It was a pretty amazing summer for Jason Day. After battling a bout of vertigo to finish tied for 9th at the U.S. Open June 21st, Day rattled off four PGA Tour wins over his next eight starts, never finished lower than a tie for 12th, and was even ranked No. 1 in the world.
As if that wasn’t enough, Day finished 3rd in the FedEx Cup Playoff race, made nearly $9.5 million (2nd on the Tour Money List), and simply tore up the stat sheet. No one had a better Birdie Average than Day (4.71 per round), and no one had a better All-Around Ranking. Day ranked in the low single digits in nearly every significant statistical category on pgatour.com.
Now that Day appears to be shutting it down after the President’s Cup, we can finally analyze just what makes his swing so powerful. Todd Sones recently sent out the following article and video courtesy of Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) co-founder Dave Phillips.
Day’s lower body is an integral part of his golf swing. Phillips says according to the data on BodiTrak, Day loads 95% of his pressure into his trail hip, which is among the most on Tour. In order to turn into the trail hip while maintaining posture, golfers must possess adequate mobility in the lower body.
TPI tests for this by using the lower quarter rotation test, which screens for hip mobility, tibial rotation, and ankle mobility, which is something we’ve also learned in our Anatomy and Bio-Mechanics class at the Golf Academy. The vast majority of Tour players are able to achieve 60-degrees of rotation, both internally and externally.
Congratulations are also in order for Todd. In addition to serving on the Golf Academy’s National Advisory Board, Todd was recently named one of Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers in America for 2015-2016. He will be visiting the Phoenix campus next month, and we can’t wait!