Anderson, a 27-year-experienced performance coach, was guiding the three-time Grand Slam winner through a series of exercises for a photo shoot in 2014 when he saw something click.
“He was like, ‘Oh, I love how it feels,'” recalls Anderson. “There are photos and footage from that photo shoot and you can see him in this great position.”
Anderson has been training amateur and professional golfers since 2004, and in that time, he’s seen how physical conditioning can help hone a player’s game, even if it means modifying a big winner’s swing with unique advice.
“When you start to be able to harness the athleticism that you already have and use it to your advantage on the golf course…you get some consistent results.”
Anderson trains athletes in a variety of disciplines, including football, baseball and general fitness, but it is in golf that he has seen the biggest mindset shift toward conditioning.
On today’s PGA Tour, most players are lean, muscular and athletic, both in the gym and on the golf course.
Calling himself a “complete nerd” when it comes to the biomechanics of the golf swing, Anderson has closely watched how fitness has become a crucial component of the modern game.
“20 years ago, a guy like me, a meat-headed coach, trying to talk about the golf swing was taboo,” he says, adding that fitness was previously viewed as “no big deal — a guy I could have a dad body or a little belly.”
Today, however, he finds himself working closely with golfers to improve the physical aspects of their games: stability, mobility, coordination, speed and explosiveness.
“The golf swing is one of the most violent athletic movements in the world of sports…getting on the spot and moving as fast as you can,” says Anderson.
Instead of helping players get stronger, Anderson’s emphasis is on durability and withstanding the rigors of hitting a golf club over and over again.
To do that, he uses exercises like TRX, a suspension training tool that uses your body weight to build strength, balance, and core stability, squat and lunge routines, a set of planks, deadlift reps, and sets of sprints. and jumps.
Anderson also sees a varied sports experience as a benefit for golfers.
He points to players like 2019 US Open champion and former college basketball player Gary Woodland, two-time Grand Slam winner Dustin Johnson — “I could dunk a basketball right now,” says Anderson — and Masters winner from 2017 and enthusiastic soccer player Sergio García.
“What I’ve found is that competitors on the golf course have a competitive advantage if they play team sports or individual sports that require all those aspects of athleticism, speed, agility, reaction,” Anderson continues.
“Different kinds of pressure situations that you experience through sport in general… These are, all over the world, the common thread running through all of these sports, and from a competition perspective, you can really take advantage of them on the golf course.” “.
woods workouts
The relationship between golf and physical training is not an exclusive phenomenon of the last two or three decades. Gary Player, a nine-time Grand Slam winner who still works out regularly well into his 80s, has frequently praised the benefits of exercise and a healthy lifestyle.
But it is Tiger Woods who is often credited with revolutionizing the sport’s attitude towards the gym.
Woods, 24, said his daily routine would include a four-mile run, weight training, several hours of hitting and hitting practice, another four-mile run, and then a night to play basketball or to tennis if he felt like it.
“The work he did is what made him a great player,” says Anderson.
“Now when you look today, a lot of the young, athletic, very good players out there, Tiger was their idol.
“When they wanted to know what it was like, what it takes to be successful on the golf course, they were looking at someone like Tiger; you have to be fast, you have to be athletic, you have to be powerful, you have to be balanced. And they were embracing that mentality”.
DeChambeau’s “scientific approach”
One of the flashiest approaches to fitness in the game of golf today has been Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 US Open champion and former world No. 1 who packed on 40 pounds during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was an approach that reaped rewards when tournaments returned, with DeChambeau recording four top-10 finishes in June and July 2020.
But Anderson doesn’t think DeChambeau’s model, which involved putting on muscle to drive the ball long distances, will change golf in the future. He says the window of opportunity offered by the pandemic makes DeChambeau an “anomaly.”
“What really helped him to be able to do that is that he has this one-plane swing,” adds Anderson.
“His irons are all the same length and all this kind of stuff. He has a very cerebral kind of analytical and scientific approach that he brings to the game. He can keep everything on the same plane and come down with more power.” and speed”.
DeChambeau is currently absent from the PGA Tour after undergoing surgery on a broken bone in his left hand.
It means he will miss the upcoming PGA Championship at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where newly crowned Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, World No. 2 Jon Rahm and four-time major winner McIlroy will be among the favorites.
As for Spieth, with whom Anderson has worked with on several occasions through a shared sponsor, the American could join an elite circle by completing a Grand Slam in his PGA Championship career.
He will no doubt be hoping for another lightbulb moment as he attempts to win his first major title in five years.
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