Over time technology has improved so that we (as teachers) can see and understand motion and forces in action during the swing. With that being said we have made TREMENDOUS mistakes over the years as to how we have disseminated this information to the masses! Teachers have been so excited with the advent of new technology that we have vomited everything we have learned and “figured out” thus tying our students into knots. I have been guilty and so has everyone in the business; however, the best teachers quickly evolve out of this trend and shifted their focus on insulating their students from all the stuff they don’t need to know. Frankly a lesson is not about showing the student how smart you are or how much you know as a teacher…your only job is to shift the student’s attention to the “one or two things they need to know” in order to get better!

Technology like 3D Motion Analysis, Force Plates, Trackman and Video have all been around for many years, but instructors have gravitated to them in a certain order (for whatever reason) and I’d like to help better understand this process.

In the beginning golfers hit balls with someone watching and then an opinion was rendered (right or wrong) by the teacher. This was based on what he personally did personally, what he saw others do, or what good players told him that they did. It was a very opinionated system and one that was fraught with inconsistencies but it was all that we had for many, many years.

First came video and we all thought that if you didn’t LOOK perfect you couldn’t play consistently well. But why did weird swings work??? We couldn’t understand.

Next, Trackman showed up…

Now we understood why weird swing worked thus you didn’t have to look “pretty” as long as you controlled your “numbers.”

But for a while we hyper-focused on the numbers being too exact- if you didn’t have “these” numbers you couldn’t play.

However, over time we figured out that you can play at any level as long as you had two things: a repeatable pattern (face to path with centered contact) so you could predict ball-flight, and two, the necessary power (ball speed) to hit the ball the distance needed for your level of competition.

While this was great, we were still at a loss regarding the best way to produce power for each golfer…was it adding more swing length, more width in the backswing, making your clubs longer, adding a more aggressive leg drive…what was best?

Then teachers began using the Swing Catalyst…

Now we could finally understand what was going on during the swing as it pertained to power and speed production. We could see the video coupled with the way we moved our pressure back and forth, as well as, how and when we used the ground to produce horizontal, rotational, and vertical forces as well.

Now most teachers are consumed with how much and when these forces should occur and this is the same trends we saw with Video and Trackman as well. Eventually most instructors will learn that these forces should definitely be audited, controlled, and improved if necessary but you don’t immediately go in and “fix” these just because! Don’t mistake an idiosyncrasy for a swing flaw. Even their literature and top biomechanistic Dr. Scott Lynn, will tell you that there are exceptions to all the rules and we are not robots whereas changing “X” will make you instantly 30 yards longer.

What I LOVE about the Swing Catalyst and its abilities as a tool is that I can now see “how” a golfer is using the ground, what forces are being used, and when I couple that with what problems the golfer has described, I now have more information to rely on to make a decision. A better educated decision, because I couple this information with the video and Trackman data and I get a much “fuller” picture of where the power leak is coming from and to what degree. Coupling this with the ability to see before and after swings- their forces, club speeds, and ball reactions on Trackman I now am using technology in the best way possible.

But I still can’t get a clear picture of “what” is driving these forces to improve and how the body is “making” it happen. It would be really nice to look inside the golfer and better understand how he is MOVING his body in order to make the changes that we have determined are better for the player. So, what physiologically is actually changing? That is the question I cannot answer.

And finally, the integration with GEARS is just beginning to happen…

Personally, I don’t know why it’s taken so long for this to happen, perhaps because this technology was expensive when it first came out, but now it’s the same as buying a Trackman or Swing Catalyst. But that’s for another article.
For the first time we can now integrate Video, Trackman, Swing Catalyst, and GEARS together in a “super-system” that will show the instructor anything and everything they need to know about the kinetics and kinematics of the player as they move. It’s power like we’ve never had before!

Now let’s go back to our thought from earlier- we have seen something we needed to change based on the golfer’s desires, audited Trackman and Swing Catalyst and figured out that we want to change the production of “X” force somewhere in the swing. The golfer does so, we see a dramatic improvement, but we don’t know what the golfer actually did differently so we ask them. “How or what did you do?” Their reply was I felt that my lead hip rotated more or slid more but I’m not sure. Now with GEARS we can actually “see and understand” how they altered their motion with the data between two different swings!

Ah yes, here it is…you DID rotate your hip more from swing one to swing two, so let’s continue to test that “move” to see if it stands up to further testing and how it plays out on the golf course under pressure.

Now we have the data to back up the change so we actually KNOW what went into the golfer changing one pattern for another. There is no guesswork about how, the only grey area is what is the best change for the golfer and that comes from the instructor’s experience, understanding of the problem, knowing the physiology of the body, and auditing their mechanics (with technology) to make a more informed decision as to what direction they should go. At least now we have things like Swing Catalyst to show us forces and torques and GEARS to show us sequencing and numbers so we can compare swings quantitively for a change.

Now it is up to the golf professionals to use all of this in an easily understood and non-technical manner for players of any level. Knowledge is power but it can be a dangerous thing, so tread lightly…

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