The keys to Brooks Koepka’s golf swing, according to artificial intelligence

Editors Note: Joe Plecker, Top 100 Teacher and Chief Swing Officer of the Swing Index app, which is part-owned by out parent company, ran the reigning PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka’s golf swing through our Swing AI machine. With numbers like these, expect more majors in the future.

Brooks Koepka’s golf swing is one of my favorites. It’s just so pure. It doesn’t rely on a lot of jumping up at impact or aggressively throwing the club through the ball, which are difficult to time. It’s a blur of speed in which the club seemingly never strays off plane, and it exploits Koepka’s ability to rotate through the ball faster than just about any other player on Tour.

Koepka’s strong right-hand grip lets you know that he’s more comfortable squaring the clubface with his body than with his hands. A lot of players are. I like the width he creates almost immediately in his backswing. As you can see in the sequence at right (July 2017), the clubhead is about as far away from his body as it can get. On the way down, you can just can feel the torque.

If we went one frame further you’d see both arms snap straight. A lot of pros can extend like this, but very few can do it while rotating and simultaneously maintaining their posture. If there’s anywhere where world-class athleticism pays off in the swing, it’s Brooks Koepka’s golf swing. — Joe Plecker, Chief Swing Officer, Swing AI

Setup

Brooks tees the ball a bit more forward in his stance than other Tour pros. No negative marks here—the positioning gives him more space and time to rotate, speed up and, due to his strong right-hand grip, square the clubface. The forward ball position also gets his path moving slightly left of the target through impact, helping Koepka pull off those reliable—and powerful—fades.

Backswing

Koepka traces a very wide arc. Copy the way he gets the shaft parallel to the ground very early in the backswing, with your hands as far away from your body as possible. Right from the start, Brooks pours on the upper-body turn while “pulling” his left arm out of its socket (or at least that’s how it feels). His left arm remains straight throughout. With his grip, he’d hit nothing but blocks and hooks if he lost this width.

Downswing

After creating such a wide arc and moving his weight to the right side on his backswing, Koepka does an incredible job of transitioning the club at the top. He’s flawless from a path perspective. Notice how much he slides his left hip toward the target, all the while keeping his head back and rotating in his posture. Most players would have a lot of trouble doing this. Koepka isn’t just flexible; his back and abdominal strength are simply off the charts.

Overall

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