When it comes to finding the right shaft in your golf club, we know how important timing is.
Based on how you swing the golf club, the shaft is going to be the timing mechanism that allows you to swing at your rhythm and tempo to hit the ball in the center of the club face.
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On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, co-host Johnny Wunder explained how the way baseball pitchers in Japan are taught to throw the ball can help you figure out what is best for your game.
Wunder was explaining that he wanted to find out how players could gain data and learn the optimal way to move around. The old theory is that players who walk fast generally should have faster, more abrupt tempos, while slower walkers are smoother and more deliberate. He used the examples of Nick Price, a fast mover, and Fred Couples, a smooth one.
Then he called on what pitchers do in baseball.
“If you watch Japanese pitchers throw a baseball,” Wunder said. “It’s a full release one way and a full release the other way. There are no constraining forces. There’s no torque.
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“The reason why they teach that, one is that it’s easier on the body. But it’s easier for the human body to repeat that if there’s not an opposing force.”
So what does that have to do with golf?
Well, just like they teach the optimal way to find repetitive movements in baseball for pitchers, golfers can find the optimal timing and rhythm with the right golf clubs to help them make repeatable swings more often.
“There’s a way to optimize your fittings by making sure you’re looking at the right swings,” co-host Jake Morrow said. “The process of figuring out what the right swings are is what Johnny is currently after. Defining what is my good golf swing and then going into future fittings, knowing what those numbers look like and matching up your fitting data to that swing data is going to be an important part moving forward.”
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The idea is that you might hit a club well in a fitting, but the swing your making might not actually be the best for your game. That’s why when you take it out on the course, you end up putting a different swing on it and struggle.
But if you can be sure you’re making an optimal swing for your body, then you can expect to make that same swing on the golf course.
For more from Wunder and Morrow, listen to the full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.
Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.
The post What Japanese baseball pitchers can teach you about club fittings | Fully Equipped appeared first on Golf.
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