Walking Golf Course Affects Swing, Performance

[George Pazin]

What I find fascinating, though, is that Casey Martin's lawyers were able to successfully argue that walking during a golf tournament has absolutely no effect on performance and he should therefore be allowed the use of a cart.  And there was absolutely no direct scientific evidence to support one side or the other.  The physiologist who testified on muscle fatigue for the plantiff does his muscle research on rats.

Andy

Is that really what they argued? I'd guess they argued that FOR HIM it was as taxing or more to simply walk from the cart to the ball as it would be for a healthy person to walk 18. One look at him walking provides pretty persuasive argument.

[astavrides]

I think its pretty obvious that people, in general, score better if they ride than if they walk.  As someone said in an earlier post, stamina is part of the test.  The only caveat is that if I ride and someone else drives, I back seat drive and get pissed off, which throws my game off.

[Jason Connor]

Dan, you are a newpaper man.  Tell me how do many of the local reporters and the paper and TV editors get all these so-called "medical news" pieces? 

I think I can answer this.  First, the society may put out a press release for the more interesting ones to bring attention to research showcased at the societies meeting.  That may not be the case here.

Sometimes a local AP guy (the AP has local people all over) will know what conferences are coming to town.  He or she will get the abstract book and read through them searching for studies with mass appeal (as was the case here).

For instance last summer my partner (we're both statisticians who do biostats stuff) did this cool side project about Tiger and presented it at the North American statistical meetings which were in Salt Lake City. 

The AP guy had looked over the whole abstract book and choose two abstracts (out of many hundreds ranging from sports to elections to biostatistics to global warming to finance) to write about.  This piece on Tiger and a piece estimating death tolls in Iraq.

So short answer: the local guys glance at conferences that come through town, or the society issues a press release.

[Garland Bayley]

..
On a side note...

RJ, I find myself agreeing with alot of what you've been saying lately....you need to really stop that cause my wife says no one thinks like I do.   

Kalen,

Your wife is right.

[Mike Golden]

this is the stupidest, most unrealistic, statistically insignificant study ever performed.  They should be ashamed of themselves.  The only way to determine this with statistical validity is to track real golfers in test situations with built in controls.  Not that it matters, physical endurance should be important to golf.  Of course, in the US, golf has increasingly become cartball

[Jim Nugent]

Whoa, boys!

A little context before you totally trash these guys.  I think what a lot of you are doing is reacting to the media report of this study - and hard to believe, the media sometimes puts their own spin on things to generate interest.

First of all, this study was presented as an abstract at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting.  It is very common for preliminary results or small-scales studies to be presented in this way.  This study has not been published or undergone the more rigorous peer review that typically occurs before being published in a scientific journal, so it might be most appropriately considered a "preliminary study."

Second, the purpose of the study was not to show that if you walk when you play golf, you will play worse.  Mark's reference to the Casey Martin case was more accurate.  There is TONS of research on the golf swing.  There is very little research on how the golf swing or golf performance might change over the course of a round, particularly when you walk.  

I've read the abstract, so I'll even defend their methods to some extent.  This was a biomechanical study - where they put the markers on specific segments of the body and use either high speed video or infrared to capture movement of specific body parts during the swing.  Because of the variability in any one individual swing, it is common for biomechanists to capture repeated swings, thus the 20 tee shots after each walking segment.

Because this was a lab and not a field study, it would be very hard to exactly simulate a round of golf.  So it looks like what they did was an approximation of the physical demands of walking 18 holes.  We do know from other studies that people walk approximately 5-6 miles when they play 18 holes, so they set up a 6 mile walking task broken up into 6 segments, and captured golf swings for analysis after each segment.

Was this a comprehensive study that perfectly simulated a round of golf and took into account all possible elements that might affect the golf swing?  No.  But in an area where not much is known, it appears to be a reasonable, first small step.  And that is the way science works - gaining information and knowledge through lots of small steps.

Also - these abstracts are required to list sources if the study was fund by a grant.  None was listed for this abstract, so people can rest easy knowing no taxpayer money was wasted.

Andy

Here is the first sentence about this study, from a May 29 news release on the ACSM's (American College of Sports Medicine) website: 

"Golfers change their swing and key swing mechanics throughout the course of 18 holes of walked golf, which may influence performance, according to a study presented at the 55th American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Annual Meeting in Indianapolis."

So it's not just media spin.  The ACSM itself says the study makes conclusions about 18 holes of walked golf.  Total nonsense. 

Then we have the study author telling us, “The study suggests that golf mechanics change and performance may decline the longer the golfer walks and swings.”

More foolishness.  The author is suggesting there that the longer you walk on a golf course, the worse you swing.  But the study does not tell us anything about real-world walking on a golf course. 

The study sucked.  For the reasons George, Mike, Jason and almost everyone else pointed out.  Maybe it was a biomechanical model.  But they then made unfounded conclusions about 18 holes of actual golf from it. 

Any way to see the abstract? 

[Jason Connor]

I looked at the society's website a bit and couldn't find the abstract.  I'd like to read it.

I'm an associate editor for a medical journal and the first things I always look for when reviewing papers:

(1) What is the authors' stated goal
(2) Do the methods seek to achieve that goal
(3) Do the conclusions speak to the original goal

It's amazing how many times authors' seek to determine one thing, then don't even try to answer their own question.

If the goal really is to determine if walkers tire more than riders (why I'd like to see the abstract), the study methods fail to address that goal.  (a) because 7 is likely too small unless the effect is huge (b) because their "simulated round" is nothing like a real round.

Since they also had individuals hit many golf balls after walking a mile, they may have used many swings by individuals to compensate for having just 7 subjects (which means they probably didn't do their statistical analysis correctly).

And again, you could go out to a local course when there was a club tournament (to try to get true scores and eliminate variability due to standard cheating) with a mix of walkers and riders and get a larger sample size and not need this sort of simulated round.

[Richard Boult]

I could be used as a good case study since I've recorded all my scores since I picked up the game 3 years ago and I walked about half those rounds and took a cart for the other half -- mostly depending on who I played with.  Although I agree with the study, that my swing probably changes more from walking - because my back gets a little more stiff by the 16th hole when I walk - practically every one of my best rounds (71-73 range) occurred while walking.

[Andy Doyle]

What I find fascinating, though, is that Casey Martin's lawyers were able to successfully argue that walking during a golf tournament has absolutely no effect on performance and he should therefore be allowed the use of a cart.  And there was absolutely no direct scientific evidence to support one side or the other.  The physiologist who testified on muscle fatigue for the plantiff does his muscle research on rats.

Andy

Is that really what they argued? I'd guess they argued that FOR HIM it was as taxing or more to simply walk from the cart to the ball as it would be for a healthy person to walk 18. One look at him walking provides pretty persuasive argument.

George,

I had to wait until I got back to the office this morning to dig up my info before I answered.   It appears that during the case the court actually asked if they should look at "what Mr. Martin's disability does to him specifically insofar as inducing fatigue."

However, the crux of his case was to :
1) demonstrate that he had (has) a disability; and
2) prove that the requested modification (use of a cart) was reasonable.

He (his lawyers) were easily able to do #1 and were able to satisfy #2 because apparently the PGA Tour was not able to show that "walking was a signficant contributor to the skill of shot making."

This info from the decision of the US District Court in Oregon, Casey Martin v. PGA Tour, Inc.

Andy

[Andy Doyle]

ACSM usually posts the supplement issue of abstracts from their annual meeting on their journal website, but as of this morning it was not online.  You would typically need a password to get at it anyway, so I've take the liberty of reproducing it here:

Effects of 18 Holes of Simulated Golf on the Performance of Recreational Golfers
Nick R. Higdon, Eric Dugan.  Ball State University. Muncie, IN. Email: nhigdon@ballstate.bsu.edu (No relationship reported)

The mechanics of the golf swings have been investigated to determine what aspects of the swing are most important to performance.  However, there is little research focused on how the golf swing changes throughout a round of golf.

PURPOSE:  The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between time (playing 18 holes of walked golf), mechanical variables, and performance variables related to the golf swing.  The mechanical variables included ground reaction forces bilaterally; sagittal plane ankle, knee, and hip angles, angular velocity of the pelvis and thorax, and their relative timing.  The performance variables were club head velocity and shot consistency.

METHODS: One female and six male recreational golfers scoring between 80 and 95 while playing 18 holes of walked golf participated in the study.  Each golfer participated in a protocol designed to simulate walking and playing 18 holes of golf.  The participants walked 6 miles, in 1 mile increments, while carrying a weighted bag.  Before the first mile walked, and after each subsequent mile walked, the golfers hit 20 tee shots, totaling 140 tee shots at the conclusion of the protocol.  Kinematic and kinetic data were captured on every swing.  The relationship between time, mechanical variables, and the outcome of the golf shot were tested statistically using path analysis.

RESULTS: Weight transfer to the lead leg at ball contact was significantly related to club head velocity.  Over time, golfers were less able to achieve a weight transfer to the lead leg at ball contact, which was directly related to the golfers’ club head velocity.  The lead knee and lead ankle angles at the top of the swing were also affected by time, which had an influence on performance.

CONCLUSIONS:  These results suggest that golfers do change their swing throughout the course of 18 holes of walked golf and there are key swing mechanics which significantly influence golf performance.  Of the variables examined, the position of the lead knee and lead ankle at the top of the swing, and the weight transfer to lead leg at ball contact, were found to be the most important contributors to swing performance while playing 18 holes of simulated golf.

[Andy Doyle]

I still think most are over-reacting to the twist put on reports of this story, whether it was from some media hack looking for a story or from the ACSM PR person who probably had a (n unfortunate) number of press releases they were required to post during the meeting.

After reading the abstract closely, I do have a number of criticisms (if I were reviewing this for publication):

The authors use the term "18 holes of Simulated Golf" in the title, "playing 18 holes of walked golf" in the purpose, and "18 holes of walked golf" in their conclusion.  I think they were not precise in their language here - if they had said something like "walked a distance equivalent to a typical 18 hole golf course," I think they would have been on much more defensible ground.

I also don't think their terminology was good in referring to this as a simulated round of golf - I don't think their design simulated a round of golf well at all.  They should have stuck with more narrow, specific language related to walking, not to playing 18 holes of golf.

They used club head velocity and shot consistency as the performance variables.  Probably due to the space restrictions, they didn't provide much info on "shot consistency."  I didn't attend this year's meeting and didn't see the study presented, but it was presented as a poster, which I hope had some more info on this.  I may email the author to see what else I can find out.  There is an unfortunate tendency to transfer the finding of decreased performance by decreasing club head speed to mean decreased peformance through worse scores.

The study was designed as a pre-post comparison - how did they swing at the end of walking 6 miles compared to before any walking?  Within this design their results were acurately stated - a number of the variable they looked at changed over the number of 1 mile increments walked.  It would have been easy to have include a control condition - did the same swing variables change if the subjects just sat in a chair for an equivalent amount of time as the 1 mile walking increments?  This would have given an additional comparison that would have been similar to sitting in a cart instead of walking - I'm surprised they didn't do that.

I'll stick with my initial assessment that it's not the worst study ever - believe me, far from it.  How the study is being protrayed and the implications resulting from that are unfortunate.

Andy