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between clubs? choke up, or shorten backswing, or slower full swing?

rollin

rollin

"Just playin golf pally"
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We've brought this up in the past. But peoples choices change through time and so do people. And so we have the distance that is siting between two clubs.

I can mix it up between choking up on the grip or shortening my backswing though the shortened backswing is usually my choice nowadays. Just depends how I feel at the moment. But trouble is sometimes for some strange reason I will choke and also then shorten the back swing too and the result when I do that is that Ive gone too short on the shot because I utilized both techniques. And that's kind of like a double effort at shortening the shot. Don't know why I sometimes do both, Just mental mistake I guess.
 
For me, Ive always been more into choking up on the club and taking the same swing. IMO, youre going to be more consistent than way than by trying to shorter your swing. A shorter swing will throw off your tempo and timing but by choking down on the club, you can take away some of the leverage and reduce the distance while keeping everything else the same.
 
With wedges, I'm trying to shorten up my backswing a little bit and not be as aggressive through the ball. So instead of trying to hit a hard 58 at times to stretch the distance, just go easy with a 54 if it's a distance in between my normal 58 swing and 54 swing.

With irons, I'm not that good. I just look at the green and see which part is safer, then play accordingly. If the pin is near the front and the distance is an in-between yardage, I'll just take the longer club and play for 10 yards past the pin. Give me a 30 foot birdie putt on a green and I'm fairly happy.
 
My stat's show I miss more greens short than any other place. While that will include the occasional chunk, I'm learning to just hit the stronger option. If I'm inside partial wedge range I will shorten my back swing.
 
I’ll usually opt for the choking down.
 
Depends if the flag is front or back. Front, shorter club; back, longer club.
 
It would depend mostly on which clubs I'm in between, and also if one miss was more prone to being severely penal. Once I get into 'numbered iron distances', I'm often better off choosing the shorter iron and going after it a bit harder when in between, (never with wedges though because 'extra' justs makes them go higher vs further for me) Other times, when in between at 'numbered club distances', I'll go two clubs up and hit a 3/4 shot. Two up at 3/4 usually gets me close to that 1/2 club I was looking for. I usually won't go just one club up though and try a partial shot because I'm not that precise. Also I'd never attempt taking a slower full swing. IMO that's just begging for all kinds of deceleration mishits.
 
Wedges for me, I'll take a shorter swing and hold off the finish.

Irons I'm choking down... and then probably thinning the ball. Not my strongest shot.
 
I do better playing the higher lofted club and putting a little extra heat on it.
 
I usually only choke down with my 56° wedge on inside 100 yard shots

Outside that, I take the longer iron and swing normal.
 
I already have a short backswing and have issues when I try to shorten it any more so I usually choke down. Wedges I'll go with a shorter swing sometimes but it depends on the shot.
 
I usually try to take a slower full swing. I fail at this 99% of the time, and it leads to a duffed shot.

Now my strategy is to simply duff too much club. It works better.
 
I usually try to just shorten my swing. I've attempted the choking down but even with practice I tend to top those shots more with my swing. I've gotten pretty decent with the shorter swings with the wedges.
 
I try to take some off the longer club vs going hard with the shorter one. Usually it's just a shorter back swing, or if it happens to be a tee shot, I'll tee it up just a little to hit it higher and take some distance out.
 
I choke down. It was a tip from Jamie Sadlowski at the Cleveland event when I asked him how he gaps his bag when he can hit it so far. I said you can hit a PW 185 yards, how do you gap your bag??

He also said when someone trys to slow down their swing they have a tendency to decel and usually doesn't go well. So he uses a shorter "lever" choking down and moves slightly closer to the ball so to say to take yardage off and also it depends on what window he wants to flight it through too will depend on what he does.
 
I usually adjust my swing to either a 3/4 or half depending on the distance. Honestly never really ever tried choking down, but makes a lot of sense, especially when I am in between clubs. Have had a lot of occasions on a par 3 where I need to go back the 2 club lengths at the tee box and still either need to hit an easy 7i, or hit the best 8i of my life. Tried choking down on a 7i last week and did notice the ball was a hair shorter. Another tool in the bag next time I go out!
 
I prefer choking down when between full clubs. I’m looking forward to having the time for lots of partial wedge practice this year for the first time since my late 20’s. Back then I was comfortable with my lob wedge from any distance from 40 to 90 yards by shortening my swing. Closer than 40 yards I’d just look at my target and go by feel.
 
3/4 backswing aggressive yields best results for me

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2BFAST said:
I choke down. It was a tip from Jamie Sadlowski at the Cleveland event when I asked him how he gaps his bag when he can hit it so far. I said you can hit a PW 185 yards, how do you gap your bag?? He also said when someone trys to slow down their swing they have a tendency to decel and usually doesn't go well. So he uses a shorter "lever" choking down and moves slightly closer to the ball so to say to take yardage off and also it depends on what window he wants to flight it through too will depend on what he does.
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This right here.

I find when I do a slower swing with a bigger club my brain tries to check it by making me decelerate and end up with a duff. Its the reason for my chipping yip's, decelerating.

Now if I am between a 4i and a 5i a slower 4i helps me strike it better, but sometimes with such a pure strike I sometimes hit it further that my regular 4i distance. Man golf is hard.
 
Funny enough, over the winter (on a simulator) and in to this young season I have been working on 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 shots with the 46, 52, and 58 wedges and have found fairly significant improvement over the "swing slow" method which I previously used. I think taking a full swing but just slower can create timing issues, at least it did for me in that I would get handsy to compensate and would chunk far more often than I would have liked (i.e. more often than never!).

With varying backswing method the timing for me seems more natural.
 
Thinking ‘slower’ anything in golf = decel for most, and decel = death in golf.
 
Almost always
Longer club
Choke down
Finish the swing with my normal tempo.

If a shallow green or a must to stay below the hole, I'll take the shorter club. I focus on timing and not swinging harder.
 
potbunker said:
So true.

A mental killer is the thought or word "don't".
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One thing I’ve always done, is chew my HS kids when I ask them what they were thinking and the word slower comes out of their mouths.

I also hate don’t. Instead most end up trained to think of where they ‘can’ on a shot instead of don’t/can’t.
 
Jman said:
Thinking ‘slower’ anything in golf = decel for most, and decel = death in golf.
Click to expand...

I need to really improve my greens in regulation, and 6-PW have been the culprits, mostly due to decel. Will change that up this year.
 
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