THE three-time Major winner uses many of the techniques employed here at

SWINGBUILD

and just like us, he is a perfectionist. That is why he is attempting to make himself even better by using biomechanics and kinetic sequencing. He’s not alone, either. Henrik Stenson’s victory at the recent Tournament Players Championship proved what can be achieved by using the kind of statistical and 3D motion capture technology used for movie animation. Stenson’s digital approach helped him produced a sensational final round 66 at Sawgrass to blow away the field, Tiger Woods included, yet he only started utilising biomechanics in the week before The Masters at the Shell Houston Open. But the expert who worked with him, fitness and swing coach Marc Wahl, reveals that Stenson, in just a few short weeks, transformed himself declaring: “Every time Henrik stood at the tee box at the start of each hole he was employing the information that I helped pass on to him.” It is the kind of swing reliability under pressure that Stenson produced that Harrington has been working towards and he admits: “I have been working with an expert called Dr. Paul Hurrion on biomechanics. This has been a collaboration between myself, my coach Bob Torrance and my swing adviser in the USA Bob Rotella. The great thing is that I don’t completely rely on what I am being told in terms of biomechanics. Bob Torrance has an incredible eye and can see what I need to be doing – when he spots something that has to be worked on we alert the biomechanics guys and we build a programme to match what Bob Torrance wants to see me doing.” The field of biomechanics has become more and more important to the game’s biggest stars. Wahl, who worked at Sawgrass with Harrington on body fitness and strength, explains: “Tiger Woods is so good that he has made everybody else search for that extra 5% here, and another 5% there that can get them closer to him.” Sports biomechanics apply the laws of mechanics and physics to human performance to gain greater understanding of performance in athletic events through modelling and computer simulation. Another of those who has become involved in the appliance of this particular science is Northern Ireland ’s Graeme McDowell – and weeks after he allowed himself to be wired up at 12 different points of his body he won the Tavistock Cup. Wahl adds: “We are now using technology that is even better than the stuff they use in movie animation because instead of going optimal we are using electromagnetics which are even more detailed. No golfer, especially not one as brilliant as Padraig, wants to make himself a robot. But greater understanding of how the body works will give anybody a better swing. You only have to look at Stenson to see what can be possible.”