Fast Eddie Series #2 - Distance of Club to Body

The closer the club's center of gravity (COG) is to the golfer's body COG, the lower the moment of inertia of the golfer-club system becomes, making it easier to rotate or "spin" the system. As the club's COG moves farther from the body's COG, the system's moment of inertia increases, requiring more torque to maintain the same rate of rotation. For a given torque, the body will naturally rotate more slowly.

This may be a more meaningful definition of timing in the golf swing.

Rotational deceleration has long been a popular topic in the rudimentary kinematic sequence models often presented in kinesiology. But is the golfer actually trying to decelerate?

Or is what we observe simply a natural consequence of the golfer-club system changing shape?

As the club moves farther from the body's center of gravity, the moment of inertia of the entire system increases. For a given torque, rotational speed decreases as inertia increases. What appears to be intentional deceleration may simply be the physics of a system spreading out.

Perhaps rotational deceleration is not a movement strategy at all, but rather an expected outcome of the changing inertia of the golfer-club system.