Biomechanist and MD of Quintic Consultancy, Paul Hurrion has been invited to join the Biomechanics Advisory Panel of the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI).
The TPI was born out of an ongoing search for knowledge about bodies in sports motion. Morphing out of a private facility that was created for the benefit of Titleist staff players worldwide, the public side of the TPI was first opened in 2004. It is one of the most technologically advanced golf evaluation facilities in existence, focusing on swing efficiency, physical conditioning, and custom equipment fitting. It combines industry leading experts, state of the art technology, and world class facilities to enhance the performance and physical well-being of golfers at all skill levels.
You’d find that a good deal of what is discussed and debated by the members of the Institute is over the heads of most club golfers, but it’s meat & potatoes to professional athletes for whom the game is a livelihood.
There are eight people in total currently consulting just on the TPI biomechanics panel - each with discrete disciplinary skill-sets and in different sports. The idea is that physiological & biomechanical aspects of all sports have information that can be applied to golf. Considering that this will involve processing vast amounts of data to extract valid components, an exhaustive degree of knowledge is needed.
“We met Paul through Padraig Harrington and knew that he was doing research on shoes and motion analysis of elite athletes,” explains Dr Greg Rose of TPI. “We look for advisors that can help direct us in each discipline and we try to get experts from different sports that may have great information that we could apply to golf. We definitely try to get advisors who don't think the same so that we can get great discussions on each topic.
“We try to meet at least once a year, we pose monthly questions to discuss and debate through email, we all write articles to post on our website, and we will try to publish 6-10 research papers over 12 months from the group.”
2007 and 2008 are going to be very busy years for Paul Hurrion. As demand among PGA players and management grows for Hurrion’s one-to-one consulting time, Quintic itself is poised to launch a range of very special training aids under its own brand.
Designed, packaged and priced to have appeal among the broadest range of golfers, these training aids are distinguished by their simplicity and instant feedback.
Paul Hurrion and the Quintic team have amassed a vast body of work on the complexities of professional athletes’ sporting performance. An innate knowledge of these data firstly enables a biomechanist efficiently to target a problem or an opportunity for performance improvement. Secondly, it makes it possible to identify accurately the common problems of most golfers and crucially, the quickest and most effective cure.
“At its purest level, yes, biomechanics is probably deathly dull to men and women who simply love the game of golf and always want to play better,” says a sanguine Paul Hurrion. “The point is those people don’t have to bother with exhaustive analysis of their game because we’ve done that. For those that are interested in the facts and figures, we can gladly discuss these, otherwise they can just benefit from our research… and play better golf.”
The Titleist Performance Institute will be a Shangri-La for serious golfers, irrespective of the brand of club they swing. They’ll sell truckloads of very worthy Titleist gear off the back of it, but that’s a given and no secret. What is perhaps a more closely guarded secret is just how coveted a place is in this particular school.
Greg Rose : “We are a private facility - used mainly by our professional Titleist staff players worldwide (almost 8,000 players in total). We do offer 35 fantasy camps called ‘experiences’ each year - where 6 amateurs will come in for three days and we treat them like they are Adam Scott for the week. We charge $7,500 per person and it is usually sold out well in advance!”
Rose and a team from TPI are due to visit The Belfry in mid-September for a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor Level 1 course.
For further press information and photography please contact Dominic O’Byrne at O’Byrne Communications via +44 (0)113 255 4114 or dominic@obyrne.co.uk.
For technical information and product samples, please contact Dr Paul Hurrion at The Quintic Consultancy on 01676 530730 or via paul@quintic.com
www.quintic.com
