Power, where does it come from?

Some of your might have seen this recently, a feature of Justin Thomas on PGATour's Youtube account : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUfg9Y-T5w&feature=youtu.be

If you've not seen it, it's a cool video showcasing how Justin creates his power, explained by Dr Rob Neal and his Golf Biodynamic equipment.

That inspired me to write an article about how Timothy Low, a fellow professional generates his power. With the equipment I have, I've been able to provide screenshots of Timothy's data on K-Vest 6D and Trackman.

Here's Tim's Trackman data for 8 iron and Driver

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. For those who are not familiar with Trackman, PGA tour average 8iron speed is at 87MPH and Driver speed is at 112MPH. What's also pretty impressive is that Timothy is hitting these distances with an average range ball.

So how does he do it?
Tim sets up in an athletic posture, with sufficient pelvis and upper body bend. No lower back arch nor roundness with the upper back.


Here's of an example of an athletic posture on the left,followed by a 'c' posture in the middle and a 's' posture on the right. It's pretty interesting how most people I've spoken to think the posture on the right is 'athletic'




Here's Tim's top of the backswing position. As you can see, he has not rotated his shoulders to the traditional '90 degrees'. This is a classic example of how quality of rotation is much more important than quantity of rotation.


Timothy in Transition( the time of swing where the club changes direction into the downswing) As you can on the bottom left of the screen, Tim's K-angle (difference between shoulders and hips) grew greater than his top of his backswing angle by 3 degrees. This shows that his lower body changed direction first before his shoulders and arms. This is the key move to create "LAG" in the golf swing. Lag in the golf swing isn't created by 'pulling the club with a certain hand or dragging the handle' as some might suggest.
Tim at impact. You can see that his shoulder and hips are 'open' at impact, suggesting that he has rotated nicely to his left with his hands in front of the clubhead at impact. This would suggest that he has hit down (iron swing in this example) and 'compressed' the golf ball.

As you can see in Tim's efficiency report, his transition sequence, peak speed sequence and speed for each segment is spot on. What stands out would be his significant hand speed,almost 300 degrees per second faster than the max tour range.


I hope you enjoyed the article.
Cheers

Perfect article on power.
Have seen and enjoy seeing Tim drive from blue over the greens at Kranji hole 13.

 
Thanks for the clear article!
You made it so simple to understand.
Great stuff.

Great work on the article. Not an expert in trackman and wish to learn more.

Just thinking out loud:

1. Is 1.26 smash factor for 8 iron considered efficient? I know 1.47 is the highest a golfer can get?

2. If his hips and torso are turning within the tour range, then my question is HOW does his hands turn significantly faster than the max tour range?

I wish I can hit my driver as far as Timothy...

Nam Flog wrote:

Great work on the article. Not an expert in trackman and wish to learn more.

Just thinking out loud:

1. Is 1.26 smash factor for 8 iron considered efficient? I know 1.47 is the highest a golfer can get?

2. If his hips and torso are turning within the tour range, then my question is HOW does his hands turn significantly faster than the max tour range?

1. The scary thing is that 1.26 isn't exactly efficient for an 8 iron. We are looking for figure around 1.3. 1.47 would be more so for driver. The example I give my students of smash would to be imagine a ping pong player hitting a slice and top spin shot. Slice would have less ball speed compared to a top spin. So when there's more loft presented to the ball, which in this instance is the slice, less ball speed is produced. How much more or less? It depends on how centered contact is. The highest possible smash for a driver would be about 1.5-1.52 , compared to a sand iron at about 1.15-1.17. (For those who don't know, smash equals somewhat to ball speed/ clubhead speed though the real formula is rather complex)

2. Tim's power comes from a combination of having good sequence of motion, good use of the ground (he has that squat and lift motion like Justin Thomas) together with his inert ability to move his arms that fast. You'd have to do a lot more testing with experts in the field of biomechanics and physics to find out exactly why but it does look like he gets very 'handsy and wristy' at times which causes inconsistency. When he feels like his hands are passive, his hand speed is normal but he loses about 2-3 mph. But of course, straighter shots.

Tks ....will need to read it 2 to 3 times to digest the info...cheers

This is a very good read and kudos to Justin for sharing with everyone.
TM and K Vest together is a very good combo.
Add a good coach into it and bam..super good info!

wow interesting