[PHOTOS: Sam Barnes]
Annabel Dimmock was a longshot at the KPMG Women’s Irish Open. She hadn’t won a Ladies European Tour event since 2019 and in 2023, per an adidas documentary, she had surgery to remove a bone in her thumb. She was told the recovery would take two years. Yet, it was Dimmock returning to golf early, winning the two-hole playoff and hoisting the trophy at the 2024 KPMG Women’s Irish Open. Her diligence and toughness through recovery deserve credit for the win, of course, but she said a swing thought helped her, too.
“I have completely slowed my swing right down. Me and my dad keep saying to each other, ‘Lydia Ko tempo.’ It rhymes and it sticks,” Dimmock said. “I’ve been trying to have a really good tempo out there and not think about technical things. I think that’s what I’ll be doing from now on.”
Top 50-ranked teacher Trillium Rose says that what Dimmock did, copying a tour player’s tempo that she likes, is something amateurs should do, too. There are some good things that can happen in your swing when you do.
When players smooth out their tempo, Rose says certain things can be unlocked in the swing. Focusing on tempo often keeps a player from swinging too hard.
“When you’re swinging hard, you’re using muscles that probably don’t need to be or shouldn’t be used in the golf swing,” Rose says. “Usually, that shows up in the hands and arms.”
The hands and arms can manipulate the club in ineffective ways, so focusing on proper tempo and getting that feeling of slowing down, like Dimmock did, can produce a more efficient and effective swing.
“They can relax their hands and the club is able to move more freely. They can lag a little bit better, they can release a little bit better, and that can actually help pick clubhead speed up,” Rose says. “Instead of the hands controlling the face, the face is able to actually release correctly.”
Even if you feel like you’re slowing down with your new tempo, Rose has found that often the data shows you still have plenty of speed.
“There’s like a definite intention to slow the swing down and the person’s like, OK, I’m gonna slow this one down, and they don’t actually even slow it that much down,” Rose says. “They just get better tempo and the ball goes further.”
If you’re going through a swing change, Rose says it’s a great time to focus on tempo.
“If we’re really, really going fast, we can’t feel necessarily all of the movements that are required to create a good golf swing,” Rose says. “The faster you go, the harder it is to feel the details of the swing and actually hold yourself accountable for what that change might feel like.”
If you’re ready to copy a tour player’s tempo, Rose says to go to YouTube. Make sure you’re watching a video at full speed, not one that’s been slowed down. When watching a tour player’s tempo, look at the ratio between the backswing and the through swing. The backswing will take longer.
Rose says to watch the player’s swing a dozen times before you go out to play or go to the range. Picture it in your mind before you make your own swing, and you might end up unlocking something like Dimmock did.
