If you’ve ever tried to improve your golf swing, you know it can be a frustrating, often fruitless endeavor. Square your shoulders. Use your hips. Follow through. Those frequently parroted guidelines can seem impossible to master, especially since many golf instructors have conflicting ideas about what they actually mean. However, researchers at one company have collected and analyzed a massive amount of golf swing data, paving the way for a more objective, quantifiable approach to the sport.
“We’ve got more data on how people play golf than the iTunes Store has movies,” said Nick Clearwater, the vice president of instruction for GOLFTEC, a golf instruction company based in Englewood, Colo. just outside of Denver.
To be more specific, GOLFTEC — which has approximately 200 locations worldwide — has collected data from more than 90 million swings over the company’s 23-year history. The company has accomplished this feat using its patented TECSWING training system, which uses motion-measuring sensors, proprietary software, and a pair of high-speed cameras to analyze a golfer’s swing.
Each of GOLFTEC’s 700 indoor hitting bays is outfitted with the TECSWING system, so instructors can tweak their students’ swings with almost surgical precision, altering their hip sway by a couple inches here or increasing their shoulder tilt by a few degrees there. Each hitting bay also includes simulator technology that determines the ball’s flight path based on its velocity and spin, so students can see the results of their adjustments.
But how do the instructors know which adjustments to make? Well, after analyzing 48 different body motions from over 13,000 golfers of all abilities, GOLFTEC compiled the SwingTRU Motion Study, which highlighted some key body positions that were common among the best golfers.
“You’ll see that everyone has some unique characteristics,” Clearwater said. “Not every swing looks exactly the same. But there are patterns of motion that every good golfer has.”
In the study, GOLFTEC measured the various degrees of movement in each person’s swing and correlated that data with the individual’s self-reported handicap. Among the results, the company found that low-handicap players — including roughly 200 PGA Tour-level golfers — tended to exhibit six specific body positions when compared to high-handicap players.
In general, the good golfers: (1) swayed their hips more toward the target at the top of the backswing, (2) tilted their front shoulder further downward at the top of the backswing, (3) swayed their hips more toward the target at the impact position (when the club hits the ball), (4) rotated their hips more toward the target at the impact position, (5) tilted their rear shoulder further downward at the impact position, and (6) bent their shoulders further backward at the end of the follow-through.
With help from the University of Denver’s biomechanics lab, GOLFTEC’s analysts determined the exact degrees and angles at which the best golfers exhibited these positions, forming a blueprint for what a good swing should look like. Using that blueprint, instructors help their students identify their biggest problem areas, and then they apply a color coding system and an audio feedback mechanism to shift their body positions into the acceptable ranges.
Of course, most golf students don’t have the physical strength to drive the ball 400 yards like Dustin Johnson, so asking them to swing like a pro can be a tall order. That’s why GOLFTEC believes in personalized instruction, allowing the company’s “Certified Personal Coaches” to tailor their teachings to the natural abilities of their students. Still, Clearwater says that the SwingTRU study provides the coaches with a crucial point of reference.
“We use that data to create a model swing,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everyone has to swing like that. It’s just there for a good foundation… It gives you a very good starting point to help somebody solve their problems.”
But even that starting point has ruffled some feathers within the golf community. The large amount of body movement that GOLFTEC preaches is sometimes at odds with traditional, more old-fashioned styles of instruction.
“Golfers and even some golf instructors encourage people to either move less while they swing or keep their head down,” Clearwater said. “Both of those contradict what our data sets say the best golfers do. They’re actually moving themselves around the most.”
On top of that, Clearwater says that many golf instructors are simply too subjective, using the movements that “feel” right to them and applying those principles to their students without the support of any objective data.
“Most golfers’ knowledge bases are built around books or DVDs or the feel of players who are very good at the game,” he said. “That’s an unfortunate misunderstanding simply because being really good at golf doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to help someone improve their own game.”
If you’re skeptical about GOLFTEC’s approach, the company emphasizes its proven results. According to client surveys from GOLFTEC, 96 percent of customers say that their golf game has improved as a result of the company’s lessons. In addition, GOLFTEC claims that students shave an average of seven strokes off their scorecards.
GOLFTEC has also succeeded as a business, boasting a 25 percent market share of the U.S. golf lesson industry, according to the Denver Post. The company has provided more than 7 million total lessons, and it continues to experience year-over-year growth, despite a small hiccup in 2016, when partner company Golfsmith filed for bankruptcy and was subsequently acquired by Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Still, some customers have voiced concerns about GOLFTEC’s lessons. Cost may be the biggest turnoff, especially since the company’s technology could drive the price above the going rate for traditional golf lessons, which are expensive to begin with. According to Clearwater, a single lesson with a GOLFTEC coach could cost anywhere from $75 to $150 depending on the location and the type of lesson, although he stresses that almost all of the company’s students choose multi-lesson plans that have a more wallet-friendly price range of $43 to $95 per lesson.
Another concern is the quality and the consistency of the instructors, as numerous customer reviews have recounted both good and bad experiences with coaches. Although GOLFTEC doesn’t require its coaches to have PGA membership, Clearwater says that it is highly encouraged and that the company’s robust training program allows for coaches from a variety of backgrounds to be successful. He also says that GOLFTEC has a four-person team that monitors the instruction quality of all of the company’s coaches.
Regardless of the coach, GOLFTEC’s data-driven methods provide customers with a core instructional philosophy.
“When you can measure things, you don’t have to rely on the opinion of your coach,” Clearwater said. “If the data is assorted well and handled correctly, it can help you engineer what your next step should be to get better.
“There will always be some part to how you use the data to help somebody understand what you’d like them to do, but it’s got to start with that data.”
That data may also become more detailed in the future, as Clearwater hopes to invest in a more sophisticated motion measurement system. While GOLFTEC’s current system consists of sensors that are placed around the golfer’s shoulders and hips, future systems could eventually include motion capture suits that track a much wider array of movements.
“There’s so much more that we can measure that will help explain golf instruction in a tighter window of reality,” Clearwater said. “You can measure more, tell a more complete story, and then really start to challenge golf instruction as a whole.”
Whether future data will confirm or contradict traditional golf instruction remains to be seen, but it’s ultimately beside the point. Clearwater and GOLFTEC seem committed to collecting more and more objective data, no matter where it leads.
“We’ve got the infrastructure there,” Clearwater said. “It’s just time to invest in our product, make it even better, collect the data, and continue to explain the reality of how to play golf better.”