Want to improve your golf game? Try this

Want to improve your golf game? A new Cape Cod Healthcare golf biomechanics program might help boost your score, feel better while you’re playing, and have more fun.

The CCHC Golf Performance Center opened recently at 46 North Street, Hyannis. It’s a self-pay program open to all golfers, not only those going through outpatient physical therapy. The goal is to help players improve how their bodies move, leading to at least a more comfortable game, if not a lower score.

Physical therapy experts at the center are certified through the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) created by the golf equipment brand to train professional and amateur golfers, teaching pros and medical clinicians, on how body mechanics affect the game. For example, if you’re playing with back pain, you’re unlikely to swing the club as efficiently as you could if it didn’t hurt. TPI-certified therapists assess what’s causing the pain and how it affects play, and then work on solving the issue and improving your movement.

“Knowledge is power,” said Catherine Hoell, a CCHC physical therapist who is a Medical Level 3 golf expert certified by the Titleist Performance Institute and works at the Hyannis golf performance site. Dr. Hoell is also a passionate golfer with a single-digit handicap, and is the lead physical therapist at the rehabilitation center at Oppenheim Medical Building in Chatham.

Three Reasons You Might Benefit

There are three main reasons why golfers might benefit from the Golf Performance Program, she said. They are:

• Playing despite pain; you want to extend your golf-playing years
• You need to rebound from an injury
• You need to rebound from surgery

“Golf is a complex sequence of movements and you have to have certain body qualifications to be able to do it well,” she said. “Golfers want to get better. They know that training their body is important, but they’re not sure how.”

Hoell and Matthew DiBona, another TPI-certified physical therapist, work with golfers to assess issues and then develop a customized plan for their bodies and their game. They are both board certified and specialize in orthopedic injuries and treat patients who are golfers going through physical therapy. Once these therapists know the problem, they use drills, exercise and rehabilitation strategies to alleviate problems and improve mobility.

“You want to hit 20, 30 yards longer with no back pain?” Hoell said. “We need to address, say, four things to give you the most efficient swing based on the analytic metrics that we did in the assessment.”

Assessment Tools

The program is designed to help golfers investigate how their bodies are performing and functioning and see if they might be inadvertently causing injury or pain, she said.

Golfers are particularly susceptible to back pain, hip strains, neck and shoulder issues, she said. The assessment tools of the CCHC golf program use video analysis and a real-time biofeedback K-Vest to measure motion, flexibility, strength, range of motion, balance, coordination and power, she said.

The assessment might spot poor body rotation because of bad golf posture or neck pain. The performance program differs from a standard golf lesson in that the therapist can discover the why of what the golfer is doing, not just spot a faulty technique, she said.

“That’s why this program is so cool, because we can look under the hood and say, ‘This is how your engine’s performing, and how do we improve it?’ So then when we give you that mobility, you’re able to take that golf instruction and really use it to your advantage. …You start hitting the ball farther and straighter with less pain,” she said.

The state-of-the-art equipment itself is informational and motivational, Hoell said. The K-Vest, for example, measures rotation. Golfers can see the improvement over several weeks as they increase rotation, resulting in a bigger back swing, more club speed and a longer drive.

The advantage to the Golf Performance Program is that it looks at the “whole golfer” – and golfers are highly motivated to improve, Hoell said.

“The beauty of the game is, you can always improve and it’s fun getting better,” she said. “No round is ever the same. That’s what I think is so great about it. Not to mention, you’re outdoors, you’re playing with friends. It’s just so fun.”