them and did a backswing from that position, and when I did that my backswing also looked pretty good
• I think when I try the slow takeaway, I manipulate the club too much with hands/wrists/arms and don't turn torso and then start stacking compensations from there
• I also think going slow gets the rest of my body out of sync with my arms, also leading to compensation

Yeah.

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In this image I highlighted the left arm (white) and the shaft (green).

Of course, the club has two things moving it - the hinging of the wrists and the left arm moving around. But if you look, you'll notice that between A2 and A3 Rory's movements are the "biggest." He doesn't immediately start fast - the lines are close together at the start AND at the end.

I think this is one of the biggest reasons he's able to achieve a 69° right elbow bend at A4… there's not a lot of momentum in the system. He bleeds it out by absorbing it through wrist hinge.

[saevel25]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

Is it?

That's just one swing from October, but… that's way later than A2.

Wow, I misread that graph, Lol. My bad

[iacas]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Wow, I misread that graph, Lol. My bad

Remember, though, the hinging is a second lever that can add speed. I'd be curious about a hand speed graph (and might try to look at those tomorrow morning).

[billchao]

I tend to be slow early, due to a late bending of the trail elbow if I remember correctly. Every collapses at the top. It’s not great.

[Big Lex]

A few random thoughts:

When I first started, I was taught by my brother and Jack's book, and probably magazine articles to start low and slow, build speed gradually, etc. I don't think it was good for me. The first time I went to a professional event and could stand relatively close to the players as they swung, the first thing I noticed was that their backswings overall seemed much faster than mine. 

In the Bobby Jones movies/videos on golf, Jack Nicklaus makes a comment that in the hickory shaft era, the whippiness of the shafts required "a looser, more flowing action than today with steel shafted clubs." Is it possible that feeling "low and slow" worked or helped in some way when equipment was different? 

In transition...Dr. Kwon sometimes tells students to work on thinking of the swing as one continuous motion, not 2 motions or 2 motions with a transition in between. It would seem that fast early/slow late would help you to make a smooth transition and make the swing a more continuous motion than if you are accelerating the club late in the backswing. 

[saevel25]

On 12/20/2022 at 7:18 PM, iacas said:

The clubhead travels over 12 feet during the backswing (and it may be over 15 to 18 depending on what club you're using). If your backswing takes about a second, then you've gotta move the club pretty quickly at some point!

I was thinking. The backswing averages around .75 seconds.

let’s say the the club head has to travel 18 feet for the driver. That means it needs to average 24 feet per second or 16.3 mph. Since that is an average, the peak mph might be closer to 25-30mph. Maybe something like 40-45 feet per second.

 

[colin007]

What about slow and controlled all the way to the top like Matsuyama?

[Sonadt]

Fast late:
At the end of the BS you have CHS=0, that's a result of deceleration phase, or slowing down phase. You start also from zero speed, so anyway you need speed-up phase in between. That means if you try "low and slow" you will cut the time/distance of the phase ramping-up  the speed of the BS. Because of that the peak velocity is not big enough then you do not need much effort to stop the club by countermovement of the lowbody and you will not prepare good condition for effortless DS later. So you do not need the "low and slow" phase at the beginning of BS, trigger then increase CHS as soon as possible, IMO.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I was thinking. The backswing averages around .75 seconds.

It's a bit longer than that.

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

let’s say the the club head has to travel 18 feet for the driver.

I was wrong with 18 feet. I was thinking long drive guys for that. If the lever is 5' long (driver is 45 + arm is maybe 30 = 75, but the wrists hinge to narrow it…), that's a circumference of about 16' and that's all the way around the circle. So it's not 18'. Bad math by me.

I do wonder what it is, though. You could figure it out - GEARS will tell you the distance from the clubhead to your left shoulder or something at any point in time.

Anyway, sorry, bad math. Too late to change the tweets though.

Your math is still fine, just smaller numbers all around.

17 minutes ago, Sonadt said:

you will not prepare good condition for effortless DS later.

Not trying to nitpick, but there's no such thing as an "effortless" downswing. An effortless downswing would be entirely gravity driven and wouldn't hit the ball 30 yards let alone 300.

[Sonadt]

On 12/23/2022 at 3:32 AM, iacas said:

Not trying to nitpick, but there's no such thing as an "effortless" downswing. An effortless downswing would be entirely gravity driven and wouldn't hit the ball 30 yards let alone 300.

Yes, surely you can not change anything without effort, that's Newton Law #2. Just wording follow the trend of media coaching in online social network. Thx

 

[iacas]

7 hours ago, Sonadt said:

Yes, surely you can not change anything without effort, that's Newton Law #2. Just wording follow the trend of media coaching in online social network. Thx

I know. I hate that wording, though, because feels aren’t “what actually happens.” And online, I prefer to stick to facts, not feels.