A Golf Swing and Music - They're both about Rhythm and Tempo

Most of us listen to music on a regular basis. Those of us who play Golf would benefit from understanding the reason that both golf and music use the terms rhythm and tempo.

In the Feb. ‘07 issue of Golf Magazine Peter Jacobs remarks - “Just take a little more club and swing a little bit easier to ensure a solid hit. Maybe go three-quarters on some shots until you build your RHYTHM.”

Now you’ve heard this before. But judging from what I see at the driving range most of you have no idea what this really means. Let’s see if we can use music to help us really understand what RHYTHM we’re attempting to build.

Most of the music you listen to day in and day out is based on the number 4. Four beats that occur over and over again in a space that’s called a bar. Tempo is how fast or slow those 4 beats happen in that bar. Thus each bar in a song takes a specific amount of time based on the tempo of the song. That’s how they determine how long a song is. They count the number of bars and multiple that by the length of time that bar takes based on the tempo. Thus the same song can last a different length of time depending on how long a bar is.

The great folks at Tour Tempo Golf discovered that the swings of all professional golfers also occur over a very specific length of time - depending on their tempo.

In essence a golf swing in much like 1 bar of a song. Each have four beats. The Tour Professional golf swing lasts from .95 (faster) to 1.20 seconds (slower). And to make it even easier to duplicate there’s a ratio we can use. The ratio is 3:1. That means the backswing is 3 times longer than the downswing. This corresponds to getting to the top of your back swing during the first 3 beats of a bar and striking the ball on beat #4.

Tour Tempo golf even created some music to follow along with that enables you to reproduce the exact tempo of your favorite Touring Pro. Sam Snead and Tiger (2002) swing at 24/8. This refers to the number of frames in a video. That’s 24 frames to the top of the backswing (1-2-3) and 8 frames to impact (4). Here’s a nice article that illustrates what I’ve been saying.

I’d like to add that I’ve been using the Tour Tempo audio training aids for about two months now. I cannot even describe the difference in my ball striking, distance and scoring. Tour Tempo Golf provides a “Y” drill and an “L” drill to sharpen the all important short game.

And remember each beat takes a certain amount of time. Rhythm is when you are right on the beat, not to fast where the arms are ahead of the body which will usually result in a pull to the left. Not to slow with the arms lagging behind the body and a shot that leaks out to the right.

The 4 beats in a bar of music occur evenly - not hurky-jerky. That’s what you want to happen in your swing. And here’s something counter intuitive. When you take a slow backswing and whip that club down from the top as fast as you can - you’re swing speed is actually much slower that swinging in the 3:1 tempo I’ve described.

During the masters one year Tiger hit a shot off the tee that he pulled left. When his swing was measured it turned out that his backswing was right on the mark 24 frames (3 beats) but his downswing was only 6 frames - a little to fast getting from the top to the ball.

Now that you know - watch the PGA, Champions or Nationwide Tour players and you’ll see they all swing at this 3:1 ratio. May you should too!