Individual assessment of the golf swing using motion analysis and shot tracker technology

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

An optimal golf swing for an individual involves a highly coordinated movement sequence to hit the ball accurately and close to the pre-selected distance and location. The sport is very much an individualized endeavor, with many parts of a golf swing being unique to that individual due to many factors including individualized anthropometrics. Further, shoulder kinematic differences between drivers and 5-iron clubs have been observed. This is what makes golf a challenge to provide biomechanical analysis and feedback for there is no optimal generalized swing pattern for everyone and every club in the golf bag. Biomechanical motion analysis can play a vital role for golf coaches and players to provide valuable information to develop interventions and training programs based upon motion analysis of both the golfer and the club to maximize accuracy and distance. Further, shot tracker technology can provide instant feedback of a golfer’s performance. These tools used together can provide invaluable feedback to the golfer to improve overall performance. To date, there appears to be no known published work combining both wearable motion analysis and doppler radar technology analyzing both the person and the accuracy and distance of each golf shot. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between shot distance for the driver and five iron related to shoulder and pelvic angular velocity using both motion analysis and shot tracker technology. To do this, motion capture technology was used with shot tracker technology to analyze different biomechanical metrics of the golf swing.