During last Sunday’s Player’s Championship, after a poor shot by Tiger, NBC’s Johnny Miller commented that “A few people believe that Tiger’s biceps may have gotten too big. None of the great golfers in history have had big biceps.” [paraphrased].
Earlier, I had noticed that his arms looked bigger and more muscular than ever before. Is this a legitimate concern for golfers? I do notice that when I’m in my best physical shape, my golf game is worse. When I stop going to the gym for a couple of weeks, it gets better.
I’m pretty sure Arnold would have had very restricted movement in his prime, so obviously there’s a point where being muscular would become a disadvantage. The question is where is that point?
The idea of being muscle bound harkens back to the 50s when we did not know better. Tiger is not muscle bound. Miller does not show he is qualified to make the charge. I do not see how his chipping and putting woes are due to weight lifting.
I think this is pants-on-head wrong. Getting stronger and bigger can only help your golf game. The problem is swinging around any additional bulk and learning the new-found strength. After periods of working out, hit the range for a while and keep maintaining the swing.
Johnny Miller went into a pretty big slump in the late 70’s after alledgedly building considerable muscle mass. He was building a house, and doing a lot of the construction work himself.
Tiger hits the weights daily, but I bet he works on his flexibility as much or more than building muscle mass.
Probably some “collateral damage” from the knee surgery, but I think Tiger’s hips are flabbier than pre-surgery. It could be the way that his trousers are tailored.
Tiger has always been pretty ripped. Someone “discovers” this every other day and makes a big deal out of it, mostly to choruses of yeah, yeah, we know. The guy is married to a Swedish model and probably has an 11-inch dong, too.
His biceps are in no way shape or form “getting in the way” of his swing. That’s either the dumbest excuse or the dumbest criticism I’ve ever heard; I don’t know how Johnny Miller feels about Woods so I don’t know which.
Miller: There are some people out there wondering if his biceps are getting too big. I’m telling you…seriously, we’re not trying to see how much we can bench press when you play golf. It’s a wonder because nobody has ever played with biceps like that on Tour.
Like Miller said, it’s a unique (or nearly unique) situation, so it’s worth puzzling over, but it’s still very likely to be meaningless.
What’s the analog I’m thinking of? It’s baseball pitchers, right? For decades the prevailing wisdom was that serious upper-body strength training was undesirable for pitchers because they depended so much on flexibility, but then they started lifting weights and it proved to be beneficial instead of harmful. I might be getting my example mixed up, though.
The same questions were asked about Nick Faldo. He bulked up just as his game went into decline. Hereis an article from 1998 that mentions Miller, Faldo and Woods (and others).
I’m not a golfer, not a good one anyway, but I absolutely agree with you. I do know a lot about strength sports like powerlifting and olympic lifting. In olympic lifting especially, people always underestimate the speed and flexibility required along with the great strength. If Tiger has a decent trainer they would be teaching him the quick lifts such as power cleans that strengthen the grip and core muscle groups while also improving speed. He wouldn’t need to lift heavy to meet his goals. Hopefully he would also be doing a variety of chin-ups as well which also help the grip and back strength along with building the biceps. The nice thing about olympic lifting is the tendency to get stronger without necessarily getting bigger at least not bigger the way a bodybuilder would. Improved speed, strength, and flexibility would surely not harm the man’s golf game. I think a man’s biceps would have to get quite large before they would affect the golf swing. My two cents.