Reversing the “Short Backswing, Long Follow-Thru” Myth

While a nice long, full follow thru is a beautiful move on full swings: both the short game and putting pose different challenges when compared to the full swing.

I’d also like to make this one point abundantly clear: the full swing requires a weight transfer, while putting and chipping do not. A full follow thru is largely predicated on the existence of a marked weight transfer between both legs over the course of a full swing.

The full swing is best conducted by transferring our weight into our trail leg on the backswing and back down into our lead leg on the downswing.

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After we hit the ball, our weight continues to move more into our lead side until we come to a nice, balanced finish with our arms held high, our chest pointed at the target, our lead foot on the ground, and our trail foot up off the ground so that our toes are the only part of our trail foot remaining in touch with the ground.

As it relates to the full swing, a more connected, shorter backswing coupled with a longer (longer arms swing compared to the backswing) follow thru is ideal advice for golfers who are too long or over-rotate on the way back and are consequently never able to get back into their lead side on the way thru in a properly sequenced manner.

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When we’re making full swings, there will be times when we may have to utilize a very abbreviated follow thru coupled with a normal-length backswing. You may see Tiger finish with low hands on the follow thru when he’s trying to execute a knockdown 4 iron into a stiff breeze overseas or on any shot where’s he trying to keep his trajectory lower than he otherwise would be on a stock shot with that same club. In parallel fashion, you’ll also see Tiger finish with high hands when he’s trying to add height to a particular shot shape.

On the 72nd hole of the 2008 US Open, Tiger hit a high wedge for his approach from gnarly rough to inside 15 feet of the cup, utilizing one of his patented high, aggressive follow thru’s. When considering the length of your follow thru relative to your backswing and vice versa, always remember that holding a balanced finish so that our weight is posted into our lead leg is a more critical concept than the actual length of our arms swing on either end of the golf ball is.

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When making a full swing, your weight at address should be as evenly distributed between both of your legs as possible, and during the course of the swing, your weight will move more into your trail leg on the backswing and back into your lead leg in transition and into the follow thru. If you can execute the above with consistency and always on balance at full speed, then there’s a very good chance the “length” of your swing is in a good spot on both sides of the golf ball.

Now that we’ve uncovered the true meaning behind the length of our full swings, we can shift our focus to the putting green and chipping/short game area where this “short to long” advice originated amongst the general golfing population for no real credible reason or purpose.

When we consider the phrase itself, “short too long”, and how it became commonplace in full-swing advice dialogue, remember how I claimed that improper weight transfer was more often than not the problem which preceded such advice on the full swing?

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And how do players who over-rotate or make too long of a backswing never get back into their lead side? That’s because the above swing deficiencies lead to an overly long backswing followed by a hasty, abbreviated follow thru. For this kind of golfer, perhaps learning how to swing shorter or more within themselves on the backswing will help them get to a balanced finish up on their lead side with more consistency.

As it relates to the over-swinger who never finishes on balance, the “short too long” reminder may do them a world of good as long as they create the kind of weight transfer needed in order to hit the ball consistently in the center of the club face.

In other words, it’s okay if we’re long too short, short too long, long too long, short too short, etc., as long as we are able to transfer our weight efficiently and effectively during the course of the swing.

On the putting green and its closely surrounded areas, a weight transfer is NOT what we want! When we putt, we want to stay very still so that we maintain a nice, relaxed posture with our weight evenly distributed between both feet at the setup and throughout the duration of the stroke itself. When we chip, we want to get the majority of our weight onto our lead or front foot at address and leave it there over the course of the entire chipping motion.

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Similar to a putting stroke, only with more weight in our lead foot, great chippers of the golf ball utilize a stable lower body throughout their motion in order to deliver the club head into the back of the ball in a predictable, reliable, and consistent fashion. In order to maintain this stable lower body movement throughout the motion, one must focus on keeping their knees still while also making sure they remain aggressive at the strike point.

When players “quit” on their chip shots (which commonly result in skulled shots, chunks, and the like), their upper bodies/chests are too close to the target at impact leading to a mistimed delivery of the club head into the ball. Also, I’ll often see a lot of players with this tendency finish in a position where they actually let one hand come off the club on the follow thru, or they’ll utilize a far longer finish compared to the length of their backswing.

When it comes to chipping (not flop shots or some bunker shots), a longer “arms” finish than what we created on the other end of the ball is a big no-no.

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You’ll never see any of the game’s legends hit green side chips utilizing a waist-high backswing, and a shoulder-high follow thru (unless they’re trying to create a ton of height/speed/spin quickly), for instance. For any routine green side chip/pitch which allows the golfer to play his/her preferred trajectory without being forced into landing the ball in a specific area in order to get the ball to come to rest nearest the hole, a shorter-to-equal length follow-thru compared to the backswing is very critical. Too long on the way thru generally means we’re “scooping” the ball too much at impact with our trail hand.

All fine players understand how to get both their hands slightly in front or ahead of the golf ball at impact. All tour players, with absolutely no exceptions, perform the above in a consistent, repeatable fashion. A large part of arriving at this proper impact position for all golf shots is first understanding how we should swing the club on short shots or chip shots. Compared to the long game, short game shots require golfers to hit the ball shorter distances which also means that creating considerably less speed is ideal most of the time.

Less speed at the point of the strike or when our clubhead meets the ball and enters the turf also means that the clubhead will be met with greater resistance from the ground itself than it otherwise would be if we were swinging a 3 iron, for example. This resistance at lower speeds will create a shorter, more abbreviated follow thru compared to its backswing.

On a separate, full golf swing which involves more speed and perhaps not as much turf interaction as many chip shots subsequently do, a more pronounced, longer finish is more easily achievable and, therefore, encouraged.

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If you watched the Sentry TOC at Kapalua to kick off the PGA Tour’s 2023 season, you saw Jon Rahm deliver Collin Morikawa a final, decisive blow en route to the Spaniard’s victory when he hit his eagle chip shot to a few feet from the cup on the scenic, 670-yard par 5 finishing hole.

After hitting his approach just long of the green in two, Rahm knew an up-and-down for birdie would virtually guarantee him the victory. Under normal circumstances, getting up and in from this same spot would be merely routine by his standards.

And had it not been the 72nd hole of a PGA Tour event, Rahm may have been more relaxed than he was on this Sunday in Hawaii. Jon had an okay lie in patchy, medium-length rough but had to be somewhat precise with his landing spot on the green in order to get his ball close enough to the hole (some 20-25 feet away) where birdie would be the expectation.

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As he went through his pre-shot practice swings next to his ball, analyst Paul Azinger commented how Rahm was going to “leave” or “stick” the “clubhead in the ground” after the strike by utilizing a bigger backswing and virtually no follow thru. In a lot of ways, the best method for hitting this particular shot is to utilize a “professional stab,” as Nick Faldo calls it.

Rahm did just as Paul said he would, the ball popped up nice and high while landing softly on the green and eventually coming to rest a few feet from the hole. While Jon Rahm made this shot look fairly simple, the amount of weekend golfers who make a complete mess out of very similar shots only goes to show how so few golfers understand what is required versus what they believe is required.

In putting, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen “the blind leading the blind” come to fruition so that the supposed student is left practicing something that will only make him/her even worse off than they were prior to the lesson they had just received from some unqualified teacher. During such lessons, I’ve often heard the length of the follow thru as a common topic of discussion. Often when a player leaves a putt short of the cup, a playing partner will tell them that their follow thru was too short.

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Consequently, I see too many amateurs on putting greens putting with a follow thru that’s awkwardly long or disjointed and especially so in relation to their backstroke. When we putt, we want to utilize a smooth, consistent pace throughout the stroke where our putter head finishes low to the ground and in a position where the club head is no further from our body than it was when it reached the end of the backswing.

In other words, make sure your follow thru isn’t longer than your backswing. If you are questioning this take, I urge you to watch some of the best putters in the business, including Cam Smith, Tiger Woods, and Jordan Spieth.

Even on extremely long approach putts in the 60 feet and up territory, these players are not getting carried away with their finishes. While we don’t want the putter head to abruptly come to a stop after we’ve struck the ball on an uphill 45-footer, for instance, it also shouldn’t be traveling past our bodies so that it is no longer able to maintain its close connection with the ground.

The next time you’re on the course, remember to hold your finish and alter your hand placement at the finish with respect to your desired trajectory. On and around the greens, our follow thru shouldn’t be longer than our backswing unless we’re hitting a specialty flop shot or we’re facing a longer bunker shot. When we putt, the pace of our stroke is vital. You won’t find very many great putters who utilize a long finish, even on lags.

If you can keep these principles front and center, you’re going to find that your contact will be at or near the center of club face more frequently. As such, your shots will be struck crisper or more solid, and, in time, your scores will drop as well.