Analysis of the delivery plane in the golf swing using principal components

Although the swing plane has been a popular area of golf biomechanics research, the movement of the club relative to the swing plane has yet to be shown experimentally to have a relationship with performance. This study used principal component and subsequent multiple regression analysis to investigate the relationship between the movement of the club relative to the delivery plane and clubhead characteristics at ball impact. The principal components reflected deviations from an individual swing plane, and lower values of these components were associated with less variability in the clubface impact location. In the event that a golf coach wants to improve the precision of ball striking, the results from this study suggest that both simplicity of the route and alignment of the club to the final trajectory before impact could be advantageous. However, this does not suggest that the technique should be based on a ‘model’ swing plane.