How To Become a Club Champion in Nashville
This week, we're diving into how you can become the club champion at your course. Whether you're targeting your club's championship, a member-member, or a member-guest flight, this guide will cover the key concepts every Nashville golfer should know. We've gathered insights from local Nashville golf pros and drawn from Dr. Nick's extensive experience in rehabbing and enhancing golfers' physical capabilities to help them reach their peak potential. We'll explore what swing coaches are seeing in Nashville golfers, critical fundamentals that can’t be overlooked, and Dr. Nick's approach to supporting golfers—whether they're recovering from injury or aiming to elevate their game pain-free and performance-focused.
What Nashville pros are saying you need to become a club champion
I am pulling from the conversations I had in the “Integrated Rehab And Performance Podcast” with local pros Virgil Herring and Ben Pellicani (Golf episode 28 and 30, respectively). Podcast links are given at the bottom of the article. Here are some of the highlights from these interviews regarding how to become a club champion…
How to become a golf club champion in Nashville:
· You MUST be able to pivot
· Hand and grip strength are essential to controlling the violence of a golf swing
· Fix your set up
· Don’t beat yourself
· Concept confusion
· Sequencing
Top 3 Nashville golfer swing issues:
First, being able to pivot is described by Virgil as the number one most essential quality in any golfer. Pivoting is the act of rotating around your center axis, limiting how much motion is occurring from side to side. Consider the swing characteristics of sway, slide, and early extension. If we cannot pivot correctly, we increase how much motion is happening from side to side instead. We also limit how much true coil or rotation we are getting in the backswing. When we have limited ability to pivot and instead move laterally as compensation, we will not achieve our full capacity for trunk, pelvis, and hip rotation, limiting our potential for power and increasing our inconsistency in the golf swing.
Second, lets discuss grip strength and forearm activity. Virgil mentions in the podcast how crucial this is to being able to set the club and maintain it. Without the motor control/ awareness or pure strength in the forearm and wrist to control the violent action of the swing, inconsistencies in your golf game will never cease to exist.
Last, let’s discuss Ben’s idea of concept confusion and sequencing. He mentions in the podcast how sequencing has become a significant problem he is working on with Nashville golfers. Often, golfers will have pre-conceived ideas on what they NEED in their golf swing. These ideas often come from social media and YouTube. Unfortunately, making the changes these golfers are specifically expecting does nothing to help their sequencing and, in many cases, changes or emphasizes their sequencing issues to an even greater extent. Combating concept confusion or identifying the real issues that need to be corrected and the best way to do that (often times not the same as what the golfer has identified from social media) is often required before making true improvements to the sequencing of golfer’s swings.
Fixing Nashville Golfers from the ground up
At Integrated Rehab And Performance Center, Dr. Nick prepares the body for the golf swing. In other words, Dr. Nick and the golfer go to work to create a body that can do whatever it is the swing coach asks of it. The goal is to create a body free of as many restrictions as possible, with the capacity AND motor control to create immense power in the golf swing. Achieving these tasks means compensations are reduced to zero so that all that is needed now is good instruction and practice to see scores drop.
What Dr. Nick finds missing in Nashville golfers:
Golf demands mobility from nearly every joint in the body, often pushing them to operate at their end range of motion of motion. On top of that, golfers need to be able to produce force at this extreme end range, exceptionally quick, and then absorb and slow that force down on the other side, all while completing a sequence of precise actions where every degree and shift in angle matters. Golf is hard. Let’s not make it any harder by creating compensations, some large, some small (again, every degree matters), that effect the swing. When we are missing key characteristics, we end up with a great deal of problems that bar us from creating consistent and efficient golf swings.
The most common limitation in Nashville golfers:
The number one most common missing characteristic in Nashville golfers is hip internal rotation. This vital bit of motion is required on both hips. During the backswing, the backside hip needs to be pivoted on and coiled into (extremely important, remember!). This motion happening on the backside hip is internal rotation. During the downswing, the lead side hip is now required to go through internal rotation. As we post up and prevent sliding forces, we must have access, and strength, in this motion.
The minimum we are looking for in an average adult is 30 degrees of hip internal rotation on both sides. It is not uncommon for me to assess golfers during their initial evaluation and find less than 5 degrees of internal rotation on one or both sides! As you can imagine, these golfers also tend to have a history of low back pain and injury as well as knee pain. Most commonly, we are starting at about 10-15 degrees and working up from there. There are a few ways we go about making changes to hip mobility. We must address the pelvic positioning, muscle tightness, and capsular tightness. After this, we can continue improving mobility and create strength, stability, and power with more and more advanced programming and drilling/ corrective exercise. Again, hip internal rotation is crucial to establishing an efficient, repeatable, and compensation free pivot in the golf swing.
Check out this article and video to learn more about what you can do to start addressing hip internal rotation at home…
A comprehensive lower quarter rotation test video.
The second most common missing piece in Nashville golfer’s:
The second most common physical issue present in Nashville golfers is thoracic rotation. The middle part of the spine, or the thoracic spine, is primarily responsible for the rotation you see at the trunk. Unfortunately, it is common for this region of the spine to lose mobility in our society today. Our normal day to day postures and lack of movement in the transverse plane (rotation) in general keeps us from stressing this range of motion. That is, until we get on the golf course, where for most it is far too late. If you think about common weightroom training, most of it is done in the sagittal plane (flexing and extending in front of you). Things like squats, deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press, dumbbell curls… all on the sagittal plane. Very little occurs in the frontal plane (side to side) and less still in the transverse plane (rotation). Unless we are training specifically for golf (and even then, we may need to open space here first to get the max out of your rotation training), we never really challenge this range.
When measuring how much rotation is coming from the thoracic spine, we expect to get at least 45 degrees on each side. I’ve had golfers come in with 20 degrees. Less than half! Again, the pivot and the capacity to coil relies on us being able to rotate not just at the hip, but the thoracic spine as well. To improve this ability, we need to address the ability of the rib cage to move, expand, and elevate. After this, we can especially pay attention to extension and rotation at the thoracic spine. Last, we build in the capacity to create stability and power at these end ranges of rotation.
Check out this article on how we assess and improve thoracic spine rotation in golfers…
-The seated trunk rotation test
The third most common missing piece in Nashville golfer’s:
Glute strength and activation. As stated by Titleist Performance Institute, the glutes are the king of the golf swing. We need to be able to rotate about the pelvis and hip’s right? We also need to be able to control the tilt of the pelvis forward and backward throughout the golf swing. Also, we need to shift out of one side and into the other. All of this motion calls on the glutes to create and control it, tilting the pelvis back in the downswing, rotating the back side hip externally and the pelvis to the left, and pushing ourselves into the opposite side hip.
What’s most important here is the control over the pelvis the glutes have. We need this control if we are going to appropriately sequence like discussed above. Further, swing characteristics like early extension, slide and sway, and more are highly associated with missing control and strength in the glutes.
Check out this article to learn more on how to assess and address the glutes for the golf swing…
-How do the glutes effect the golf swing
Conclusion
To become a club champion or improve in your flight, Nashville golfers need to work on and improve their pivot, create stability and strength throughout the body to control the violence of the golf swing, and ignore most of what they are seeing online to avoid concept confusion. Check out some of the great instruction in Nashville to learn more about your swing and what technical components of the swing you are missing most. Further, seek guidance from professionals like Dr. Nick at Integrated Rehab And Performance Center to understand where your body is limiting you in your play, creating pain and injury, and reducing your ability to create speed and power.
-Dr. Nick DC, TPI, CSCS
If you would like to learn more about your body, pain, and performance, send Dr. Nick an email at contact@integratedrpc.com or call at (585)478-4379, or schedule a FREE discovery visit at Contact.
Instagram @Integrated.Rehab.Performance
Integrated Rehab And Performance Podcast and related videos:
-Golf Podcast Episode 28: Virgil Herring (@Virgil.Herring)
Golf Podcast Episode 30: Ben Pellicani (@Pelligolf)
Golf Podcast Episode 41: Virgil Herring and the pivot (@Virgil.Herring)
A full guide on how to address and fix the pivot in the golf swing: “How to Fix Your Pivot in the Golf Swing (If you can't pivot, you can't play!)”
