There’s a piece of swing advice that goes something like this: “13 clubs, one swing.” We’re excluding the putter, of course. But every other club is swung the same way.

There is disagreement about this, but a lot of it is nit-picky.

Of course a driver swing will be different from a 9-iron swing because you stand farther away from the ball with a driver so it is a flatter swing. And the attack angle is accordingly different. Etc.

But what is the same is that the driver swing is just a 9-iron swing with you standing a bit more upright and you holding a different club. None of your swing principles change.

Don’t take my word for it, though. See this video for another golfer’s opinion that you swing all the clubs the same way.

There is one way in which I disagree with the 13 clubs part, though. You DO NOT pitch with your wedges using the same swing you do for long shots. The pitching swing is not just a shorter version of the full swing.

See this post for what I mean.

So if you have a putter and four wedges, I would say, roughly, the saying should be “9 clubs, one swing.” You can pick around the edges but you know what I’m getting at.

This is an effective way to go, and it makes the game so much simpler to play.