ORLANDO, Fla. – Students at the Core Golf Junior Academy have a new weapon in their arsenal. It’s called zenoLINK.
ZenoLINK™ is a cutting-edge, 3-D motion analysis technology that measures and analyzes the biomechanics of an individual’s golf swing. Thanks to zenoLINK’s breakthrough application of video analysis, golfers across the skill spectrum have gained access to a level of swing analysis that used to be available only to elite amateurs and professionals. The resulting assessment of functional movement enables zenoLINK to then prescribe a highly personalized fitness program called Progressive Skills Training.™
The Core Golf Junior Academy is a full-time student golf program based at Orange County National Golf Club in Orlando. It delivers comprehensive PGA Tour-level instruction and mentoring in swing mechanics, fitness, nutrition, mental performance and tournament play. Core Golf ‘s students receive private schooling at the acclaimed Windermere Preparatory School.
Core Golf and zenoLINK finalized a partnership agreement in late February, giving Core Golf the ability to offer students at all its academies – including the flagship in Orlando – the very latest in swing analysis and functional movement training.
“The partnership between CoreGolf and zenoLINK exemplifies our company’s mission,” said Chris Welch, President and co-founder of zenoLINK. “We created zenoLINK with the goal of making the most sophisticated motion analysis available to all athletes. But the benefits of zenoLINK are maximized in a team setting like that of Core Golf. The academy’s instructors and physical trainers can use our data and our Progressive Skills Training™ program as part of a holistic approach to teaching and improving performance.”
Tom Jackson, Core Golf’s founder and Director of Instruction, runs a hands-on program that benefits from his insights gleaned during 25 years as a teacher, and the expertise of Sean Foley, who has attracted considerable attention on the PGA Tour in the last two years. Foley works with Tour standouts Hunter Mahan (winner of the 2010 Waste Management Phoenix Open), Sean O’Hair, Justin Rose and Stephen Ames.
“The great thing about zenoLINK is the ease – finally! – of receiving data and feedback from the analysis,” said Jackson, who played on the Asian, Australian and Canadian tours. “Second, I always wanted a way to connect the fitness aspect of golf and the golf swing, and prove there’s a correlation when it comes to improvement.”
Before the advent of zenoLINK, golfers could obtain detailed analysis of biomechanics only by going into a lab setting, being wired with sensors and hitting balls indoors. Thanks to zenoLINK, research-level data now can be collected by videotaping golfers in their natural environment – on the range or on the course – unencumbered by sensors, wires or vests. The resulting data is evaluated at zenoLINK’s performance lab in Endicott, N.Y., after which the analysis and Progressive Skills Training recommendations can be accessed on a secure Web site.
“That’s what makes zenoLINK different from anything else I’ve seen in 25 years as a golf professional,” he said. “You can first identify weaknesses or areas that need improvement, then determine if it might be a mechanical or kinetic fault, and figure out a program to fix it.”
Best of all, Jackson said, zenoLINK proves and quantifies improvement.
“That’s the real winning part of zenoLINK and what separates it from other fitness or 3-D analyses,” he said. “We’re excited to be early adopters of a new wave in golf instruction that will help us take our students’ games to the next level.”
In addition to Foley, Core Golf’s staff also features Director of Fitness & Nutrition Dr. Craig Davies, who is one of the top trainers and physical therapists on the PGA Tour, with a clientele that includes 2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang, Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan, Jamie Lovemark, Sean O’Hair and John Rollins.
Welch, a biomedical-biomechanical engineer, pioneered the concept of clinical biomechanics by bringing 3-D motion analysis out of the laboratory and into the arenas of public healthcare, training and coaching. His study of functional movement has influenced many coaches and trainers, including those who started the Titleist Performance Institute and K-Motion Interactive, makers of the K-Vest golf training tool.
The premise behind zenoLINK is that an understanding and application of functional biomechanics – the analysis of motion and the effects of forces relative to the human body and its movement – can help athletes improve sport-specific performance and reduce the risk of injury. Not only does zenoLINK capture Ph.D.-level data, but it also offers Ph.D.-level interpretation of that information, which enables it to devise highly customized training and/or rehabilitation programs.
Moreover, zenoLINK is a leader in the emerging field of neuromechanics, which is proving that limitations to an athlete’s “hardware” (body structure) can be mitigated by reprogramming their “software” (how the nervous system initiates muscle movement) by the use of specific drills designed to reproduce small components of overall movement.
For more information about zenoLINK or to arrange an interview with Chris Welch, contact Dave Richards at Resort & Golf Marketing, 248-642-6420 or dave@resortandgolf.com
For Tom Jackson, contact Tim O’Connor, Director of Communications for Core Golf Academy, at 519-341-4778 or tim@oconnorgolf.ca
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