Why Radar is changing the way we learn golf...

The entire Golf industry is changing, from relaxed dress codes, to different rules. The biggest change by far has been the technological advancements we have seen to aid us in our frustrating journey to better golf.

There is a lot of buzz in golf at the moment around this little orange box. Tiger Woods, Rory Mcilroy plus many of the worlds best coaches are using the games and data to improve their golf far quicker than ever seen before.

So what is Trackman?!

Trackman is a Doppler radar device which tracks the golf ball, measuring accurately the distance, direction, spin rate, launch angle and speed of the ball (amongst many other things). It also tracks what the club is doing to the ball to create these ball performance measures. Things such as club head speed, swing path, swing plane etc. are tracked, as well as calculations for face angle and loft at impact.

It measures a ton more, all of which sound just as complicated - but fear not!

All this data allows us as coaches and you as players to reference certain aspects of your swing, in order to improve this data and therefore improve your ball flight.

We have to have these points of reference and feedback in order to know how to improve. Its the same way businesses are able to grow exponentially, by gathering feedback from consumer sales in order to improve their model!

THE MODERN COACH

As a young golfer I was constantly frustrated by how EASY golf looked and how HARD it was to execute. There was always something I was doing to make my golf swing look better. Daily objectives included trying to get the club to the top so it looks like Tiger Woods, or make sure my posture was identical to that of Adam Scott.

It makes sense right?! SURELY if I replicate these positions it will have a positive effect on my golf shots!

As my swing looked better and better technically and on camera, I was disappointed to find that the results were not improving at the same rate – in fact, they were often regressing. How on earth could this be?

The Lightbulb Moment

13 years ago, I was playing a Pro Am event with three lovely gentlemen two of whom were mid handicappers and one who seemed to have walked onto the 1st tee having just had 10 pints in the bar! For the purpose of this article we shall give this lovely gentlemen the generic name of 'Dave'. Now it certainly wasn't Dave's day on the course and he was struggling from the off. We came to the 13th hole and the chaps asked how I hit my nice high draw (often a hook). I proceeded to enlighten them on the inner workings of the club head and swing path, all ready for my demonstration. 1st shot, hooked left into the trees, 2nd shot hooks in the trees...... 3rd shot hooked into the trees - very red faced I hear Dave pipe up with some words of wisdom "why don't you just aim the club right?". Taking a breather from this embarrassing situation I explained to Dave that aiming the Club right would cause the ball to go right - I then proceeded to show him, full expecting the ball to loose fourth out of four balls in the trees on the right. To my amazement a towering 300 yard draw landing mile of the fairway was the result!! Dave was chuffed...

Why don't you just aim the Club right?

Everything I knew about swing style was destroyed in that instant. I had spent all of this time trying to manipulate and contort my body into unnatural (to me) positions in the hope of getting the club on the ball better. But no one had ever told me that I JUST needed to get the club on the ball better.

There is a simple, yet widely mis-taught reason as to why Dave was unbelievably correct, but I will leave that for another article.

As a result, I was under the illusion that lagging the club made you strike it like Tiger Woods. Or that getting the club perfectly parallel at the top made you play like a Jack Nicklaus.

But now it made sense – now I could understand how all of those pros with different looking and non-textbook swings were so good. They had great and functional club and ball alignments.

This is all that matters to the golf ball – not who is on the other end of it, or what their position was at the top of their swing

 Disaster - Or not?

For the next two weeks I continued to hit high draws and play some of the best golf of my life, until one morning I decided to video my swing...

I was horrified, with every frame it got more aesthetically displeasing. It looked further away from a tour swing than my ball was from the fairway in the Pro-Am I discussed earlier!

Oh no! My takeaway is all wrong and my left wrist is too bowed at the top

I had a choice. Do I go back to trying to perfect the look of my swing and never really hitting the ball how I wanted? Or did I say ‘forget about style’ and continue playing my best golf ever?

FUNCTION OVER FORM

It was a much more difficult decision to make than you would imagine; all of my conditioning through the books and magazines I had read, and all of the instruction out at the time (as well as my overly analytical nature) magnetized me towards the style. I wanted to look good.

But going back wasn't an option. I was hitting the ball so well. So I stuck with it. I continued to swing the way I was, just with what felt like a very open club face.

I understood what I was doing but needed to properly quantify it (cue the overly analytical nature again)....

ENTER TRACKMAN

MOTOR LEARNING

 I alongside our other TeeBox Golf Professionals took the decision to research more about not what to do, but how to learn it. This lead us onto some great research by fellow Professionals such as Adam Young. We wanted to understand how the humans learn (neuromuscular conditioning), Trackman is the single biggest aid when improving the learning cycle of a golfer - PERIOD!

Some of the things which Trackman develops are;

It encourages an external focus of attention – directing your attention towards club and ball impact and away from the body movements themselves. Tons of scientific research supports this way of learning.

It encourages self-organization of movements – We are all built differently and swing the club differently for a plethora of reasons known and currently unknown to man. This is why there are so many distinctive styles of swing on tour. Rather than fit into a swing-mould, this encouraged freedom of expression. Create the impact you desire in whatever way you find fit. This is the reason that robots would make terrible golfers (contrary to what you may think). With different gradients, grass lengths and shot distances - the ability to compensate is a golfer's primary skill. Trackman allows us to understand these compensations.

Quality feedback – to heighten learning, it is important to have good feedback. As previously mentioned - whilst video helped, it tended to promote an overly internal focus. Trackman was keeping the focus external and relevant to performance.

Self-discovery – Trackman gives us these references and data forms of feedback on every shot. This allows the golfer to UNDERSTAND why different shots are hit and experiment correctly with changing the numbers around. This is very different than tinkering around with grip at the driving range!

Uncontrolled manifold hypothesis – this basically means that by focusing on the task of changing the data (e.g. hitting 5 degrees more down on the ball), your brain uses all of the degrees of freedom (knees, hips, shoulders, wrists, elbows etc) in perfect harmony, working together to create the result.

Perceptual adaptation – The device helps to bridge the gap between feel and real. You may have had a lesson, looked on the camera and been amazed at how long your swing was the it felt so short. Trackman does this with the same cold hard facts, but from 30 different parameters that will directly influence where your ball is going. After practising or taking lessons on Trackman, you will be able to 'feel' a draw swing by visualising the numbers and data that would create the draw shot.

Creating pressure – We have all hit the ball beautifully on the range, to then go out and, due to pressure, not be able to hit a cow's a**e with a banjo! Trackman has various games and tests, including the world famous Trackman combine test. This allows you to compete with the best players in the world, but most importantly allow you to practice in a competitive environment by yourself.

We have had clients here at TeeBox who have ben close to breaking personal bests and completely choke, resulting in some poor shots to end.How often can you say that your practice sessions induce this level of pressure? It’s just how practice with a purpose should feel.

Luckily we see many personal bests broken every week, resulting in smiles instead of snarles!

Point being that even just the idea of a personal best is ensuring your practice so much more productive than a cold trip to the driving range hitting balls somewhere near a target that you aren't sure how close you are getting to!

To book your half price Trackman lesson, contact us at TeeBox