I have been focused so much on the full swing that I have neglected to illustrate how, in addition to starting your MCS Golf Swing journey with the short game (or adding to what you’ve learned already in one of the full swing videos), the mechanics that you implement for it will only strengthen the full swing.

I was re-watching some of the swings from my MCS Short Game video when something caught my eye on one of the lob shots, because the camera was set up at the perfect angle to catch my down the line shaft plane.

Here, although I’m swinging at angle to my target (the landing spot on the green) because you never stand square to the target line with a lob swing, I was nearly perfectly situated to the camera to see something.

You’ll see that the camera is set up square to my swing line or target line if I were swinging down the line, so the mechanics should be similar to a full swing, yes?

Lob To Green

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I tend to notice when certain angles present themselves (I also used to love geometry in school, as it seemed so simple and straight-forward), and the shaft angle of my lob wedge at the top of the back swing triggered me to get the video out and draw a line.

The short game swings, you see, are just shorter versions of the full swing (or you could say that the full swing is just a longer version of the short game swing), so you will likely see the same things when you are doing it correctly.

I have a lob shot below that is a pretty ticklish one – the ball is below my feet in the rough and the green runs downhill away from me, so a chip shot would run way past the hole.

So, it’s a lob shot, for sure.

Let’s pause this lob shot and draw a line where my lob wedge shaft stops at the top before I swing back down and through:

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Right away, you see that the shaft is perfectly on plane with the impact plane (or what will be), and this is the angle that caught my eye watching the swing in real time – that shaft angle at the top seemed to point perfectly back to where the shaft would be at impact.

So, let’s take a look:

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That is what happens when you have a proper setup, ball position and you simply swing without trying to manipulate the club – it is a pure down and through swing just I describe in the video, and which is why one needs to practice the short game.

The short game is about feel, because unlike the full swing, there is no definitive length of a swing required to pull off a shot.  It is all about knowing how long to make your swing, but then to stroke the ball confidently once you’ve made your decision on the shot.

That goes for the putt, the pitch, the lob, the bunker shot – it’s all feel for distance but using the same, confident and un-manipulated stroke.

I’ll tell you all, watching the video and remembering the days that I shot it, I am so happy that I have completed my full swing research and modeling.

When I have gotten treatment for my shoulder and can swing again, I’m getting back into playing golf regularly, and most of my time practicing will be spent working on that short game.

Once you have the full swing grooved, a morning, afternoon or day spent practicing your golf game probably shouldn’t require more than an hour of hitting balls, and the rest of the time devoted to the less than full swing – in short, the short game.

That’s where the money is made.