Golf Digest South Africa — January 2018

GOLFDIGEST.CO.ZA / JANUARY 2018 / 51

he handicap system does a simple, elegant job
of identifying a player’s ability. A 20-handicap, a
single-figure golfer, a club champion and a tour
player all have different skill levels that lead to dif-
ferent scores. But what is it about a player’s swing
that produces those various scores? There have always been
plenty of theories, but we at GolfTEC have used cutting-edge
measuring tools to quantify the swings of 30 000 golfers of all
abilities. The result is the SwingTRU Motion Study, and its

findings allow us to pinpoint those elements of good players’

swings that are the biggest separators from average or develop-

ing players. With the differences uncovered by SwingTRU, we

can essentially build a “good player” composite. Here we’ll look

at six elements of the backswing and downswing and compare

the data collected from high-handicaps (players shooting over

100) to that of professional golfers. The closer you can get

to the pro numbers, the better results you’ll see. It’s Big Data

producing smaller scores with facts, not opinions.

SWING BY NUMBERS

GOLFTEC TESTED 30 000 PLAYERS TO FIND OUT WHAT MAKES

A GREAT SWING GREAT

BY NICK CLEARWATER WITH MATTHEW RUDY

»BIG »D ATA»

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TODD DETWILER