Fred Muller is a ZenoLink convert. So much so that Muller, in his 34th year as head professional at Crystal Downs Golf Club in Frankfort, Mich., has entrusted the continuing golf education of his children to ZenoLink teaching pro Brad Dean.
Gaby Muller, 17, is a two-time all-state golfer who will enroll at Michigan State University next fall and compete on the Spartans’ women’s golf team. Gates Muller, 15, is a high school sophomore who competes during the summer on the Future Collegians World Tour.
As any parent will tell you, children are more likely to heed the advice of non-family members – even if they’ve ignored the same counsel from Mom or Dad. Despite his expertise, Muller concluded it was best to turn his kids’ golf instruction over to Dean, a fellow Michigan PGA Professional who is Director of Golf at the nearby Crystal Mountain Resort & Spa.
“I saw the success Brad was having with his junior program,” said Muller. “He attributed a lot of it to ZenoLink, and when he explained the theory behind it, he was preaching to the choir.”
ZenoLink is a cutting-edge, 3-D motion analysis technology that measures and analyzes the biomechanics of an individual’s golf swing. It was developed by Chris Welch, a biomedical-biomechanical engineer who 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. 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 (PST).
“For years, we as golf professionals have been told that golf is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical,” said Muller. “But I’ve always felt absolutely the opposite. No matter what kind of attitude you have, if you don’t swing correctly, you have no chance. It’s all about training your body so it responds to what you ask it to do.”
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.
“It’s fascinating how deeply Chris Welch has studied what happens during the golf swing,” said Muller. “It’s traditional golf, not some outlandish theory, but he’s managed to figure out what you do, when you do it, and why.”
Muller cited his son’s seventh-place finish in an elite junior tournament in Florida last January. “Everyone else in the field had been playing all winter down south,” he said. “Gates was indoors all winter – or shoveling snow – but he had been doing his PST’s religiously. When he got out onto the golf course, everything just fell into place.”
Muller met Welch in person during a mid-March “boot camp” at Michigan State for 21 players in Dean’s junior elite program. “For a brute, he’s a pretty cerebral guy,” joked Muller, referring to Welch’s physique and energetic presentations.
“It was great to get the kids in front of Chris,” said Dean, who has been incorporating ZenoLink analyses and Progressive Skills Training into his instruction programs for two years. “It was a terrific opportunity for them to get their practice programs going for the coming summer. It essentially gives them a two-month head start on their competition from the upper Midwest.”
Dean said he’s especially pleased with the progress made by the Mullers.
“Gaby has been a three-sport athlete, but now she’s really getting into golf,” said Dean. “Gates has really embraced ZenoLink. When I first started working with him, as a freshman, he had never broken 80 in a tournament. In one of his first events after we put him on PST, he shot 72 in an event. So he’s really kind of a poster boy for what can be accomplished with ZenoLink.”
Staging the boot camp at Michigan State gave Dean’s students a glimpse of campus life and the athletic facilities at a Division I program. “It really gave them incentive,” said Dean. “When they visit a big-time school like MSU, it makes them think, ‘Hey, this is the kind of place where I want to play when I go to college.'”
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
About Chris Welch
Chris Welch, 41, is a biomedical-biomechanical engineer. A graduate of Boston University, Chris has authored numerous scientific papers and frequently is featured as a keynote speaker at symposiums on sport biomechanics and performance analysis. Prior to creating zenoLINK™, Welch was President and CEO of Human Performance Technologies, which 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. Chris began his career as a researcher with the American Sports Medicine Institute and the Biomotion Foundation. Contact: chris@welch-e.com
Contact:
Dave Richards
Resort & Golf Marketing
5080 Tootmoor
Bloomfield Hills, MI. 48302
248-642-6420
248-642-3604 (Fax)
dave@resortandgolf.com
www.resortandgolf.com
