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Parallel or past Parallel?

I go past, I have tried several times to shorten my swing but got bad results
 
Not even close to parallel.
 
For those that have tried to shorten the swing but saw bad results, how long did you work on it? A year? A month? A week? A round? A range session?
 
blugold said:
For those that have tried to shorten the swing but saw bad results, how long did you work on it? A year? A month? A week? A round? A range session?
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I know it's gonna take a good while for me not sure about others

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Not me. I swing well short of parallel.
 
blugold said:
For those that have tried to shorten the swing but saw bad results, how long did you work on it? A year? A month? A week? A round? A range session?
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I've never "tried" to shorten my backswing as a conscious effort. It's mostly been about finding where my shoulders are done turning and having the rest of my backswing come to a stop there. My left arm stays pretty straight, and my wrists don't hinge as much (from face on, my iron swing ends with the club head just a little closer to the target than my left shoulder). My goal, especially with my irons, is consistency of contact. To me, that means getting as much small-muscle movement (elbows and wrists/hands) out of the swing and making it function with big muscles (hips, abs, shoulders) as much as possible. It wasn't a matter of consciously shortening my backswing so much as eliminating the things that made it longer.

I think over the course of a lesson me and my coach hammered it out, and it made so much sense it wasn't much more than a couple range sessions to feel more comfortable with a simpler backswing.
 
I swing well short of parallel. My longest backswing is who the driver and even then it's just short. My timing gets wacky when I try to lengthen my swing.
 
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Tadashi70 said:
Your last parallel is still in the controlled environment that is your swing. Your fundamentals allow it and maximize the length of the swing. The vast majority that swing past parallel are no where close to solid in their fundamentals. Huge difference!!
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Do you think the backswing is done when your left shoulder gets to your chin (for righties)? I have been trying to go with that as the point where I start my downswing. Doesn't always work though, but it's what I try! I don't really want to get too close to parallel. I think I lose a lot of my timing and control if it gets that far.
 
blugold said:
For those that have tried to shorten the swing but saw bad results, how long did you work on it? A year? A month? A week? A round? A range session?
Click to expand...

About two shots and then I said...hey... look at that, it went in the air.
 
Feel and reality are two different things. I know from past range sessions with friends/coaches that what feels to me like a 3/4 swing is actually at parallel and when I make my normal swing with anything more than a 6 iron I am going a bit over. Sometimes with the driver I will see the clubhead out of the corner of my eye - very distracting.
 
Does it matter? People overcomplicate the game and this is a prime example of that. Past or not, add long as your timing is OK it makes zero bloody difference.
 
SaffaClint said:
Does it matter? People overcomplicate the game and this is a prime example of that. Past or not, add long as your timing is OK it makes zero bloody difference.
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And here I thought the goal of an online golf community was to have conversation about all facets of the game.
 
I try to stay parallel, when I don't I'm not in the fairway or on the green
 
I tried to stay parallel, but it just messed with my timing. I just figured out if everything felt like it was connected, then I was it doesn't matter how long my swing is.
 
SaffaClint said:
Does it matter? People overcomplicate the game and this is a prime example of that. Past or not, add long as your timing is OK it makes zero bloody difference.
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It does matter. If going past parallel means the golfer loses their posture and then has to compensate in the downswing, it matters.
 
JB said:
And here I thought the goal of an online golf community was to have conversation about all facets of the game.
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You thought wrong good sir!

#alienfacethingbecausethatmeansiamjoking #longesthashtagaward
 
Miller Time said:
There are times where my club doesn't even get to parallel. Based on my turn numbers during my GolfTec lessons, I don't have to take the club back that far to get the shoulder/hip turn I need.
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I find the same. The things that create power in the golf swing have little to do with the length of the swing. Separation of hips and shoulders, starting the swing with your lower body, and many other things have more effect on power than how far back you go in your back swing.
 
tbanks5 said:
So I definitely go past parallel, way past parallel as I mentioned in the first post. I didn't know how far until tonight at the range when I really was working on a 3/4 swing. I had some decent results with the 3/4 swing but I'm definitely going to have to work hard at that for a while. My full swing feels so normal now and its a hard habit to break. However that swing gets me in trouble when I'm tired or don't have any energy late in a round.

I had my wife who came to the range with me tonight (to swing her own clubs :D ) take a few videos of me swinging my 7i (which I hit around 160 yards) with some full swings. My natural swing is a slight fade as you will see in the video. By viewing this I noticed a ton of little things that I do wrong .....it was eye opening :bulgy-eyes:. But first thing to fix is the full and 3/4 swing.

[video=youtube_share;Qri-2zn_7B8]http://youtu.be/Qri-2zn_7B8[/video]
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Your swing has a lot of pieces in it that are part of my swing. I've always gone past parallel with everything, my coach jokes with me that my driver head was going to take out my left knee at the end of my backswing. I've been working hard to try to shorten it because the main reason I go past parallel is that my hands and arms don't work in sync with my body and I get disconnected at the top of my backswing. That forces me to make compensations in the downswing to try to hit the ball straight, it's not a recipe for success.

If I was you, I'd take the video you posted in put it in a separate thread in the Swing Tips forum so that Tadashi70 can give you some tips on what to do. I could tell you a few things that both of us do that I'm trying to work on right now, but don't want to turn this into a swing analysis thread.
 
*responding to original question*

I'm just at, or just before parallel. Used to be beyond, shortened my swing, improved my game along the way ;)
 
Smallville said:
Do you think the backswing is done when your left shoulder gets to your chin (for righties)? I have been trying to go with that as the point where I start my downswing. Doesn't always work though, but it's what I try! I don't really want to get too close to parallel. I think I lose a lot of my timing and control if it gets that far.
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I do, once the shoulder hits the chin you are very close to a 90* turn. It doesn't work all the time because sometimes you are just swinging your arms back which results in a false positive shoulder turn of about 45*.
 
I can go past parallel and it causes problems for me when I do. I've really been trying to focus on a shorter back swing. When I first started I had a very short back swing.
 
I'm actually short of parallel and I'm working to get it back to parallel. I had to shorten the swing a few years ago for better control because the swing was getting away from me when it was longer. I think as long as you can get it back to square at impact it doesn't really matter, a few pros are long on the back swing but they are the minority.
 
I can go past parallel without any issue, well except that one thing where I cant control where the ball goes.

The only way it happens these days is if I come out of the swing wich causes soo many issues, so I just swing backto aboit 10:30 and go. Ive actually worked on getting it to this point most of this year.
 
I guess my swing would be 3/4. It use to be shorter but I am working on getting it slightly past 3/4.
 
Tadashi70 said:
I do, once the shoulder hits the chin you are very close to a 90* turn. It doesn't work all the time because sometimes you are just swinging your arms back which results in a false positive shoulder turn of about 45*.
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Thanks. Good to know I am at least trying to do something correctly! This technique has helped my control.
 
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