Towards a Biomechanical Understanding of Tempo in the Golf Swing

Abstract

It is proposed that aspects of the tempo of the golf swing can be understood in terms of a biomechanical clock. This model explains several aspects of tempo in the golf swing; including total duration of the golf swing, the ratio of backswing to downswing time, and the relative insensitivity of tempo on the length of the golf shot. We demonstrate that this clock and the resulting tempo are defined by of the rotational inertia of the body/club system and the elastic properties of the body, yielding a system which can be modeled as a simple harmonic oscillator.