Shorten my backswing or swing away?

[ebin]

Hi,

I'm still pretty new to golf (less than 15 rounds in my life) and am finally getting comfortable hitting my driver however the advice I've gotten lately is that I need to shorten my backswing if I want to get more consistent which makes sense to me.

I've managed to shorten the backswing a bit (I'm more or less parallel now at the top - usually a bit over) and have a good tempo. My efforts of late to shorten the swing more to gain more consistency aren't very helpful to me right now as it's ruining my tempo - when I do make decent contact I am definitely more accurate but it's a gong show otherwise.

I'm longer the way it is if more inaccurate than with a shorter swing but the tempo is there and I don't know whether I should put the work in to shorten the swing or should I work on being more consistent with what I have. I'm not overswinging IMO as I'm naturally very flexible and I get a lot of wrist cock (I can touch the ground with my wrists from a standing position).

Am I on the path to ruin if I don't shorten my backswing? Or can I learn to make good use of it? If I should shorten the backswing what can I do to make this work better for me?

eric

[allin]

One option instead of conciously trying to shorten your backswing, hard to do for a newer golfer, is to try and build more resistance into your swing by keeping a very firm flexed back knee and making sure your hip turn is limited. This has been popularized as the X factor. It seems to work well for more flexible individuals. There are probably online explanations at golf magazine web sites that explain it better than I can.

[wachesawgolfer]

I really would not try to shorten your backswing unless it is not really a backswing but left arm braking down. Take the backswing back only to the point your shoulders have turned as far as they will go and your left arm is still straight. This may be shorter than you are now going due to left arm collapse. Really all you need is the full shoulder turn, left shoulder at least under the chin, to generate a lot of power. The pros all seem to be shortening their swings to parallel or less, but they are truly supple and can go farther but have realized the less moving parts the better in a swing.

Ideally, your lower body starts moving towards the target while your club is still going back and this creates torque. If you have this happening don't do anything to disrupt your natural tempo which may be great.

[schlyer]

I agree with wachesawgolfer - don't shorten that backswing unless your left arm is breaking down.

I'll add one other caveat though, sometimes a too-long backswing can cause a reverse pivot - its worth shortening up if this is happening to you.