Fitness
I have always been a fan of Katherine Roberts and her golf fitness expertise. I reviewed the excellent movie, The Back Nine (by Jon Fitzgerald) a few weeks back (
Best Golf Film of the Year: The Back Nine) and Katherine was featured very prominently in it.
Katherine is as much a terrific personal and motivational coach (as you'll see in the movie) as a world-class golf and sports fitness guru.
She just has such a nice, simple way of communicating that it is very refreshing and after seeing the movie I knew I wanted to feature her on our GolfDash Blog.
We caught Katherine in between her many projects to ...
I suspect I am like many golfers chasing the elusive whale. It has always remained in my consciousness that a number of years ago on a number of occasions I hit the ball at least 30-40 yards longer.
Now, you ask, "How can this be possible?" I am not really sure either other than a number of coordinated actions came powerfully and efficiently together at once.
I remember one hole in particular that I typically would hit a 5 wood/4 iron into, I hit pitching wedge, which, incidentally I probably hit about 135 yards (my normal about 110 or so) after a booming drive.
A couple swing feelings still linger in my mind. One ...
GolfDashBlog: A lot of us know the name Joey Diovisalvi and have see you associated with the PGA Tour over the years. For those of who don't know you, can you bring them up to speed?
JoeyD: I'm a biomechanics coach on the PGA Tour and have been for over a decade now. I'm currently working week in and week out with seven Tour pros -- Pat Perez, Ryuji Imada, Jason Dufner, Charlie Wi, Chez Reavie, Jason Gore and Tom Pernice Jr. Before that I spent seven years working with Vijay Singh, including his run where he was the top-ranked player in the world. I've been featured on the CBS ...
John and I launched the
LongDriveForum.com a few months back but it ended up being riddled with technical difficulties and the whole forum board had to be scrapped (along with all the messages!) So it is now being revived due to popular demand.
The Forum is dedicated to increasing your power, distance and accuracy. It is not *just* meant to be for world class long drivers only but also for the ordinary chap who REALLY wants to figure out how to get those 20+ extra yards on his/her drive and hit the ball squarely and accurately with that pro-like "thud" sound with his/her irons. Sweet!
A lot of forums include every golf ...
Honestly, I know better. It's happened before to me and many other golf writers.
You write about something in Tiger's game that you believe you see, but he doesn't.
How stupid is that? There's probably not another golfer who has ever lived who knows his game any better than Tiger.
Last week I wrote that maybe Tiger was too 'Pumped Up' to be at the top of his game in my article
"Pushing The Muscle Limits." Doug also wrote about this in his article,
"Is Tiger TOO Pumped Up?"
So to prove me and every other theorizing writer wrong he hits every fairway in Sunday's ...
Who doesn't want more power, or more precisely more distance! So what's the secret? Bulk up so you can swing like a wild man? Of course not.
Golf is a game where all the strength in the world isn't going to do you any good if you don't control timing. We've all seen the guys who swing out of their shoes only to have their shots go everywhere but straight and long.
First and foremost, you've got to be flexible. Said another way, you can't swing beyond your 'flexibility' range. Why, because you'll pull everything out of sync and out of plain and all the strength in the world isn't going to right the ship.
You'll find thousands of articles in golf magazines about what to do if you're hitting the ball every which way - right, left, fat and thin. The one fix that addresses 90 percent of the problems is to swing within your flexibility range.
If you want scientific proof of this, take a look at the book
'The Golf Biomechanics Manual' by Paul Chek. It's written more for physical therapists than golfers, but the logic is irrefutable.
[caption id="attachment_2004" align="alignleft" width="246" caption="A Ripped Unhappy Tiger Woods"]
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Doug's article two weeks ago about Tiger being too pumped up, really got me to thinking. Tiger is the most 'pumped up' guy on tour.
I don't think anyone would dispute that he's also the most pumped up guy who has ever been on tour. Has he finally reached the limits of more muscle equating to better golf?
I don't believe Tiger himself knows where the limits are. He's experimenting as he is wont to do. After all, muscles helped him dominate over the last 3 or 4 years so maybe he still believes 'more is better'.
But, if being pumped really ...
Curious out there how many folks practice some type of alternative exercise to increase your golf swing power. By this I mean aikido, chi gong, tai chi, etc. I have practiced
aikido in the past so I have some direct experience. It is a type of "power" that you develop over time.
One of the keys in any of these disciplines is, of course, you have to practice it but it very much has to do with working on a way to relax your body so you have "effortless" power. I have glimpsed this only a few times in the last couple years and if I had the chance to ...
Johnny Miller made an interesting comment in yesterdays Players Championship concerning Tiger Woods.
Not sure of the exact quote but he mentioned that maybe his biceps are getting in the way of his swing. Now golf certainly requires strength but I tend to agree with Johnny. He just seems to be getting too pumped up to play precision golf.
If you made a composite image of all the past superstars into one ideal body type you would certainly not get the current view we have of Tiger.
Hogan, Snead, Watson, Trevino, Nicklaus, Miller, all had, of course, different body types but even Jack's figure was somewhat "sinewy" in his prime. No bulk. Just long, ...
While most established tour pros have a coach and a psychologist but very few have a biomechanics expert as part of their team.
It seems your golf technique is often compromised by poor biomechanics. So, in other words, no matter how hard you try to emulate Tiger Woods' rapid hip clearance or Fred Couples' flexible turn, you won't be able to achieve it if you don't have the physical capability to make those movements.
Biomechanics experts, unlike PGA professionals (who have a detailed knowledge of golf swing fundamentals) golf biomechanics experts use advanced physical assessment and training technique to improve flexibility, muscle performance and joint stability.
Then, according to the results, a program (personalized ...
