An engineering professor at the University of Surrey claims to have found the key to the perfect golf swing.
Professor Robin Sharp suggests that the answer is not to use full power from the start, but to build up to it quickly. His analysis also shows that while bigger golfers might hit the ball further, it is not by much.
Surprisingly, the wrists do not play a critical role in the swing’s outcome, swinging harder to hit further is not as straightforward as it might seem. Sharp?s results indicate that how and when the power develops is the key to distance.
The findings are based on a model in which a golfer uses three points of rotation: the shoulders relative to the spine, the arms relative to the shoulders and the wrists relative to the arms. Previous golf swing models assumed that the torque, power of rotation, was applied at its maximum from the backswing or increased throughout the swing, reaching its maximum at the point of impact.
Sharp analysed the swing of three professionals, Bernard Hunt, Geoffrey Hunt and Guy Wolstenholme. According to his model the club-head-speed of these professionals could have been improved by increasing the torque quickly to the maximum value and maintain it throughout the rest of the swing.
The key is timing which torques are applied and when, it turns out to not be ?all in the wrists?. The optimal strategy consists of hitting first with the shoulders while holding back with the arms and wrists, then after some delay, hitting through with the arms and the wrists should hit through at release.
Simon Wickes, operations manager and biomechanics consultant for the Human Performance facilities at QinetiQ, has a different method for improving a golfer?s swing. At the company?s biomechanics lab, golfers wear a tight-fitting suit covered with reflectors that are tracked by 12 infrared-sensing cameras.
The team can analyze in detail any number of motions by tracking the independent movements of all the limbs and the club itself, including golf swings. The lab has been visited by the likes of Justin Rose and Nick Faldo and it seems that with Rose the club head and the arms are leading the body, rather than the shoulders leading the arms.
While Professor Sharp’s results may be useful, it seems the perfect swing is not just a matter of the mechanics.
The slowest hitter of the ball I ever saw was “Lord” Ted Dexter, former England Cricket captain, but… he hit the ball a hell of a long way and straight (well sometimes “…ish”). As his swing looked so slow, perhaps his cricket stroke (which relies on timing not raw power) made him into a long hitter of the golf ball. I know other cricketers who also seem to be able to generate amazing power with seeming to hit the ball slowly, and I used to attribute it to some sort of wrist flick at the end which I could not see. Perhaps this prof has found the secret.. and then again, maybe the cricketers’ timing of the stroke is what it is all about.