Relationships between DP World Tour Golfers’ drive distance and kinetic variables during a countermovement jump and isometric mid-thigh pull

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

In recent years, an ever increasing number of golfers have sought to increase their drive distance (DD) due to the positive associations it has with scoring. For instance, DP World Tour golfers who hit the ball over greater distances achieved significantly lower scores on par5 holes during the 2017 to 2019 seasons. One possible avenue of enhancing DD is through engaging in strength and conditioning (S&C) since this provides a golfer with greater capacity to generate force. During the downswing, ground reaction forces work in all three principal directions, however, the greatest magnitude occur in the vertical direction. As such, physically profiling golfers using vertically orientated tasks would appear both logical and appropriate. Previous research has reported significant relationships when comparing clubhead velocity (CHV) to a 1-repetition maximum back squat and countermovement jump (CMJ) height. More recent research using forces plates has reported significant relationships between CHV and both CMJ impulse and isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP) peak force (PF). To date, however, there is no research that has sought to assess the associations between CMJ impulse and DD within elite DP World Tour golfers. Therefore, the aims of this investigation were to assess if CMJ net impulse (NI), CMJ positive impulse (PI) and IMTP PF significantly accounted for the variance in elite DP World Tour golfers’ DD.