Austin Golf Fitness

Email: Bobby O'Dell

Austin Golf Fitness

Every avid golfer is always in desperate search of the next best golf swing aide, latest in swing mechanics, and ever improving new clubs. The truth is each individual golf swing is dictated by body type, posture, and current physical limitations. Identifying these physical limitations and spending the appropriate time addressing these problems is the key to enjoying the game more, dropping your score, and avoiding injury.

Let me help you get back onto the course with the best body and tools to tackle this game we love. I am a Medical Professional Level 2 Titleist Certified Golf Fitness Instructor and strive to assist clients in solving their body specific limitations to maximize their potential on the course. I have 15 years of experience as a Physical Therapist and can help treat any current medical condition while developing a golf specific program to avoid further injury on the course. The initial evaluation consists of Titleist certified testing of balance, flexibility, mobility, and stability. Once limitations are identified a personalized exercise program will be designed to free up your body to perform an efficient and repeatable swing necessary to achieve the results you want from tee to green.

My working relationship with the Buck Mayers Golf Academy and it's excellent golf professionals is critical to my programs success. Once physical changes are identified and corrected it is imperative you make an appointment with one of the golf professionals at Grey Rock to master the technical part of your swing. Your lessons with your golf pro will be significantly more productive if your body is able to perform what your golf professional attempts to teach. I stress to all my clients that if you don't address the physical restrictions it will be very difficult to make appreciable changes to your swing resulting in very inconsistent scores and inefficient movement patterns.

Programs & Services

Fitness assessment: 90 Minutes - $125
Followup Sessions: $65 per Hour

10% Discout for package of 5
15% Discount for package of 10

Today's Player Development Model

Player development was threefold a mere 20 years ago. In the early 1990's most golf instructors focused on three primary components to ensure success on the course.

1. Instruction. Basic instruction included short game, iron play, driver, and the fundamentals including grip, ball position, ball striking etc.
2. Mental. Teaching players of all ages how to cope with the mental stress of the game and how to eliminate distractions.
3. Equipment. Key to allowing for differences between golfers physical makeup equipment must be sized to the individual.
Today’s player development model is quite more complex. In addition to the above model was added 3 new components of golf instruction.

1. Course Management. Knowing how to play each course, set make ups, and game plans.
2. Shot making skills. Specialty shots, trajectories, short game and others
3. Physical conditioning. The added emphasis on physical conditions focuses on improving aspects of the body that can affect performance.

Today's Golf Evaluation

1. History
2. Basic technique evaluation – Efficiency and Style Testing
3. Shot making skills evaluation
4. Course management evaluation
5. Equipment evaluation
6. Physical conditioning evaluation
7. Mental evaluation
8. Interpretation of gathered data
9. Prioritization of data
10. Development of treatment plan
11. Report of Findings
12. Give prescription

This is a ton of information for any student to try to absorb and make any sense of. The biggest problems become time and knowledge. Along with the golf professionals at Grey Rock, we take the time to evaluate each and every aspect of the evaluation you see above. It is vital that all elements of the golf evaluation are completed to ensure we maximize a clients full potential.

If you don't test, it is just a guess!!

The key to becoming a more efficient golfer. Kinematic Sequencing!

NO, this is not a kinesiology or physics course but you must have a simple grasp of the following concept if you’re ever going to be able to answer the burning question, “How can I make my golf swing get the job done?” Have you ever wondered how players such as Jim Furyk, Raymond Floyd, or John Daly have enjoyed success on tour with such unusual swings and non-flattering physiques? Breakthroughs in 3D technology have allowed researchers to identify the true measurement of a good golf swing. The answer doesn’t lie in how close or far your swing resembles that of great ball strikers like Ernie Els or Tiger Woods. The answer lies in comparing the efficiency of your swing to the best players in the world.

Using data collected from 3D motion systems the focus has been on how golfers generate speed and transfer the speed or energy throughout their bodies. The Titleist Performance Institute has found the most efficient sequencing of how the great Tour players get this speed to the club head. When transposed on top of each other the kinematic sequencing or ability to generate and transfer energy throughout the body of all top flight tour players are roughly identical. This is a pretty bold and broad statement based on the fact there are so many types of swings on the Tour. All great ball strikers generate speed from their lower body and and trasnsfer that speed through their torso into their arms and then into the club. It doesn’t matter what style or arc of swing path they follow the same kinematic sequence.

The key to remember is that each segment of the chain slows as the next segment begins to accelerate in speed. The best way to visualize this concept is thinking of the whip. The first thing you have to do is rapidly accelerate the handle of the whip to generate speed. To transfer this energy you bring the handle to an abrupt halt thus generating great speed into the next sequence.

Do not worry about the style of your swing at this point. The most unorthodox styles on tour, most notably Jim Furyk, have the same kinematic sequence as those widely respected to have the “prettiest” swing on tour, ie Davis Love or Ernie Els.

Where does that leave us?? Well to achieve this kinematic sequence your body has to be primed and ready to generate this momentum from your lower body > trunk > lead arm > club shaft. The goal is not to build you a swing that looks like Tiger’s but rather to train your body to perform the most efficient swing for your body makeup and swing.

Efficiency Breakdowns

1. Poor Mechanics. Using video swing analysis helps isolate areas you tend to breakdown. If you don’t know what you’re doing wrong, and can’t see it, how can you fix it?
2. Poor Conditioning. Using the Titleist Performance Institute physical screen helps identify any physical restrictions in your body and prescribing exercises to correct these limitations.
3. Poor Equipment. Club fitting is key to determining the specifications for each individual.

Keys to Ball Striking

1. Good Kinematic Sequencing is the key to consistency and accuracy
2. Good segmental stabilization is the key to power.
3. Center Face, Square Face Contact

The twelve most common swing characteristics

1. S-posture
2. C-posture
3. Loss of Posture
4. Flat Shoulder Plane
5. Early Extension
6. Over-the-Top
7. Sway
8. Slide
9. Reverse Spine Angle
10. Hanging Back
11. Casting/Early Release
12. Chicken Winging

Each and everyone of these swing characteristics have physical causes which can be identified using the TPI Performance Evaluation.