I really don't get into the long stroke versus short stroke mentality. And I understand that the hardest thing to communicate to a golfer is distance control, because it's a "learned" aspect of the game, meaning that it can't really be taught in a traditional sense.
But just for the sake of discussion.... Let's assume that your standard full-swing PW goes 120 yards. You find yourself looking at an approach from 110 yards to the flag, which is in the center of the green. You don't have a GW, so you decide that the PW is needed for this shot.
We have two ways of governing distance to that target with the PW. (1)We can take a full swing and decelerate into the ball, and struggle with trying to manipulate the amount of clubhead speed (force) needed at impact to get the ball to fly that distance. Or (2)We can allow the length of the backswing itself determine the length of the shot, without the need of decelerating and without the need of guess work in manipulating the amount of force at impact to get the ball to the target.
I'm no teaching pro, but I know enough to understand that deceleration is never a good thing.... be it with a full swing, a pitching motion, a chipping motion, or a putting motion. It compromises rhythm and timing, extremely important factors in hitting a ball with precise contact and accuracy.
So when I'm facing a putt on a green, the only things I'm concerning myself with regarding distance are (a)the length of the putt (b)the slope of the surface the ball has to navigate and (c)the perceived "feel" of how quickly or slowly the putting surfaces appear to be running that day. Those things ultimately govern how long my backstroke is, because I'm wanting to maintain a consistent pace from the start to the finish of my putting stroke = smooth, rhythmic stroke sending the ball on the proper line at the proper pace.
The moment my backstroke gets too long, my hands send a signal to my brain, telling the brain, "Hey, I've really screwed up here. Help me out, or else we're looking at 6 feet coming back! Eject, Eject, Eject!" What happens? In that 1/10th of a second, my brain takes over. It's a natural reaction, a reflex. The problem there is that the hands are much quicker than the brain. So the hands are in this demilitarized zone, waiting on orders from headquarters. The brain is trying its best to send these signals to the hands, but unfortunately the signals aren't traveling at the speed of thought. So the hands realize that they're now on their own. And right before impact, they "ease off" the momentum of the putting stroke, still waiting on the feedback from the brain. Four feet short of the hole later, we've just uncovered one of the biggest cardinal sins in putting. Not leaving the ball short, because that's just the effect. But the cause -- deceleration.
And if we reverse the dynamics, what happens? Well duh! We get the exact opposite result. The hands tell the brain that there's not enough length in the backstroke to get the ball from point a to point b without applying a manipulative force at impact. Again, the hands are waiting on the proper response from the brain, which should be "back off the putt, you idiot" but we seldom do that. So in our finite wisdom of our putting prowess, we do the only thing left to do at that point, because we just gotta get the ball to the hole! We end up hammering the putt five feet past the hole.
But we've not only compromised distance control in this process, we've also compromised the accuracy part. Because the proper line of a putt is dictated by what? Speed. A ball that is stroked much too hard will not accept the break. A ball that is stroked with a decelerating stroke obviously invites the break to kill both the pace and the direction.
You can putt inside to out, outside to in, straight-back straight-thru. None of those things matter nearly as much as the pace you put on the ball with the putting stroke, and I'm of the belief (obviously) that if you're gonna take the pains to hit the ball with the proper pace, you might as well learn how to do that smoothly and give yourself a chance to sniff the hole.
