The Official 'Double P' Blog

"This week I would like to talk about something Double P and I work on constantly - and that's the length of his backswing. Even the best players in the world have some tendencies in their swing that cause them consistency problems and quite often this 'problems' show up from time to time.

When P.P. was a Junior Golf Champion and collegiate golfer, he had a very long back swing - as can be seen in the picture below left. This photo was taken in 1996, the year P.P. and his Arizona State Sun Devils won the NCAA Men's Golf National Championship. The photo of P.P.'s backswing is in fact quite similar to the length of JD's backswing in the photo below right.

When P.P. returned to San Diego from ASU, he felt that the extra length of his backswing was causing him to hit some pretty wayward shots, particularly under pressure - so we set about shortening his swing, making it more compact and effective.

The only way P.P. could keep his swing shorter was to feel that if it was a 'half swing.' He couldn't believe that his so-called half swing was actually a perfect length backswing. He kept telling me it felt too short, so we started filming it so he could see just how good it really looked.

For the following three months, if was if Double P never left the range. He hit thousands upon thousands of balls, working on this half swing until he felt absolutely comfortable with it. From there, it was time to debut this new swing on the course.

As it is with any swing change, it was initially hard to trust it on the course. His game struggled for a couple of months (which I kind of enjoyed as I was able to beat him then and enjoyed rubbing it in.) Of course the more I ribbed him, the harder he worked to master the new, shorter swing.

Eventually he became completely comfortable with the new swing and his confidence grew. Below we compare the kid's longer swing (1996) with a shot taken out at Grayhawk (2005.)

Now when P.P. does hit errant shots, they are nowhere near as wayward as they were with the longer swing. He can also control the distance of his iron shots much better with the shorter version.

These days, if P.P. is struggling with his ball striking i, it may well be due to the fact that the swing is getting a little longer. Golf swings are not God given. They require hard work - even for someone as talented as P.P."

Go low. Coach MO.