No matter what they say, every golfer wants to shoot lower scores. Whether you’re a scratch golfer or shoot in the hundreds, there are some tried and true ways to swing better and ultimately lower your scores! And no, I don’t mean hop on youtube and start working on random drills in hopes that you can hit the ball further and straighter. The number 1 way to improve your game is a TPI Assessment.
If you’re unfamiliar with TPI- it stands for Titleist Performance Institute. They are literally writing the book on both health and performance training for golfers. And their assessment is a tool that we use as a physical therapist to identify individual limitations that are affecting your swing… and ultimately your score.
Because we’ve all been here. Even though it’s a common occurrence, it’s a good indicator that you don’t have great swing efficiency and add extra strokes to your score!
So let’s talk a little bit more about the screen. It gives us a standard to start from based on YOU. We want to assess your limitations, not guess…. But let’s apply this to real life. You’re working with a golf professional and he identifies an error in your swing- For the big 5, check out our blog on golf and low back pain. Now this swing error could be because you don’t have the mobility to get into position OR you don’t have the stability to hold that position. Through the TPI screen, we’ll know whether it is a mobility or stability issue, and we’re often able to identify the problems even BEFORE we see you swing.
Check out the photo above, this is an example of early extension- an extremely common swing fault we will see. This occurs because the golfer either doesn’t have the mobility or stability at the hips to stay along the yellow line as he comes down to ball contact.
For the sake of this example, let’s say this golfer doesn’t have the required hip mobility. If he went and pulled an arbitrary drill off YouTube that requires him to use a ton of hip mobility… well… that’s not going to turn out too well. The TPI screen is what we use to identify the missing link and then provide the appropriate exercise or swing drill to be able to correct this fault using the golfer’s natural build!
Ready for the finale? Going through a TPI Assessment with Dr. Mike will give you access to the TPI Pro app. Not only do you get to directly see the areas of the body you need to work on, Dr. Mike will assign you individualized exercises to work on your specific issues. Having sound mobility and movement mechanics will not only set you up to lower your scores and hit the ball further, it will help reduce the stress on the body and limit the likelihood that you start to get pain coming from your golf swing!
The TPI Philosophy is simple:
There are an infinite number of ways to swing a golf club. However, there is one most-efficient way for each player to swing a club and it is based on what they can physically do
Follow this link to schedule your TPI Assessment here and take the first steps to improving your swing, your efficiency, your power, and your scores!
Thanks for reading,
Dr. Mike