Golfers as Athletes

[Bob Montle]

the average golfer can go from a high handicapper to a mid handicapper overnight if he would simply practice the 225 yard shot.

If I understand this correctly, my best chance for lowering my handicap is to learn to hit my driver from the fairway.

Perhaps in addition to senior tees, those of us over 65 should be allowed to tee up our fairway shots?

[Garland Bayley]

No no no...according the Mark Broadie, the most valuable shot to work on is the one from 225...

If you can get that shot within 20 feet, statistics show you are much more likely to score well than those who need to lay up from that distance. The typical high-handicap golfer, stats show, loses on average 6-to-8 shots a round by not being able to get it within that 20 foot circle. It is the most important shot in golf; the average golfer can go from a high handicapper to a mid handicapper overnight if he would simply practice the 225 yard shot.

Bullocks. The high handicapper's 225 yard shot is the drive, which he bangs away at the range all the time.

[Garland Bayley]

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Tiger, Jason Day and Rory have developed swings that place an exorbitant amount of stress on the spine and torso. They essentially wind themselves up like a spring and have very little leg movement when bringing the club back, which only adds to the stress the spine and related muscles must bear. When a spring wound that tight releases it does so in such a violent fashion that the torque created affects the spine, knee and wrist joints at impact and on the follow-through. In the pre-Tiger era golfers relied more on weight transfer and less winding of the torso/spine to generate club speed and thus swings had more leg movement to them than they do now. The added muscle mass these players are carrying on their frames doesn't help, as it tends to limit range of motion and flexibility and creates undue stress on the body. Rest-assured, players that do a modicum of exercise to stay strong and limber and have more of a classic leg-driven, weight-transfer style swing (think Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas), will have much longer careers than the aforementioned torso-oriented, torque-driven power hitters. I tried learning to swing like Jason and Rory and quickly realized that at 51 years of age, my back would never hold-up to the torque placed on it. The extra 10 - 15 yards I was getting on my drives wasn't worth the risk of really screwing something up to my spine or body. At this stage or the game it's all about longevity and keeping my body healthy and limber to play good golf well into my 70's.

Makes sense to me.

[Peter Pallotta]

Re my post about the 225 yard shot: sorry, I guess I'm not as good at satire as I thought. I was trying to poke a little fun at stats, but the odds were obviously against me!
Peter

[Ira Fishman]

A really small sample size (no pun intended) both in terms of success and longevity, but Justin Thomas does seem a counter example among the Young Guns.

[Rich Goodale]

In my experience, GOLFER = ATHLETE = OXYMORON

[Steve Lang]

   and In my 2016 experience,


Top professional "100 Rank" golfer = millionaire in winnings, I don't think they care if you call them an athlete or not


Note pga 2016 total earnings total ~$302 million



golf course architecture definitely abused by athletes pro and amateur and karma comes around..

[Andrew Buck]

I'll admit to not reading this thread, but does the 47 year old Phil Mickelsons performance this week indicate that there is more than one path in golf, and still hope for the rare longevity careers over intense short term success.

[Sean_A]

Tiger won his first major in 1997 and his last in 2008.  Look it up, 11 years between majors is a long career in the very highest levels of golf Guys with a bagful of majors...not the guy who "competes").  Jack was highly unusual with a 23 year spread and well, he is Jack...the greatest golfer I have ever seen. 


Ciao

[archie_struthers]

 


As to Tiger methinks Mr Crosby hit the nail on the head.  His physical issues are his own .


However it's more the putting than the athleticism if you use Phil M as the test case. Most great golfers lose their short game before their swing fails them, don't you think?   Whether its nerves , eyesight or lack of focus I really don't know . Perhaps a combination of all of the above  think Watson , Palmer, Niclklaus, Hogan just as starters . Wasn't it their putting that went long before their physical skills waned?


Lets use Phil M  and Bernhard as examples.  I watched Langer hit balls back in the early 80's . His ball striking ability was incredible putting just ok for a tour player. You could argue that the advantage others possessed in putting waned and his ball striking ran past them as they aged .


Phil is a really interesting study . He's putting so much better now than he was ten years ago , why I don't know but it is certainly true.  He had some serious  trouble with short putts which he has overcome , or so it seems.You can't  play with this at the highest level.  I'm not certain of this , but Phil still hits it out there with all but a few of the tour guys , doesn't he . 


Lets not forget Tigers putting is more the problem than most talk about , notwithstanding injury.   

[Matt MacIver]

Sergio will win more Senior Majors than Colin. That answers a few questions from above.


Speith looks like he has a swing that can hold up - but he's "athletic" and has added muscle lately.  Justin Rose - but is he from this new era we're talking about?  Hideki looks smooth. Reed?

[A.G._Crockett]

When you see athletes playing at an extraordinarily high level at ages well beyond the norm, absent PED's you are seeing a genetic freak.  Drawing conclusions from genetic freaks is necessarily helpful.

Tom Brady.  Nolan Ryan.  Jack Nicklaus.  Sam Snead.  Phil Mickelson.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Gordie Howe.  Genetic freaks all, and NOT instructive for the rest of us.  Brady works out like a crazy man in the off-season; safe to say that Snead probably didn't.  And so on...

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts, you might want to do a self-inventory to see if you are trying to justify not working out yourself.  There is no justification otherwise, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a pro team, a college team, or even a good high school team, in ANY sport that wasn't pretty carefully involved in sport-specific conditioning.  All other things equal, the fitter, stronger athlete wins.  Period.

[Thomas Dai]

Back a few decades ago when it started to be the fashion in swing technique I used to practice in conjunction with my coach by adopting the hold a basketball between the knees and turn the top half of the body against the resistance of the lower half drill and commence the downswing by separating the knees and dropping the basketball drill, ie the drill Faldo etc etc advocated. I then, without the basketball obviously, took this technique onto the course.

My ball striking, control and accuracy, distance, shot trajectory, scoring, even the sound of the ball off the clubface, all improved dramatically. Wonderful I thought.

However, even though I was younger then and physically very fit, my body couldn't cope with the physical demands this type of swing technique placed on it, particularly the strain on my lower back, so I dropped this method despite the benefits it was having on my scoring.

Could I have continued with this method if I had studiously undertaken significant strength and conditioning and flexibility training both before attempting to change my swing technique and while doing so? Possibly, but being an amateur with time constraints and essentially playing for fun rather than to make a living and pay the mortgage, I didn't. I guess you can only do what your body will permit you to do and some folks are naturally more physically subtle and flexible than others.

Atb

[Jim Nugent]

When you see athletes playing at an extraordinarily high level at ages well beyond the norm, absent PED's you are seeing a genetic freak.  Drawing conclusions from genetic freaks is necessarily helpful.

Tom Brady.  Nolan Ryan.  Jack Nicklaus.  Sam Snead.  Phil Mickelson.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Gordie Howe.  Genetic freaks all, and NOT instructive for the rest of us.  Brady works out like a crazy man in the off-season; safe to say that Snead probably didn't.  And so on...

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts, you might want to do a self-inventory to see if you are trying to justify not working out yourself.  There is no justification otherwise, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a pro team, a college team, or even a good high school team, in ANY sport that wasn't pretty carefully involved in sport-specific conditioning.  All other things equal, the fitter, stronger athlete wins.  Period.

The key assumption underlying your position is that golf requires/rewards athleticism.  I'm not sure that was true in the past.  If anything, golf punished bigger/stronger: none of the great golfers, from Jones to Hogan to Arnie to Jack to Watson, was big; and 

[Jim Nugent]

continued because accidentally posted before finishing (man, I have troubles with laptop keyboards): and virtually no pro's were big either. 

I don't know or understand modern golf technology or the modern swing, so maybe bigger/stronger means more now.  But even if it does, golf requires so little athleticism that 60-year old men can compete with the world's best, and even beat them, over 18 holes, 36 holes, 54 holes and as Tom Watson showed 71 holes.  That is not true in any other sport I know of, at least any that is athletic. 

One question has to be comparative benefit.  How do you gain more: by working out to get bigger and stronger, or by working on your actual game?  The answer is likely person-specific, at least at the elite level.  I'm 99.9% sure that when I played, my time would have been vastly better spent working on my game.  My hunch is that is true of nearly all golfers who don't play at the + level. 

[Mike_Young]

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts,

I agree with you but Don't you think some of the golfers like TW, Rory and Jason D go beyond the sport specific....?

[Kyle Harris]

When you see athletes playing at an extraordinarily high level at ages well beyond the norm, absent PED's you are seeing a genetic freak.  Drawing conclusions from genetic freaks is necessarily helpful.

Tom Brady.  Nolan Ryan.  Jack Nicklaus.  Sam Snead.  Phil Mickelson.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Gordie Howe.  Genetic freaks all, and NOT instructive for the rest of us.  Brady works out like a crazy man in the off-season; safe to say that Snead probably didn't.  And so on...

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts, you might want to do a self-inventory to see if you are trying to justify not working out yourself.  There is no justification otherwise, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a pro team, a college team, or even a good high school team, in ANY sport that wasn't pretty carefully involved in sport-specific conditioning.  All other things equal, the fitter, stronger athlete wins.  Period.

The key assumption underlying your position is that golf requires/rewards athleticism.  I'm not sure that was true in the past.  If anything, golf punished bigger/stronger: none of the great golfers, from Jones to Hogan to Arnie to Jack to Watson, was big; and

Strength is only one (small, but important) part of athleticism. Ask any gymnast.

[A.G._Crockett]

continued because accidentally posted before finishing (man, I have troubles with laptop keyboards): and virtually no pro's were big either. 

I don't know or understand modern golf technology or the modern swing, so maybe bigger/stronger means more now.  But even if it does, golf requires so little athleticism that 60-year old men can compete with the world's best, and even beat them, over 18 holes, 36 holes, 54 holes and as Tom Watson showed 71 holes.  That is not true in any other sport I know of, at least any that is athletic. 

One question has to be comparative benefit.  How do you gain more: by working out to get bigger and stronger, or by working on your actual game?  The answer is likely person-specific, at least at the elite level.  I'm 99.9% sure that when I played, my time would have been vastly better spent working on my game.  My hunch is that is true of nearly all golfers who don't play at the + level.

Jim,
I think you've misunderstood me; at NO point have I implied or stated that golf fitness involves getting "bigger" from working out.  Whether or not a golfer should try to get stronger depends on that particular golfer, of course.  Being more fit for golf means things like flexibility, endurance, leg and core strength, and so on; those can certainly be maintained and/or improved by working out properly.  It has zero to do with body building or bulk, and what the ideal size of a golfer might be is irrelevant.

But I have NO doubt that golf requires and rewards athleticism, if only certain elements.  I'm not going to make the claim that even a world class golfer has to athletic ability comparable to an NBA player, for instance, but it's pretty clear that Tour players have got some skills and abilities far beyond the norm.  The question at hand is whether or not a golfer can improve their play by a fitness program, and in that regard, I can't see a reason in the world why the answer would be "No".

Think of it this way: Either golf is like every other sport, or it isn't.  Fitter, stronger athletes are better than less fit, less strong athletes in every other sport.  I happen to think they are better in golf as well.

[A.G._Crockett]

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts,

I agree with you but Don't you think some of the golfers like TW, Rory and Jason D go beyond the sport specific....?

Mike,
The answer is probably yes, but I don't have any way of knowing; I'd have to know a lot more about their workouts and what they are trying to accomplish.  THEY think it's the right thing for them to do, and all three have gotten to Number One in the world; I'm not even Number One on own block!

[Peter Pallotta]

 
The challenge of thinking that golf is a sport like any other: with my 10 year old son, I can now no longer play a regulation 4 quarters of basketball, can't do anything more than *stroll* through 2 halves of a soccer game, can indeed play a few innings of baseball -- but only if I pitch and/or don't have to make too many throws in from right field, can only really keep up in tennis if we're playing not on a court but against the wall of the local highschool, won't even consider snow boarding or skiing, and might be able to swim two whole laps of the pool at the YMCA without drowning. But like pro golfers all around the world, I *can* play golf exactly the way it was intended, walking 18 holes while carrying my bag and teeing it up and driving it and hitting approaches and recovery shots and putting out, all in about 3 1/2 hours if I'm playing with a couple of friends. Now, what's that about?

[Mike_Young]

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts,

I agree with you but Don't you think some of the golfers like TW, Rory and Jason D go beyond the sport specific....?

AG,
You know much more about coaching and athletes than myself.  I just sometimes think it gets overdone.  For instance a couple of times at UGA guys have developed such muscle that they can tear an acl on their own with no contact but just a sudden movement...I think some of the golfers have gotten to that point...

Mike,
The answer is probably yes, but I don't have any way of knowing; I'd have to know a lot more about their workouts and what they are trying to accomplish.  THEY think it's the right thing for them to do, and all three have gotten to Number One in the world; I'm not even Number One on own block!

[Grant Saunders]

I'll say this again: If you are trying to make a case that an athlete in ANY sport is going to be worse off for appropriate, sport-specific workouts,

I agree with you but Don't you think some of the golfers like TW, Rory and Jason D go beyond the sport specific....?

Mike,
The answer is probably yes, but I don't have any way of knowing; I'd have to know a lot more about their workouts and what they are trying to accomplish.  THEY think it's the right thing for them to do, and all three have gotten to Number One in the world; I'm not even Number One on own block!

I thinks its safe to assume that to become the number one golfer in the world requires not just talent/ability but also determination, focus, passion and a otherworldly dedication to training.

Therefore, I don't think its a stretch to suggest that the Woods, Rory, Day etc simply apply that same determination (possibly subconsciously) to their exercise regime.

Anyone who has spent some semi serious effort on a weights/strength training regime would understand it can be almost an addictive type focus. Woods certainly seems to have an addictive personality (not being noted as a negative but) so to me it seems logical that he not only managed to bulk up but likely did so not for golf but for the self satisfaction of doing so. The others did so also in a similar vein.

[archie_struthers]

 




Do I remain a voice in the wilderness that its the nerves , not nerve endings .  Tiger stare ted losing his mojo when he stated to miss putts , check the tape.

[BCowan]

Do I remain a voice in the wilderness that its the nerves , not nerve endings .  Tiger stare ted losing his mojo when he stated to miss putts , check the tape.

+1

Archie,

You gotta admit it's funny to hear perspectives from folks who have never been in a weight room 

[Brent Gremillion]

Anyone can increase strength, flexibility, and aerobic capacity through proper training. This does not equate to "athleticism" though. It is well documented that a training regimen has helped tour players maximize their SS numbers and remain fresher during long days. No training will allow Zach Johnson to swing as fast as Dustin Johnson; but, it does not take 125mph swing speeds to make the ball go in the hole.
I don't see the parallel between successful golfers and athletic freaks like we do in other sports. A golfer just does not need to have freakish numbers in the measurables to excel, i.e. running, jumping, strength, agility, etc.  What a developing golfer needs is good coaching and a severe case of the "want to's" rather than innate athletic ability.