Golf Science – The Great American State Competition

Author’s Note: Happy New Year all. This one’s fodder for your funny bone! We invited all 50 U.S. states to submit their cases for being America’s premier golf destination. Here’s what we’ve received so far. No winners yet — we’re still reading. Florida’s Submission (Received first, marked “URGENT”) Florida would like the panel to it […]

Golf Science – Biomechanics & The Golf Swing

Imagine having the opportunity to interview a man who has appeared in more TV and radio shows, podcasts, and newspaper/magazine articles than almost anyone (no, not Shohei!) and who is also one of the leading sports biomechanists in the world. Meet Glenn Fleisig, Ph.D., of the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI). He has researched the […]

Golf Science – A Chat With Rick Sessinghaus

Some people, as Shakespeare once astutely said, are born great. Others achieve greatness. Still others… no need to go to the last part of that famous phrase, in order to present a great golf coach who has worked tirelessly to achieve greatness and earn his place in the golf world.  While many know Rick Sessinghaus […]

Golf Science – Teaching the Long Ball

Golfers all across the globe share a single obsession: distance and the pursuit of it. They may chase it through new, cutting-edge drivers or by improving strength and speed – but ultimately, it comes down to their swings. And that, of course, should be the first priority and low-hanging fruit through working with a skilled, […]

Golf Science – Swinging in Bryson’s Shoes

How could the average golfer ever dare to imagine swinging in Bryson DeChambeau’s shoes? After all, he’s a pro who has racked up impressive achievements and smashes drives and sinks putts like almost no one else can. Actually, “swinging with his clubs”  would be a far more realistic way to phrase it. A visit to […]

Golf Science – The Golf Professor’s Evaluation

Golfers of all skill levels – beginner to Tour player – often struggle with directional misses, loss of distance, and even injury. Despite trying various adjustments – from grip changes and takeaway modifications – to the latest “power” moves or “miracle” cures, they often find that their results remain inconsistent, and the fixes are frequently […]

Golf Science – Swing Thoughts from the Greats

Many golfers believe that the pros make great swings and only miss a few shots here and there in competition, because of not being in the right frame of mind, or having a momentary lack of focus or choosing an incorrect club or, if nothing else, experiencing sheer bad luck. After all, they have access […]

Golf Science – Tiger’s Greatest Legacy

Tiger Woods, over his 49 years, has been many things to many people. A son any parent would be proud of. A dad his two children adore. A charismatic golfer who millions of golfers revere above any other. He has also been an icon, a GOAT (greatest of all time), a hero who has been […]

Golf Science – The Life of A Looper

Famous British poet of the 1600s, John Milton, wrote “On His Blindness” in which he said, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Surely this applies nowhere else so much as to the caddies who serve their players quietly, efficiently and patiently for days, weeks, months and years on end.  The 21st century PGA […]

Golf Science – Functional Medicine With Dr. Ara Suppiah

Most people imagine that the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf have nothing in common. They would almost be right, but there actually is one entity that both organizations share. And that is the person who has been the head of Tournament Medical Services for LIV Golf for the past three years. Once 14 of his […]

Golf Science – Our PGA Friends to the North

The Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of any country is its national body for training golf teachers, coaches and business managers, as well as others involved in the business of golf. The PGA of America is the largest such organization in the world, with a membership of 30,000. The PGA of Great Britain and Ireland has […]

Golf Science – Tiger’s Travails

When Tiger Woods had his sixth spinal surgery in 10 years, naturally it made headlines. It was widely reported that the surgeon who performed the surgery was Dr. Sheeraz Qureshi (MD, MBA), a spinal surgeon and Co-Chief of Spine Service at The Hospital for Special Surgery, a spine service that is internationally recognized as a […]

Golf Science – Chasing a Dream

The world is often full of stories about war and famine and disease and sadness, so it’s always nice to hear a sweet story about how a small-town guy empties the family coffers on a chance and makes a place for himself in the competitive golf market. Jared Doerfler’s story began when his dad taught […]

Golf Science – Foley’s Philosophy

If you come across a not-very-tall guy with slicked-back hair, colorful glasses that usually match his shirt, and many tattoos on his arms, what field might you imagine he is in? Before you get too carried away and imagine a hip-hop star, know that this man is extremely well-read and erudite. Also note that the […]

Golf Science – The Harmon Family Legacy

There is only one family of golf instructors that golf lesson-takers all over the planet, and across all existing golfing generations, might consider the “first family” of golf teachers. And that is, naturally, the Harmon family. The Patriarch Eugene Claude Harmon Sr. was a true patriarch for the Harmon family. After having spent much of […]

Golf Science – An Inside Look at Coaching

While every PGA TOUR victory these days is instantly flashed across the world via TV, magazine articles, internet blogs and social media, with the victor being touted as the newest great thing in golf since the graphite shaft (until the next Sunday, that is), the coach behind the victory is rarely acknowledged. An occasional player […]

Golf Science – A Parent’s Guide to Golf

Some say performance in golf requires technical skills and better positions in the swing. Others say better performance happens as a result of physical skills and a better fitness regimen. Still others say that the mental aspect of golf rules supreme and, unless a golfer can be relaxed and focused, performance will suffer. One sports […]

Golf Science – Chatting with Champions

March in Southern California means wonderful weather, lingering snow in the distant mountains, sunny skies and perfect golf course conditions. And the PGA TOUR Champions makes the most of all this by holding two back-to-back events in SoCal. The Hoag Classic at the Newport Beach Country Club, followed by the Galleri Classic at the Mission […]

Golf Science – Inside the Ropes of a Professional’s Mindset

Most golfers these days are on one or more social media platforms and so get bombarded with swing tips all the time. “Get your lead elbow bowed like Dustin Johnsons’s.” “Get vertical close to impact like Justin Thomas.” “Keep your butt against the wall like Tiger Woods.” And on and on. So, the recently completed […]

The PGA and Non-Profits

The PGA TOUR makes its West Coast Swing at the start of each year. That makes for a great opportunity for fans in Hawaii and California to watch all their favorite players in action and, in fact, to learn more about the TOUR itself. Given that this is a golf science column, it seemed appropriate […]

Golf Science – The Golf Ball Rollback

Golf as we know it will change forever, once the USGA and R&A’s golf ball rollback rule goes into effect in a few years, starting in 2028. The rollback rule was not made on a whim. In fact, the Distance Insights Project has been a joint initiative of the USGA and R&A since 2018, and […]

Golf Science – Golden Age Golf

As the saying goes, old is gold. That certainly is true for senior male golfers who participate in competitive events. The Tour Champions Q-School for 2024 had three first stage locations to accommodate Tour-card-hopefuls, and each venue played host to around 75 participants. There were about 225 Stage I golfers in total, with 18 from […]

Golf Science – Professional Prep

What does it take to succeed at Q School? As the number of professional golf events springing up all over the world proliferates, with ever-increasing amounts of prize money, many would love to know! Meet Texas’ very own Scott Fawcett, former golf professional and most recently known as the guru of course management. As a […]

Golf Science – Top of the Food Chain

It is absolutely unbelievable that the number of high-quality golf research papers is as large as it is these days. Unfortunately, unless the researchers have a strong following within the golf coaching community, their results might never come to light, and thus never be utilized for the benefit of the group of golfers they apply […]

Golf Science – Putting Numbers that Might Surprise You

The one golf shot everyone can make, and make successfully, is, of course, the putt. As the putter never rises very far from the ground, all a golfer needs to do is make a small movement back and a small movement through, and plonk, the ball is in the hole! Perhaps that is why golfers, […]

Golf Science – The Ultimate Mind Game

It has often been said that a student is only as good as his teacher. However, it is rare for anyone to actually study how good the teacher truly is. So, it might be of interest to learn more about the man behind much of the success of the current 19th-ranked player on the Official […]

Golf Science – Physical Therapy and Golf

To the regular golfer, a Tour player seems like someone from another universe, way beyond their own ability to ever hope to play like. However, it takes an entire team to keep these elite “engines” finely tuned and in shape to play their best golf, week after week. Tour players each have a big team […]

Golf Science – Strokes Gained, Explained

More and more golfers use, or are fascinated by, the idea of using the new “strokes gained” statistics as opposed to some of the more traditional ones. So what are traditional statistics and what are the new ones? Traditional statistics include fairways hit (on tee shots), greens in regulation, short game up and downs, putts per […]

Golf Science – The Secret to Longevity

What with all the partitions happening in the world of men’s professional golf, aficionados are perhaps left with less motivation to follow any of the tours, as fan loyalty has to be divided across all the platforms. On any given Sunday, a relatively unknown player might heft the trophy that has engraved on it the […]

Golf Science – What is Your Go-To Shot?

Golf fans, the world over, often believe that the pros they watch on TV are practically infallible, hitting long, straight drives and possessed of immaculate short games. So, The Genesis Invitational, held at the Riviera Country Club since 1973, was a great opportunity to find out just exactly what the pros themselves think about their […]

Golf Science – Avoiding Over the Top

It has always been said that less-skilled golfers come over the top (OTT) while the best golfers, especially the professionals, never do. However, when asked for a tip to avoid over the top, many pros at the recent Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines said they are sometimes OTT, too. For some, like Michael Herrera, […]

Golf Science – Up Your Endurance for 2023

Happy New Year all. If your goal for the new year is to score better at golf, and if you’d like to work towards that goal by training better and fueling better, here is some useful information from a very recent (published April 2022) review paper titled ‘Competitive Golf: How Longer Courses Are Changing Athletes […]

Golf Science – Professional Club Fitting for Dummies

It all began when the LPGA Professionals (the teaching and coaching arm of the LPGA) arranged a webinar on club fitting for its members. The speaker gave one of the most clear and meaningful presentations I have ever heard – in golf and in academia. He explained that since he was a kid watching fitters […]

Golf Science – Predicting the Predictions

This article is for those golf aficionados who love to predict eventual winners of golf events and are even, perhaps, enthusiastic punters. It involves a fun “experiment” that was designed to predict (or not) which of a few selected golfers in a four-day pro tour event would have the best scores at the end of […]

Golf Science – Get Well, Will

Aahhh Will, Will, Will. So young, so talented. And now, just as you turn 26 and have had your very first PGA TOUR victory, you are needlessly suffering from not just one, but two, herniated discs in your low back.  Needlessly? Well golf injury research has existed for decades, and the movements and positions that […]

Golf Science – High, Wide and Deep

If anyone believes the best roller-coaster rides in California are at the many theme parks that dot the entire landscape of SoCal, they could not be more wrong. The very best ride to be had, for the rare person fortunate enough to experience one, is in a golf cart … being driven up and down […]

Golf Science – Golf Movement Screen

The golf fitness industry is an ever-expanding one, with everyone from your neighborhood collegiate golfer to well-known physical therapists and chiropractors being full-time golf fitness trainers. What is not clear is whether all golf fitness trainers perform any type of fitness evaluation prior to prescribing exercises to an individual golfer and, if so, what type […]

Golf Science – The Shots that Won the U.S. Open

In the end, it was a battle between two Texans and one Brit. The 2022 U.S. Open, that is. And all these giants of the game were 27 years old or less. How the game of golf has changed and evolved! Could we have predicted who would win even after 63 holes? What do the […]

Golf Science – The Feast or Famine Shot

Every golfer – regardless of skill-level – faces several feast or famine shots daily. Make them and life is spared, miss them and …. Those shots are the putts, a golfer’s final hurrah (or not, as the case might be) on every hole. So what must a golfer do to sink more putts? What aspects […]

Golf Science – Goal Oriented

The LA Open at the beautiful Wilshire Country Club in the heart of Hollywood is always an event to look forward to. With perfect weather, the amazing color involved in a women’s golf event, and most of the top female players in the world in contention, what’s not to love about the event, this year […]

Golf Science – Changes Make Champions

If you read two lists of names, which one would you believe was merely pulled out of a local telephone directory and which would you know was a list of elite golf professionals: Retief Goosen, Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, Rocco Mediate, Darren Clarke, Tom Lehman, Jim Furyk, Colin Montgomerie, Vijay Singh, David Duval and Mark […]

Golf Science – Golf’s “Magic Move”

The famous Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles has been the home of the Genesis Invitational since 1929. In 2028, it will also play host to the Los Angeles Olympic Games. No wonder it is a popular stop for the PGA TOUR’s very best, who are additionally motivated to be a part of an event […]

Golf Science – Changing the Game

Imagine the whimsy and sheer poetry of a golf course associated with the “butterfly effect.” We live in a part of the world where golf course names invariably and predictably (according to The Business of Golf by J.J. Keegan) involve a color (356 courses use the word “green”), a land feature (1,019 use “hill”), an […]

Golf Science – Building the Future

College coaches have sometimes been likened to gods. Not just football coaches who earn millions of dollars a year, but coaches of other sports too. If such coaches are responsible for Division I teams, such as teams in the Pac-12 conference, then they are literally superstars in their own right. One such coach is Chris […]

Golf Science – A Beautiful Mind

Once upon a time there was a young boy who was born in rural California and grew up around a golf pro and his kids. He thus started playing golf at age eight, shagging balls at age 11, being a bag boy a bit later, playing college golf, and finally deciding to become a golf […]

Golf Science – Speed Training

The U.S. golf industry is said to be worth $84 billion, while the gym, health and fitness industry’s 2020 revenue was found to be over $32 billion. At the intersection of the two lies the ever-growing-in-popularity golf-specific fitness industry. While the market share for that industry is unknown, it can be presumed that it too, […]

Golf Science – Junior Golf in Cali

The cover story for this month is about LPGA star Danielle Kang. Like many other professional golfers, both male and female, she is the product of the wonderful competitive experience young girls and boys gain as High School golfers in Southern California. From Tiger Woods to the latest LPGA Tour star, many juniors have played […]

Golf Science – Deconstructing Scottie

Upon learning that the cover story for our magazine’s September issue would be about Scottie Scheffler, it was exciting to study this young man’s background a bit, as he has increasingly, over the past season, had his fair share of weekend prime time on TV. In fact, in 2021 alone, he has finished in the […]

Golf Science – Club Fitting 101

A leading PGA Tour professional recently said, after a really erratic round of golf, “with the driver right now, the driver sucks. It’s not a good face for me, and we’re still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mishits.”  To better understand the complaint, we need to understand what aspects […]

Golf Science – Physical vs. Mental

One unending debate in golf is whether the golf swing should be improved through mental imagery or through physical or technique changes. Many golfers believe they are “feel” players and so should not do anything “technical” to improve how they swing the golf club. Actually, one without the other is pointless. Unless the body’s joints […]

Golf Science – The Male vs. Female Golf Swing

It is always an exciting time of year when the LPGA Tour makes a stop in Los Angeles, but in 2021 it was especially thrilling to see all the color and crowds (albeit small) after an entire year of lockdowns and limited travel opportunities. One purpose for attending the Hugel-Air Premia LPGA Open was to […]

Golf Science – Kinematics and Injury Prevention

A Tour player in the 21st century is like a finely tuned machine or an F1 car. Each one needs an entire team to keep it running efficiently. Of course, unlike a machine or a car, the parts of the human golfer cannot be replaced, and so the care provided by the golfer’s team is […]

Golf Science – What’s Next for Tiger?

If a person were to have charged a dollar for every time someone has, over the past several years, said, “This is the end of the road for Tiger Woods,” that person quickly would  have become quite rich. The chatter has only increased all across social media after Tiger’s latest, unfortunate car accident in Los […]

Golf Science – The Shady Renaissance

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is full of wonderful golf courses – both public and private. They are known for the challenges they offer to golfers, for their esthetic appeal, and for the uniqueness of their designs. One however, has always been known for its history as much as for its visual appeal. Not just some […]

Golf Science – Technical or Tactical?

How can a golfer improve his or her game quickly? Should improvement involve the swing or on-course play? And therefore, should the golfer’s coaching be swing-related or course-management related?  One well-researched sports coaching concept is to prioritize tactical, or strategy-based training over technical, or swing-change-based training. Based on one popular motor control theory, tactical training […]

Golf Science – Loopin’ the Links

A professional golfer these days can improve his or her game not just through improving the swing, but also through much simpler means such as their equipment – both clubs and balls. One less-frequently considered aspect of what can help improve performance is the caddie’s inputs. A caddie is not merely a person who carries […]

Golf Science – Athletes and Their Transition to Golf

People often wonder why it is that those who are superior players in one sport become so good at golf. There are famous football players, cricket players and hockey players who have all become really good golfers. Is it that they have superior hand-eye coordination, is it that golf has some moves which they are […]

Golf Science – Are Golfers Athletes

A point of much debate is the world of sports is whether golf is a sport like football or basketball or merely a game like chess. Moreover, based on that definition, is the golfer an athlete? One dictionary definition for an athlete is a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games […]

Golf Science – Course IQ

Most golfers, after a round of erratic play will immediately wonder “what did I do wrong?” and try to figure out whether it was their grip, posture, swing plane, timing, torso rotation or whatever was flawed. They will rarely try to analyze whether it was “thinking their way around the course” that was to blame. […]

Golf Science – Fitness for the Senior Player

Golfers on the whole are becoming more sedentary over time, given the 21st century lifestyle compounded by the lack of exercise opportunities because of the ubiquitous golf cart. This is a situation that has probably worsened as some golfers stay at home more during these times of Covid-19. This is a problem for young and […]

Golf Science – Ph.D.’s and the New Bryson

Bryson DeChambeau, the man who wants to “conquer” golf, is the name on every golf fan’s lips these days, because golfers are always endlessly fascinated by ball speed and how to increase it. While the average ball speed on the PGA Tour is 170 mph, Bryson has changed his diet and exercise regimens and made […]

Golf Science – I, Robot

Golfers have historically liked to take lessons. At first it was the best players who imparted occasional tips to less-skilled golfers. Then it became a profession and some golf teachers acquired all sorts of certifications in order to be considered worthy of the title. Next, with the advent of the internet and YouTube, everyone is […]

Golf Science – Put a Stop to Over the Top

All kicking and throwing skills require a proximal-to-distal or torso-before-arms movement. Golf requires the same type of pattern, and in our sport, it has been referred to as the “kinematic sequence”. In order to build up maximum speed in the golf swing (and, according to one study better directional control too), a golfer must start […]

Golf Science – “C” Results

Attention all golfers – from casual amateurs to adults and juniors playing competitive golf. When one does not start a car for months on end, its battery dies, its parts rust etc. etc. …you get the message. In fact, on the subject of disuse, Peter Mackay, chiropractor, and owner of Elite Performance Institute, San Diego, […]

Golf Science – Be Still!

The Hoag Classic is the PGA Tour Champions’ one stop in Southern California, and in the balmy weather of early March, it makes for some exciting super-star watching given that many big-name professional golfers participate in this event.  The 2020 event featured many legends, including six World Golf Hall of Famers – Fred Couples, Ernie […]

Golf Science – Where Does a Swing Go Wrong?

The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Southern California is an event that benefits Tiger Woods’ TGR Foundation. This exciting event includes a Collegiate Showcase on the Monday before the tournament, which not only allows the winning collegiate golfer to participate in the event, but also donates $50,000 to the winning golfer’s University’s golf […]

Golf Science – Fight or Flight

Golfers of all skill levels tend to play completely differently when under pressure. That is because more flight-or-fight hormones (epinephrine and nor-epinephrine) are released when a person feels anxious or stressed, and they make muscles contract faster and more forcefully. As a result, the entire downswing sequence could get out of whack. As we see […]

Golf Science – The Science Behind Single-Length Clubs

Single-length irons (all irons in a set have the same length as a typical 6- or 7-iron) were first manufactured in about the 1930s, according to golf journalist Brent Kelley. Since then, many companies have sporadically made single-length clubs, including Tommy Armour, Edel Golf, Zynk Golf and Value Golf. Some custom fitting brands such as […]

Golf Science – Lower Back Pain Affecting Your Play?

At the end of the regular season, the top 72 players of the PGA Champions Tour compete in the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs — a three-event series. The second tournament in the series is the Invesco QQQ Championship, played at the beautiful Sherwood Country Club in Southern California. Only the top 36 of the final […]

Golf Science – The Golf Swing: Science and Common Sense

There are over 60 million people on this planet who chase a small white ball across a huge expanse of green lawn while using what experts have termed “one of the most biomechanically complex motions in sport to execute”. Little wonder then that professionals and amateurs alike are inconsistent, are always in search of better […]

Golf Science – How to Become Hip and Happening

Now that the fall season is in full swing and a lot of golfers want to go out and play, it’s important to be able to do so comfortably. In other words, with no pain to hamper a fun round of golf. One area that is becoming increasingly important for golfers is the hip. As […]

Golf Science – Golf in 3D

As this is AVIDGOLFER Magazine’s Golf Science column, it seemed completely à propos to acquire some insights about the golf swing from Michael Jacobs, who recently authored the book “Science of the Golf Swing”. Jacobs is a Golf Digest top 50 and Golf Magazine top 100 golf instructor and has also been, at 40 years […]

Golf Science – The Book on Golf

With the ability for golfers to purchase “deals” on golf courses, many avid golfers play on a different course every weekend and seem to love the adventure. Other golfers “collect” golf courses that are designed by a favorite golf course architect like Donald Ross or Pete Dye. One famous golf course designer who might also […]

Golf Science – Beating the Heat

By: Kiran Kanwar Summer is here and Texas will continue to get hot, hotter and hottest. And while the temperatures rise, so too does the avid golfers’ interest in playing the game we all love. So, it becomes vital to protect oneself in a number of ways including through wearing the right apparel (sweat-wicking shirts […]

Golf Science – Far East Phenoms

The LPGA Tour is a wonderful potpourri of players from all over the world. In recent years many of the leading players have been of Asian origin – at first it was women from Korea, and in more recent years there have been some fine golfers from Thailand too. How is it that female golfers […]

Golf Science – Paralysis by Analysis

Does this sound familiar? You’re a golfer who takes his/her game seriously and hates to lose to friends during a weekend round. You then frequently go home and proceed to tear your hair out over why you missed some of those fairways, did not hit some easy greens, or putted so poorly. Well, you’re not […]

Golf Science – Genesis of Improvement

Most regular golfers never have the time to spend on practice and when they do, it involves a few shots hit at the driving range or a few putts made right before teeing off. Ask such a golfer what the single most important aspect of their game they need to improve is, to get to […]

Golf Science – Methodical Mechanics

The famous University of North Texas, in association with the PGA of America, an organization which has produced almost 29,000 golf professionals (both teachers and managers) have teamed up. As a result, the PGA is relocating its headquarters to Frisco and together they plan to offer some exciting courses for students interested in a future […]

Golf Science – Pickin’ Bob’s Brain

Can an average golfer really learn anything from a Tour Pro? Well, maybe not by trying to swing like one, but there is certainly a lot to learn from how a pro acquired his or her swing, and whether the information acquired was any good, which will be reflected through either the player’s performance capabilities, […]

Golf Science – Injury and the Champions Tour

Every week on the PGA Tour – or so it seems – one or two golfers withdraw because of injury. Why are these fit young men getting injured? How do they continue on to become seniors playing on the Champions Tour? It was interesting to hear what some seasoned veterans of the Champions Tour had […]

Golf Science – Mind Control

By Kiran Kanwar Sports psychology has come a long way in the past few decades, and given the topsy-turvy performances by the leading golfers in the world – and the rest of us – during the year, it seemed a good idea to find a leading sports psychologist to give us some tips. Neale Smith […]

Golf Science – Chamblee Decoded

Brandel Chamblee is a former PGA Tour player and a current commentator, writer, and lead studio analyst for Golf Channel. That means he is capable of analyzing golfers’ play from an insider’s view-point, having been-there-done-that. He is, moreover, not someone who merely makes desultory commentary like, “That player’s putting was not up to par today” […]

Golf Science – Ageless Wonders

Could playing golf aid your efforts to live longer? By Kiran Kanwar “The first person to live to 150 years has already been born,” claims Dr. David Sinclair, co-director of a laboratory on aging at Harvard Medical School. And this idea may not be very far-fetched as it is known that humans are living longer, […]

Golf Science – Pressure Points

Would you like to hit the ball further by using some science-based interventions? Well then, all you need to do is apply some extra force to the club-head so it can be transferred to the golf ball! The best way to do this is to harness external force, primarily by “using the ground properly”. Dr. […]

Golf Science – The Biomechanical Man

What might the two most important requirements for a good golf instructor be? Knowledge and an affable personality with a lot of empathy. So where in the DFW Metroplex area can one find such a paragon? Actually, one does not have to look too far. The brand new golf instructor at the Dallas National Golf […]

Prepare for Liftoff – What are the Benefits of Launch Monitors?

Technology has become the buzzword on the PGA tour, with every player toting a golf bag in one hand and a launch monitor in the other, so it was interesting to find out how the women on the LPGA tour make use of launch monitors, which appear to be the most commonly used teaching aid […]

Golf Science — Calculating a Winner

Who Said 40 isn’t the New 30?

Tiger Woods roars back, and Phil Mickelson wins a Tour event at the age of 47. How very apropos that these amazing events were preceded by an interview of many 40+ players at the Genesis Open earlier this year. They were all asked how they feel their bodies have changed since they turned 40, whether there […]

The Gadgetification of Golf

The January 2018 PGA Show had an offering of dozens of exciting products to visually and mentally stimulate any fed-up-with-winter golfer visiting the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando as much for the bright sunshine outdoors as for the colorful displays indoors. Apparel, accessories, golf clubs and even golf balls were presented in every color […]

Matter Within the Mind

Last month’s column was about “mind over matter,” or about how various focus-of-attention styles can change putting results. Research shows us that whether one focuses on a body part (internal focus) or the club or the target (both external foci) changes how effectively a putt is made. The focus of attention, however, is only a […]

Mind Over Matter

Now that the holiday excitement is over, and it’s still too cold play golf, what might die-hard golfers do to while away a few weekend hours and perhaps also stay in touch with golf, so that the next season can start off with great success? Drag the putting mat out into a hallway now devoid of […]

“Fake” Golf Science

The most popular adjective in the English language these days is the word “fake.” Fake reporting, fake news, fake stories, etc. No wonder then that every golfer uses the term “fake science” to avoid taking golf lessons as well as blaming the “messenger” – whoever offered him/her the golf “tip” in the first place. So […]

Golf Science – New-Age Training Aid Tech

Golfers all over the world are fascinated with trying to improve their golf game in any way possible. One popular concept has been with the use of training aids that can help to give a golfer a feel of what the correct positions are during the swing. Traditionally, training aids have ranged from anything as […]

Eating Like a Healthy Golfer

Ever considered changing your dietary inputs for the sake of your golf game, but didn’t know how to go about it, or even where to start? This was the case with a recent soon-to-turn pro golf student who visited us for a golf-science consultation (that being one that covers not just the golf swing but […]

It’s a Numbers Game

A week before this year’s PGA Championship was to begin, someone posted a highly mathematically accurate prediction based on the previous three major winners on one of Facebook’s more popular golf forums. Although based on the calculations, the prediction was for Rickie Fowler to win. The eventual winner, who also fit the mathematical requirements, was […]

Goal-Setting on the PGA Tour

The summer months afford many exciting opportunities for a golf scientist to meet with PGA TOUR players while they visit North Texas for two consecutive legs of the Tour. After discovering, during the AT&T Byron Nelson, that the best golfers in the world sometimes have seemingly insouciant attitudes towards their games (see July column), the […]

Keeping It Consistent

If you had just one wish, what would you hope your golf swing might allow you to do better? Most PGA Tour pros, of course, would wish for better consistency because they have plenty of everything else – good full-swing distance and trajectory, good short game and good putting. What is consistency? Consistency can be […]

Sharpening the Skillset

The Volunteers of America Texas Shootout is the annual Dallas-Fort Worth area event of the LPGA Tour. One amazing observation was the difference between the field playing in the Monday Local Open Qualifier and in the main event – while there were only seven non-USA players of 60 (about 12 percent) in the Monday Qualifier, […]

Ultimate Knowledge is Ultimate Power

Kelly Kraft, a native of Denton, Texas, has been a golf professional since 2012, and, just earlier this year, finished second at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. By now he must know a lot about his own game and how to keep it in shape and what he needs to do to continually perform at […]

A New Frontier

For those readers who are keen followers of the PGA Tour, do you get the impression that while the technology used by leading instructors to coach top professional players has become increasingly more sophisticated in the past decade, more fit, young players are becoming inconsistent and/or injured? What do you suppose is happening? The fact […]

Best of the 2017 PGA Show

The PGA Show 2017 has come and gone, and what a whirlwind of exciting new products – everything imaginable from apparel to equipment. For the enthusiastic golfer too, there was plenty of choices – sadly he or she can only get this information through a member of the golf industry with access to this biggest of […]

X Marks the Spot?

In December 1992, Golf Magazine came out with a brand new concept for the golf swing, which took the golf world by storm. It was termed “The X Factor,” and was first discovered and explained by famous instructor Jim McLean. The X Factor is the difference in horizontal rotation between the upper torso and the […]

Mastering the Putting Pendulum

“Ouch, I have a catch in my back,” I said recently. “How come?” responded a friend. I said it is from testing out the various putting postures our very own DFW hero Bryson DeChambeau has been seen all over the internet using in recent weeks. I thought I even saw one where he appears to be […]