Does the ‘perfect’ golf swing exist?
From a constraints-led perspective, it is clear that the ‘perfect’ golf swing cannot exist, and that the notion of a ‘common optimal movement pattern’, towards which each individual golfer must aspire, is a fallacy, because the confluence of constraints impinging on performance is patently individual-specific and fluctuates continuously over time. Therefore, not only will there be variations in patterns of movement between golfers, there will also be subtle variations within each golfer over repeated golf swings. These forms of variability would only be viewed in a negative light if one accepted the myth that every golfer can perform the golf swing in the same, identical manner. Variations at the population level have been viewed as the ‘engine’ of adaptive, evolutionary change over time and there are many good reasons why individual movement variations should be viewed in the same way. From this viewpoint, a more productive scientific and pedagogical approach would be to understand th
