LIV Golf’s all-Australian Ripper GC outfit takes us inside the workouts that have them looking lean and mean.
Ripper GC’s strength and conditioning coach, Nic Catterall, is one of the best trainers in world golf. He’s worked his magic hands over top golfers from Adam Scott to Cameron Smith, logging seven years on the PGA Tour with a variety of players before becoming Ripper GC’s musculoskeletal therapist. He also worked with Australian sporting teams from Brisbane Broncos in the NRL to the Brisbane Roar in the A-League. Now, his job is to make sure Smith, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones and Jed Morgan are firing on all cylinders, physically, as they search for LIV Golf team success.
Smith already has an individual title in the trophy cabinet, LIV Golf’s Chicago event last year, and Ripper GC finished second in the season-long teams race at the finale in Miami last October. But Ripper GC is a tight-knit and competitive group, and a maiden win in LIV Golf’s team format is top of their priorities.
We spoke to Catterall about his approach to Ripper’s fitness schedule. ▶ ▶ ▶
Australian Golf Digest: How do you go about managing the bodies of four different top golfers?
Nic Catterall: It’s complex, for sure. It’s interesting because while they are a team, they are all doing workouts that are individually programmed. They are all on different schedules. You have the LIV schedule, then the Majors and then Asian Tour or DP World Tour events that they might be playing.
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What you mean is, Smith, by way of winning the Open Championship last year, is exempt into all the Majors. But Leishman, Jones and Morgan are not. So you tailor their workouts and peaking for events around that?
Correct. If I look at what’s coming up in their schedules, Cam’s schedule is different to the others. With Cam, we are in a maintenance phase at the moment, so we are not necessarily looking to change any workouts or add anything new. We’re not increasing anything; we are just maintaining what we have managed to build… That is a precaution so that we do not have to address new [issues or injuries] that pop up with any new soreness and recovery. We keep things basic and simple leading up to the four biggest events of the year.
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What’s the cycle of Smith’s workouts throughout the season?
Each program or cycle is basic in nature. They roll into each other: we work on strength, then we work on power, then we work on speed. That’s the best way to make sure he can feel something worthwhile – long term and short term. Anyone can squat, but it is how you squat and what you are using to squat. Keeping that in mind, [during the season] he is going to be doing contrast training: lifting something heavy and then something explosive to activate his body to help it move faster than it’s used to.
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How do Leishman and Jones, who are older, differ in the workouts they need?
“Leish” and “Jonesy” are more mature athletes and they have varying things we need to be aware of, like injury history and the risk factor of putting them under loads – unlike a young guy like Jed, who can bounce back. Leish is more a combination of balance and stability. I’d love to see him as strong as an ox, but he is a big lad so he’s already moving a lot of mass for his weight and size. He has enough power. He’s not one of the shortest hitters on tour. We’re not working on anything new; we’re working on making his body resilient and stable to enhance the golf performance side of things, more so than we would for a young, developing athlete.
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What examples of balance stability do you work with Leishman and Jones?
We do a lot of rehab and corrective activities, like yoga and pilates. We’re trying to get Leish to move at different levels of speeds, do core work, exercises like dead bugs [a bodyweight exercise involving lying on your back, raising and lowering opposite arms and legs], to get the hips to open up and rotate. We’re more focused on that as much as trying to get him fitter and stronger.
With Jonesy, I’ve worked with him for the past couple of years on the PGA and LIV tours, so he’s at a good stage. He’s at a point where he can complete three or four gym sessions a week without an issue. I don’t have to worry about loading him up and worrying about soreness. His training age is better than what it was when we first started.
Jonesy has got a few things we need to be aware of in terms of past injuries, so we don’t load him up with bar bells. He does a lot more free-weight exercises; he moves his body through space with kettle bells, dumbbell work, balance training, stability and core work. He’s pretty advanced in his core and corrective exercises, so he does strength with medicine balls and slams. We combined those movements, so he is pretty much ready to hit balls on any surface and in any [conditions]. He’s a phenomenal athlete.
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How different is Jed?
He is a stallion. I look at athletes comparable to him and he is at the top end of athletic calibre. He’s had a lot of good people managing his athletic development from Golf Queensland to Golf Australia. There is nothing I can’t throw at him that he can’t handle.
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Overall, how is the team doing?
It is always hard to gauge their performance progress over sessions when a season is already underway (LIV Golf was three events into its second season at the time of writing). But they are progressing well, and we’ll have the ability to really hone in once they get a little bit more tournament play under their belts. It’s why we do a lot of testing and try to make them as strong and fit as much as they can be. They work really well and really hard, so where they are now, I expect them to get better on the course. We work on things when we can and try to make those gains when we can and maintain them when it is smart to do so.
