Best Way to Improve Your Full Swing in Golf

Every club in your bag will give you a certain distance when the ball is struck correctly at a controlled speed with the same swing movement. Remember it is the target area that is important: a well played shot with a longer club will always give a better result than if you take a shorter club and force the swing in the vain hope of creating added length. Each change of club to a lower number will send the ball between 10 and 15 yds/m further, so try to swing every club at the same speed: avoid the trap of trying to hit the longer clubs harder.

For most people, 75% power with a complete swing movement will always give the best results. You never really need full power.

The full golf swing is the movement made when the club choice alone decides the height and length of the shot played. In other words, each individual golfer should have only one full swing movement; the different heights and lengths that he or she can achieve with this movement are dictated by the club used.

The important thing to remember about the full swing is that it is a fluid movement, not the moving of your club through a number of different positions. One thousand different positions will not create a successful golf swing, but the golf swing moves smoothly through a thousand positions!

Your pre-swing routine for all full swing shots is also the same, but your stance, posture and ball position will differ slightly, being dictated by your build, your personal swing and the length of club you have chosen for the shot.

Two very important factors should dominate the average golfer’s use of the full swing: the first is that you must have a good mental picture of the shot to be played; the second is that you should always make a conservative choice of club. As you cannot expect to hit every shot 100%, you ought to choose a club that will reach the target when you swing comfort­ably within your capacity.

Pre-swing routine

Do not take practice swings when you play the full swing movement. There are three reasons for this.

• The full swing movement is too tiring.
• After every full swing it takes time for the muscles to return to normal. It would delay the game unnecessarily and destroy your rhythm if you had to wait the required time after each practice swing.
• The full swing movement is the same length every time, so there is little need to gauge the length of the backswing.

However, this does not mean that you must omit your pre-shot routine. It must be followed, with the following change.

After deciding that you need to play a full swing, pick out the intermediate target. Then make two or three ‘mini-swings’ (not more than one-quarter swings) at a slow pace, seeing all the while in your mind’s eye the perfect flight, bounce and roll of the ball.

Now, before taking your stance, place the club head correctly behind the ball.

A couple of preliminary waggles help you to sharpen up, then a forward press leads you smoothly into the backswing, in which the left hand and arm move the club head back and up. With the shorter irons, it is not necessary to have the shaft pointing straight at the target (parallel to the target line) at the top of the backswing, provided that the shoulders are free from tension. With the longer clubs, this tends to happen automatically.