The man who guided Padraig Harrington to Open success is making his mark at The Belfry's PGA National Academy.
Biomechanics guru Dr Paul Hurrion has officially opened a state of the art Quintic lab at the famous Ryder Cup venue, equipping it with the latest technology to measure and analyse the golf swing to the tiniest degree.
Hurrion, who will be a headline speaker at next May's PGA National Teaching and Coaching Conference, is an expert in the field of biomechanics which is an integral part of the PGA Foundation Degree in professional golf programme.
The principles of biomechanics aim to provide a means for the accurate description and explanation of human movement and the changes of the player and their club through the swing.
The new software at The Belfry gives the resort's stable of pros a library of measurable data they can utilise to show pupils progress in their lessons.
The Quintic suite, housed in the PGA National Academy, is fitted out with four cameras giving separate angles from above, behind, front and back which provides slow motion footage and enables the coach to see close up what is actually happening to their pupil.
"The big thing for the amateur is that what they think they're doing might not be what they are actually doing," said Hurrion.
"They might think they are doing X but actually it's Y. This is hard evidence and shows them how they get back into the swing."
Golf coaching has come a long way in a short space of time and has now progressed from simply watching the player through slow motion video to biomechanics which adds swing specific measurements to video motion.
For example, the Quintic system can measure the spine angle at address and impact giving the pro information to the tiniest degree which they wouldn't see with the naked eye.
It's useful ammo for a pro who no-longer has to spend endless hours convincing a pupil their spine angle is just out or that their head has dropped too far during the swing, as the software has all the measurements on screen straight away.
This is a great help admits Belfry senior teaching professional Alistair Davies.
"Using the biomechanics software for lessons makes the process a lot easier as you can simply put the pupil's swing and details on the screen and show them what they've done," he said.
"You can then talk about the problem and show them the changes they need to make. If I adjust someone's posture, address or swing then it'll feel horrible, but if I show them how it'll benefit them on screen they'll see that it looks better and the ball flies better.
"You can prove you're not just changing something for the sake of it or to make it look pretty, we're changing it to make it effective."
Once the swing has been filmed it is immediately available to view giving the pro an instant record of the pupil's action and its measurements.
"You can map lines on it, put it side by side with someone like Tiger Woods' swing to compare the measurements, or you can have two separate images of the pupil's swing," added Davies.
The Quintic technology allows comparison of two images, for example, head position at address, then the head position at impact. This is referred to as 'blending' and by moving back and forth between the images pros can see just how much the head has moved during the swing and the exact distance it has moved.
"The blend feature is great as it was always impossible or very difficult to see such a movement with the naked eye," explained Davies. "Now, by using the blend feature, I can draw a line on the head at address, blend the images and see exactly how far the head has moved from the line during the swing.
"You can really prove your worth as a coach because you can see absolutely everything that is happening to the student, allowing you to pick up on the minute details that are going wrong and put them right.
"If my goal is to improve the spine angle by three inches at impact, I can tell the pupil that if they do this or that they'll play better, and I can demonstrate it to them on screen.
"Every pupil learns differently but if people can see on the screen what you're trying to tell them it helps, the old saying is true, a picture tells a thousand words," added Davies.
"Also you can look at the progress pupils have made over a period of time, people will be happier to see that they have made changes and improved.
"Biomechanics has definitely changed the way we teach, it gives the video lesson that added emphasis."
05 November, 2007 | By Matthew Millard