How to Shorten a Golf Swing

Chasing more distance often leads golfers down a rabbit hole of trying to swing longer and harder, but this usually results in a long, uncontrolled backswing that throws off everything. If you feel your swing is getting out of sync and you're losing control, the solution isn't to swing harder - it's to swing smarter with a more compact motion. This guide will walk you through exactly why a shorter swing is beneficial and provide practical, step-by-step drills to help you build a more efficient, powerful, and consistent golf swing.

Why a Shorter Golf Swing Might Be Your Best Friend

Many golfers are scared to shorten their backswing because they believe it means sacrificing distance. The truth is, for most amateurs, the opposite is true. A long, disconnected backswing is one of the main sources of inconsistent shots, from slices to thin and fat strikes. When you shorten your swing, you are not robbing yourself of power, you are adding control and efficiency.

Here’s what you actually gain:

• Massive Gains in Consistency: A shorter swing has fewer moving parts and less room for error. When your arms and body are in sync, it’s much easier to bring the club back to the ball on the correct path, shot after shot. This repeated motion is the bedrock of consistency.
• Better Ball Striking: The number one factor for distance is not swing speed, but quality of contact. An overswing often causes your body to come out of posture, leading to off-center hits. A compact swing helps you maintain your spine angle and deliver the center of the clubface to the ball, which creates a pure, compressed strike and maximizes ball speed. You might be surprised to find you hit the ball farther.
• Effortless Power: True power in golf comes from rotation and sequence, not a long, flailing arm motion. A compact swing forces you to create power by coiling your body correctly. You learn to generate lag and unload that energy through the ball efficiently, instead of wasting it on a wild swing.
• Improved Tempo and Rhythm: A long swing often leads to a quick, rushed transition from backswing to downswing. A shorter, more connected swing promotes a smoother tempo, a key ingredient shared by all great ball strikers.

The Real Cause of Your Overswing (It's Not Just Your Arms)

If you've ever watched your swing on video and been shocked to see the club dip way past parallel, you might think the problem is just with your arms. But an overswing is almost always a symptom of a different issue: your arms have become disconnected from your body's rotation.

A good golf swing is a rotational action. The core, hips, and shoulders turn away from the ball to create power and width. The arms and club just go along for the ride. An overswing happens when the body stops turning but the arms and hands keep lifting and traveling independently. Because your body isn't supporting the club anymore, it gets loose and drops, often throwing off your swing plane and forcing you to make major compensations on the way down.

Other common causes include:

• A grip that is too loose or allows the club to shift at the top.
• Swaying off the ball instead of rotating around your spine.
• Actively trying to "lift" the club with your hands and arms from the start.

To fix the overswing, you need to fix the root cause: the disconnection between your arms and body.

Your Step-by-Step Guide to a More Compact Backswing

Building a shorter, more efficient golf swing isn’t about restricting yourself, it’s about tying your movement together. Follow these steps and drills to rebuild your backswing from the ground up for more control.

Step 1: Check Your Foundation - Setup and Grip

You can’t build a good swing on a shaky foundation. Before you do anything else, check two apects of your setup. First, your grip. The way you hold the club is your only connection to it. Make sure you're holding it in the fingers of your top hand, not the palm, which allows for proper wrist hinge without the club getting loose. For a right-handed golfer, you should be able to see two knuckles on your left hand at address, with the "V" formed by your thumb and index finger pointing towards your right shoulder. This neutral grip prevents you a tendency to manipulate the clubface during the swing.

Second, your posture. Stand athletically, with a slight bend in your knees and a tilt from your hips, not your waist. Your arms should hang naturally straight down from your shoulders. This setup promotes a rotational turn rather than an up-and-down lifting motion.

Step 2: Sync Your Arms and Body (The Towel Drill)

The best way to feel the connection between your arms and torso is the famous towel drill. It’s simple, effective, and gives you instant feedback.

1. Take a small towel or an extra golf glove and tuck it into the armpit of your lead arm (your left armpit for a right-handed golfer).
2. Set up to the ball as you normally would.
3. Make a half swing, focusing on keeping the towel pinched between your arm and your chest throughout the backswing.

If the towel falls out as you take the club back, it’s a clear sign your arm has become separated from your body’s turn. Your goal is to feel like your chest, shoulders, and lead arm are moving away from the ball as a single, connected unit. This a powerful feel for a "one-piece takeaway" and is the first move in eliminating your overswing.

Step 3: Finding Your Natural Stopping Point

How do you know how far back to swing? It’s not about getting the club "to parallel" or some other visual checkpoint you’ve seen on TV. A good backswing ends when your body’s rotation ends.

For most golfers, this happens when your lead shoulder has turned under your chin. As you reach this point, you should feel a sense of tension - a "coil" or "stretch" - across your upper back and obliques. This is the feeling of being fully loaded and ready to start the downswing. Any arm movement beyond this point is simply adding unnecessary length and slack into your swing. For some flexible golfers, this point might be with the club parallel to the ground. For others, it might be well short of parallel. Both are correct as long as the arms are still connected to the powerful rotation of the body.

Focus on this feeling of tension, not on where the club is. When you feel that powerful coil, that’s your stop sign. That's your full backswing.

Step 4: Use Drills to Ingrain the Feeling

Once you understand the concepts, you need to practice them until they become second nature. These two drills are excellent for building the muscle memory for a more compact, connected swing.

Drill 1: The "Feet-Together" Drill

This is a classic for a reason. Hitting shots with your feet touching (or very close together) takes your powerful lower body out of the swing. It forces you to rely on proper sequencing and balance to make solid contact.

1. Set up with your feet right next to each other.
2. Take smooth, 70% swings with a mid-iron, like an 8 or 9-iron.
3. Focus on turning your torso and keeping your arms in front of your chest.

If you try to make a long, disconnected arm swing with this setup, you’ll immediately lose your balance and fall over. This drill teaches you to control your swing length and use your core for stability, ingraining a wonderful sense of tempo and center-face contact.

Drill 2: The Right-Angle (L-to-L) Drill

This drill helps you understand where the club should be in space at key points during a controlled swing. The goal is to make a swing that looks like the letter "L" on the way back and a reverse "L" on the way through.

1. Take your normal setup.
2. Swing the club back until your lead arm is parallel to the ground. At this point, your wrists should be hinged so the club shaft points straight up, forming an "L" shape with your arm. This is what many pros consider a full-power "three-quarter" backswing.
3. Swing through to a finish where your trail arm is parallel to the ground and the club once again points up, forming a reverse "L."

Start with small swings and slowly build up speed. You'll be amazed at how far the ball goes with what feels like a much shorter swing. This "L-to-L" motion is effectively a full, powerful golf swing for many of the best players in the world.

Final Thoughts

Shortening your golf swing isn't about becoming a weaker player, it's about becoming a smarter, more efficient Tying your arm movement to your body's rotation eliminates extra variables and promotes a powerful, repeatable motion. Focus on connection over length and quality of strike over raw effort, and you’ll create a swing that delivers both consistency and surprising power.

Learning a new feel takes time, and sometimes you just need a trustworthy second opinion on the course to stick with it. That's exactly where we designed Caddie AI to help. If you're standing over a tough shot and thinking of resorting to your old, long swing, you can get instant, simple advice on how to play the smart shot. It helps you build confidence in your new swing and make better decisions, whether it's confirming a club choice or navigating trouble, so you can stop guessing and trust your game. Give it a look at Caddie AI.