Golf Swing Variability in Elite Female Junior Golfers

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine the variability of golf swing execution in lower and upper body parameters for two golf clubs. Eleven elite female golfers of junior age volunteered in the study and performed 10 trials with mid-iron and with driver at laboratory conditions. A 3D motion capture system was used to measure the lower and upper body movement parameters and club head speed. To assess variability, the coefficient of variation (CV%) and biological coefficient of variation (BCV%) were calculated. Two-tailed t test was used to identify differences between mid-iron and driver variability for each selected kinematic parameter. Any significant difference in variability of kinematics parameters was found between mid-iron club and driver club. However, for both clubs, we found high stability of performance in timing parameters and of lower limbs kinematic parameters at three selected moments of the golf swing. We conclude that timing stability may be the key to achieve the effective and repeatable golf swing in both golf clubs types and that high intra-individual variability of performance may be due to large age range in the study group.