I don't understand "Narrow".

[Stretch]

Hear this bandied about all the time. "Too narrow, too steep." "That's a narrowing move." Etc. And I've just never really fully grokked it in the overall context of the swing. Help a brother out with some pictures or something, please?

[Chas]

Well I'm no instructor so bear that in mind (maybe I shouldn't even be posting this ....), and I'm sure you'll be hearing from the real experts, but being too narrow means that you lack extension .  In Tiger's excellent book on the game he says that his main swing thought for quite a while was, "how far from my head can I get my hands (on the backswing)?".  When you're narrow, your hands are not far enough away from your head at the top.

For me, when I'm narrow lots of other things don't work right.  Being narrow for me is associated with going back too much on the inside, right elbow too near my right pocket (on the way up), so I have to compensate as I get to the top and I play erratically - even for me.  Chunks, pulls, pushes, you-name-it.

So narrowness is a big deal.  Now you can hear the truth from the experts and ignore what I just said .....

[Mr. Desmond]

When I think of a narrow swing, I picture a V - narrow bottom and less margin of error

When I think of a wide swing, I picture a U - wide bottom and more margin of error

Steep - coming down all mostly vertical

Shallow - coming down with more horizontal

Off the top of my head, there are times for narrow, when I'm in deep rough and too much grass will stop the club or interfere with the ball.

[boogielicious]

And for the follow through, your Avatar shows it.  The idea is keeping the pivot point of your swing, the hands, fully extended from the center of rotation for maximum velocity.

[Chas]

For me. When I have good extension and make a proper weight shift, I almost always hit ball-then-turf as opposed to the reverse. Why is that, exactly? I understand about the weight shift/hip bump but why should extension have that effect? Yet on the course I can't seem to do it right consistently. Grrrrr