how to avoid "pouring a pint of head"

I have been sampling my young I.P.A. and A.PA.'s from their 5 gal. soda kegs using a direct tap.  It dawned on me regarding "pouring a pint of head"  that a longer supply line of say, 6' before the tap is recommended and cuts down on this.  I have these made up, just haven't hooked the ends up!  Lazy!  I Found the short tap and went for it! I just wanted a sample over the past two weeks waiting on carbonation! 

So I just brought them both down from 20 psi.  I started them out at around 12 psi.  I let them settle down a day and night and dialed them in to 10 psi yesterday 2-20-14.  So now as I have poured around 4 pints tonight, I believe they are "at carbonation" it is good and it's head retention is very nice... after it settles down... and all the way through the finish it is there and nice!  The fact that I still basically am pouring a pint of head each and every pour is because of the short tap I'm almost sure.  Am I correct or is something else wrong with it?  I guess I will put the lines on to the taps on the kegerator re try and re post.

yes you have to balance your beer line length to the serving pressure. I have ~5 feet and it works well at my fridge temp for 8-12 psi.

I use about 5 ft of 3/16 ID line at 12 psi.  When I force I use 20 PSI for three days, isolate the keg and vent it off, then repressurize at 12 psi to serve it up.  I get about 1.5-2.0 inches of head.  Hope this helps.

Yes this helped and made an instant improvement.