You may notice that tour pros don’t look like they take full swings with their short irons, and they don’t. In most cases a pro will choke up between one half-inch and two inches on his 7-iron through the wedges. He does this to increase his level of control on these shots.

By shortening the club on your short iron shots, you can get the ball near the hole more consistently. When you shorten the club, you automatically shorten your back-swing. With your short irons, you shouldn’t come anywhere close to parallel (1). A compact backswing reduces the margin of error and increases the chances of executing an on-line shot.

You may give up a couple of yards by choking up (2), but the 7-iron through the wedges are your scoring clubs – it’s accuracy, not distance that counts.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..

2
1