I was playing a round of golf with long time student JM, a friend of his and my brother Ken. JM has mastered the 3/4 backswing with all his clubs except his driver. He has it for a few swings and then it goes away. What pops up looks ugly and hits some ugly shots to even uglier places, both right and left.
When JM gets long with his backswing he goes to parallel and a little longer. The ugly part is that he gets this sort of swash buckle whip around at the top of his backswing, which is where he goes past parallel, crosses the line real badly, then snaps the shaft back so fast that it looks like his hands, arms and club are uncontrollably bouncing around in the sky. When he does this I call it his ZORRO move. Whatever it is, it is fast, herky-jerky and out of control.
Well, after an few Zorro attacks at the top of his backswing and us having to play Davy Crocket, hunting in the woods for his ball, there came a major revelation on the next tee from JM. After we all had hit good drives, right down the center, Ken told JM that his backswing was too long and to shorten it up to 3/4. For good measure, I threw in that his Zorro move (a long backswing cue between JM and me) was at warp speed. To which JM replied, 'I really want to swing ¾, but I just feel down deep that I CAN'T HIT IT OUT OF MY SHADOW. Heck, I don't feel like I can hit it over that lake in front of this tee (a shot of about 150 yards), never mind hit it long enough to play well.' The subconscious truth finally spewed out onto the tee for all of us to hear.
I will ask now, as I did on the tee, 'Why does everything about golf, especially the driver, have to come down to long and basically only long.' What about solid and straight, which for the most part are always longer. That is closer to the target than an even longer shot that is crooked and off into the rough or woods or lake. It is a scientific fact that a slower club head speed, as much as 6 mph, but with a solid impact, will go farther than the mishit. I'll take solid and straight all day. If I could only get more golfers in the world to come to grips with that concept! Hitting the ball solid and straight is, percentage-wise, longer. And hitting more fairways and greens and hearing 'nice shot' after you hit, makes playing golf so much more enjoyable and rewarding. Now back to the travails of JM.
Ken and I reinforced swinging ¾ saying the heck with distance'¦just think solid and straight and I promise you will hit it plenty far. JM, rather mad and irritated, said that he will be sure his swing is short, showing a backswing that was around ½ not even close to ¾. I jubilantly shouted yes! That's awesome. I'll pay to see one of those. Well, JM swung a few more super short practice swings, I gave approval after each swing and he stepped up to the ball.
Well, JM did it. His backswing was not really ¾ but closer to the ½ practice swings and he hit it solid as can be. His shot started out toward the inside edge of the right fairway bunker, launched like a rocket real high with a little draw that landed left of the bunker and kicked forward to out drive all of us by more than 10 yard. He was amazed and had a grin from ear to ear. All I could say was 'I told you 'shorter is longer.'
The real proof happened on the next hole, which was a slight up uphill par 3. The pin was back and was playing 189 to 191 yards and into a ½ club wind. I smoked a 4 iron, which I normally hit 190, and came up short, looking at least 25 to 30 feet below the hole. JM chose a 3 iron as he felt he couldn't hit a 4 far enough, saying he was playing for the shorter swing to hit it shorter. He made that little less than ¾ swing and purred it with a high trajectory and slight draw, and air mailed it right into the back bunker. He was now somewhere between miffed and perplexed. He grabbed a 4 iron and with the same ½ + backswing hit another real good shot just over the back left center of the green. Again, he was bewildered and amazed. So again I repeated my short swing mantra: 'SHORTER IS LONGER.'
The Surge!