Trouble with last part of backswing.

[anthony]

I'm having trouble making contact with my full swing as good as my 3/4 swing with my irons. By 3/4 I'd say about chest high with wrists fully cocked.

With my 3/4 I really feel my body torque(or pull rather), the contact is crisp and the ball flight beautiful. I'm very confident when hitting 3/4's, but something happens in the last part when I make a full swing where I get disconnected or possibly come out of my swing or maybe get out of sync, not sure. I could just keep playing a 3/4, but I could increase my distances with a solid full swing.

Anyone ever have this happen to them?

[Zeph]

Could it be that you are overswinging? That the last rotation is more the arms collapsing into the body?

[ks8829]

make sure you are rotating instead of lifting on your backswing and I discovered that if I make sure my back shoulder is lower than the front it leads to a shorter backswing with my front arm straight and not bent will help you make a full turn backswing and still keep a short backswing not going past parallal and allow the solid contact for your full backswing.

The tilt of the shoulder also allows you to take the backswing slowly and set the shoulders so that you can simply release and extend the arms on your downswing to generate speed.

[Chief Broom]

JB Holmes hits the ball a long way swinging what most would consider barely more than a half swing.

[anthony]

I suppose I could be overswinging some. I've been addressing that issue with my driver and have addressed it with the irons in the past. However, it's possible it has crept back in.

I keep my right shoulder lower than my left. It's the last thing I check mentally when setting up for my swing. I'll see if I can get some video at the range later to see how far I actually come from a full swing.

I'll report my results later.

[Where's the Cart Girl?]

... I make sure my back shoulder is lower than the front it leads to a shorter backswing with my front arm straight and not bent will help you make a full turn backswing

I got lost here. I don't see how your back shoulder could ever be lower than your forward shoulder anywhere during the backswing beyond where the club is parallel to the ground going back. Maybe I just misread this, I dunno....

OP: I feel that I make consistently purer contact on 3/4 swings more than full swings as well. I don't think this is uncommon at all. What I attribute it to is tempo. My tempo is better on the 3/4 swing I think, and that results in a cleaner strike on the ball. Try maybe sharpening your transition at the top in the full swing just a touch. And as an aside, you're probably not losing that much distance even with only what feels a 3/4 swing. And if you can learn to control your trajectory with your follow through you can play pretty stable golf either way. Don't be afraid to just stick with what works..

[anthony]

I think he means back shoulder lower at address, not while swinging.

I went to the range and had a half good session. The first part of the session I was focusing on how far my arms and shoulders were rotating and kinda screwed myself up because that's not my usual routine. I was hitting some fat and while I struck some good shots, I wasn't very comfortable. So, I stopped and just took a seat for a few minutes. I thought about the last session I had which was very productive. So, I quit focusing on my arms and revisited what I did last session. Which basically was 2 things basically. On the backswing, rotate my shoulders back with the club staying on the target line and on the downswing rotating my hips towards the target. That's all. I keep my arms very passive on the downswing. I don't even think about them.

The last half of the bucket felt great. Really great. I knew it was going to be good before I swung the club. Obviously, I can't know that, but I had confidence. I think I might start a little driving range log of sorts, so I don't work on something and end up screwing up what was working for me.

Oh, and when I was leaving, the guy at the range said I had a good full backswing. I didn't even ask him either, he just mentioned it when I was was giving him the empty bucket. This is a crazy game.

[unoiron]

I'm having trouble making contact with my full swing as good as my 3/4 swing with my irons. By 3/4 I'd say about chest high with wrists fully cocked.

If you are making a full shoulder turn, getting your arms back that extra 1/4 is not going to make a significant impact on distance. But, having said that, I think this might be what is happening:

When you make a 3/4 swing your arms are probably still out in front of your chest, where they should be. When you try to go that extra 1/4, you are bringing your left arm flat across the front of your chest, so that it would cover any writing across the chest of your t-shirt. In order to make good contact, consistently, you need those arms back in front of your chest forming a triangle at impact. So that if you swing that extra 1/4 and bring your left arm flatter across your chest, you need to get it back out in front of your chest before you start turing your chest (arms out in front of it) down through the ball. It's a timing issue. When you're going for that extra 1/4 your arms aren't out in front of your chest at impact; they're either out ahead of your chest or, most likely, lagging behind. Hope this helps.

[MiniMoe]

If your shoulders are rotated fully, and your wrists are set, then the back swing is finished. Your full back swing might look like someone a 3/4 swing of someone else. Don't worry about it and keep hitting it good.