Golf Fitness Guys take on the best golf swings in 2010

Greetings golfers!  Tyler here, and while I sit in the waiting room while my car gets some work on it, I thought I’d share with your one of my fun annual traditions.  At the beginning of each year, I like to go to the PGA tour website and check out some statistics.  We in the golf instruction and training industry get obsessed with making our golfers the best ball strikers they can be, because, well, quite simply – hitting the ball where you want to makes golf more enjoyable.  So when most of us instructors are giving lessons, we gravitate toward the popular swings as comparisons, such as:  Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, Davis Love III.  We generally compare your swing to one of these successful winners on tour.  But are these guys picked at random, or are they really the best in the world?

Who is REALLY on top of the full swing game? – 2010 Ball Striking
If you take a look at 2010 ball striking statistics, you may be surprised by who is at the top of the list.  Here are the top 5 ball strikers (combined total driving and G.I.R)

1. Charles Warren
2. Graham DeLaet
3. John Senden
4. Joe Durant
5. Davis Love III

Whew!  At least we got one of them on the list.  So where are our other favorites?

• Ernie Els is 116
• Adam Scott was pretty solid at 23rd
• Tiger Didn’t have enough rounds to qualify

Ok, so maybe these ball striking statistics are flawed.  Let’s look at one of my real favorite categories instead, it’s a seldom used stat called proximity to the hole.

Here are the top 5 in Proximity to the Hole (basically, how close do they really hit it to the pin).

1. Tim Clark
2. Jay Williamson
3. Joe Durant
4. Cliff Kresge
5. Omar Uresti
6. K.J. Choi

Uhh, Houston, we have a problem.  Those swings are some of the goofiest on tour.  I added KJ in there because I dare you to go to your instructor and tell him you want to swing like KJ – you know what, I Double dog dear you….

Now, for our favorites.

• Ernie Else  – T 151
• Davis Love III -  T 23
• Adam Scott – T 41

After seeing some of this interesting data, naturally, I would like to study some of these “other” swings to see what makes they so good at hitting the ball.  A quick search on youtube should help me out, right?  Wrong!

You can find a few swings for John Senden (1 in high speed, which is all that really count).  No swings for Charles Warren or Graham DeLaet.  And then if you watch the Konica Minolta Swing Vision Analysis of the swings listed (other than Davis Love III) you will usually hear that this is a weird swing that relies on timing and good athleticism.  Can the top 5 at something really all be weird, while the guys in the middle of the pack are proper and the ones we should emulate?
I present this data to back up the concept that there is no one right way to swing a golf club and that you need to find a pro who can help tailor your swing to how it works with your body.  The goal of the golf swing is to create as much clubhead speed as you can, with a reasonable amount of control.  The proven method for generating speed is to use your feet and legs to initiate the downswing, transfer and increase the speed of movement through the hips, do it again through the core and shoulders, and then use your wrists and hands to get that speed squarely into the golf ball.  If you do that consistently, you too will be a good ball striker, just like our lesser known leaders, John Senden, Charles Warren, Tim Clark and Joe Durant.

2011 has already been named the Year-of-the-Glute on the fitness side of the game, maybe it’s time we also make it the year you build an efficient swing.  We could call it the Year-of-the-not-as-pretty-as-Ernie-Els-but-efficient-for-me-swing…

How about this, I’ll work on a better name, and you go work on using your body more effectively.

‘Til next time golfers.