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It would probably surprise you to find out that if you are an amateur and have a handicap above scratch there is a very good possibility that your overall tempo is too slow, and that your rhythm is off because your backswing is too slow relative to your forward swing. That is pretty unconventional information, but it has been proven true by using the measuring technique invented by John Novosel, the author of the ground-breaking book Tour Tempo.
With the fairly simple idea of counting the number of video frames (1 click of the remote moves the video 1/30th of a second on a camera recording at 30 frames per second) it takes for any player to start the swing and get to the top, then counting the clicks from the first move forward to impact, Novosel was able to show two interesting facts. The first one I already mentioned. Poorer players are most often too slow, especially in the backswing. Better players are faster, and in another interesting development, tend to swing with a ratio (rhythm) of 3 to 1, meaning that the backswing takes 3 times as long to complete as the forward swing.
Rhythm and Tempo are different items, but are closely connected. Tempo refers to the overall speed of the swing, or the total time it takes to start the swing and move it to impact. Rhythm is a ratio of the total backswing time to the total forward swing time. In measuring Tour players with a 30 frames per second camera (a standard video camera), Novosel found that most players fell into one of three categories, all of which use the magic rhythm ratio of 3:1. The first, and fastest tempo, was that of 21-7, which means that the player used 21 frames to complete the backswing and 7 to start forward and get to impact. Ben Hogan and Nick Price are examples of this tempo. The next 3:1 rhythm was at a slightly slower pace, that of 24-8. This medium tempo comprises the majority of good players. The slowest overall tempo that was somewhat common was 27-9, used by Ernie Els and Jim Furyk, among others.
This is not an exact science. It is sometimes difficult to tell just exactly when a club starts back due to forward presses, blurry cameras, and bad camera angles, and nothing much can be discerned from a down-the-line perspective. Players often don’t fall into a perfect 3:1 rhythm: my own usually comes out at 23-7, and I don’t see much reason to nitpick over a click or two. However, where it makes a huge difference is with players whose rhythm runs into the 4:1 or 5:1 category, caused almost exclusively by starting the backswing too slowly. When a player such as this is encouraged to speed up the backswing and thus the overall tempo it can make more difference than any mechanical change.
In the following video I show you how I developed and use my own version of Tour Tempo with the help of a metronome. Hopefully you will be able to get the idea, and with the simple tools of a video camera with a remote and the metronome you should be able to measure your rhythm and tempo and most importantly change it for the better.
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