Your Backswing Is Too Long

It makes sense to wind up as much as you can before you hit the golf ball, but that thinking really works against you. You should instead have a backswing that is as short as possible.

The long backswing gives you too much time to get the club swinging off plane, and too much time to get the clubhead out of alignment. Your goal is to return the clubhead to the ball in the same orientation it had at address, and the long backswing makes it that much harder to do.

Also, don‘t think that a long backswing helps you generate more clubhead speed. Most of your effective clubhead speed appears after your hands have passed your right hip on the way down. You need a little bit of windup to get started, but not a lot.

You get the most distance possible, and the straightest hit possible, by hitting the ball on the center of a square clubface. That means keeping sure control of the club from address to impact. That’s what a short backswing does for you.

Before you address the ball, look down the fairway and image yourself hitting the ball that way and watching it take off. Now step up to the ball and hit the ball just like you imagined.

Your mind will guide you to taking the club back just so far as you can stay confident of realizing that image. I would be surprised if your backswing took your right arm much past parallel with the ground. The clubhead, though, will be way above your head; it will have plenty of time to gather speed. Because your hands haven’t moved very far away from where they were at address, they will be able to find their way back to the same spot -- this is the key.

You will be swinging the club back and through primarily with your hands. This is a hands swing, not a body swing. You don’t hammer a nail with your body, and you don’t swing a golf club with your body. Swing the club with your hands, using your body as a stabilizer. Take the club back in a controlled way, then bash the ball, which you can do accurately if your backswing is short enough.

The professional golf swing, which you have been taking as the model, is for professionals who can practice over and over again. Recreational golfers should use a swing that is more in keeping with how they move every day, a short swing they can instinctually control, not a long one that relies on technique they don’t have time to practice.