Associations Between Physical Characteristics and Golf Clubhead Speed: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Historically, golf does not have a strong tradition of fitness testing and physical training. However, in recent years, both players and practitioners have started to recognise the value of a fitter and healthier body, owing to its potential positive impacts on performance, namely clubhead speed (CHS). Objective The aim of this meta-analysis was to examine the associations between CHS (as measured using a driver) and a variety of physical characteristics. Methods A systematic literature search with meta-analysis was conducted using Medline, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL and PubMed databases. Inclusion criteria required studies to have (1) determined the association between physical characteristics assessed in at least one physical test and CHS, (2) included golfers of any skill level but they had to be free from injury and (3) been peer-reviewed and published in the English language. Methodological quality was assessed using a modified version of the Downs and Black Quality Index tool and heterogeneity assessed via the Q statistic and I 2 . To provide summary effects for each of the physical characteristics and their associations with CHS, a random effects model was used where z -transformed r values (i.e. z r ) were computed to enable effect size pooling within the meta-analysis. Results Of the 3039 studies initially identified, 20 were included in the final analysis. CHS was significantly associated with lower body strength ( z r = 0.47 [95% confidence intervals {CI} 0.24–0.69]), upper body strength ( z r = 0.48 [95% CI 0.28–0.68]), jump displacement ( z r = 0.53 [95% CI 0.28–0.78]), jump impulse ( z r = 0.82 [95% CI 0.63–1.02]), jumping peak power ( z r = 0.66 [95% CI 0.53–0.79]), upper body explosive strength ( z r = 0.67 [95% CI 0.53–0.80]), anthropometry ( z r = 0.43 [95% CI 0.29–0.58]) and muscle capacity ( z r = 0.17 [95% CI 0.04–0.31]), but not flexibility ( z r = − 0.04 [95% CI − 0.33 to 0.26]) or balance ( z r = − 0.06 [95% CI − 0.46 to 0.34]). Conclusions The findings from this meta-analysis highlight a range of physical characteristics are associated with CHS. Whilst significant associations ranged from trivial to large, noteworthy information is that jump impulse produced the strongest association, upper body explosive strength showed noticeably larger associations than upper body strength, and flexibility was not significant. These findings can be used to ensure practitioners prioritise appropriate fitness testing protocols for golfers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.012 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".