ABSTRACT
Golf is widely regarded to be a challenging game to master. The difficulty of the sport becomes clear when we consider that a large component of the game relies on a full swing that requires the club to be swung by the body not only at high speed but also with great precision. In fact, the higher the speed of the club, the more critical the precision becomes; this presents a conundrum for the golfer who recognises that high clubhead speed can be advantageous if controlled, as it may lead to longer drives (Hume et al., 2005). Fortunately, an effective swing increases both clubhead speed and accuracy. The exact recipe, however, varies between golfers and situations because of differences in physical characteristics, histories, and demands of the shot (refer Chapter 5: Inter- and Intra-individual Movement Variability in the Golf Swing). Instead, we can present general biomechanical principles that golfers should be aware of, so that they can explore swing techniques that improve performance, constrained or guided by those principles.
