Your golf swing is limited by your body long before it is limited by your equipment. The Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) screen is a physical assessment built specifically around that idea — and Dr. Zach Vahldick is a TPI Certified Level 2 Medical Professional and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. If a slice, an early extension, or a sore lower back on the back nine keeps showing up no matter how many lessons you take, the limitation is usually in how your body moves, not in your grip.
Titleist Performance Institute is the world’s leading organization studying how the human body functions in relation to the golf swing. For over twenty years, TPI has built the game’s largest database on players ranging from tour professionals to weekend golfers, using 3D motion capture, force plates, and movement testing to answer one question: what does the body actually have to do to swing a club efficiently?
The answer is what TPI calls the Body-Swing Connection. Efficient swinging requires rotation through the hips and thoracic spine, stability through the core, and enough shoulder mobility to get the club on plane. When one of those is missing, your body finds a workaround — and that workaround is what shows up as a swing fault or an injury.
There are an infinite number of ways to swing a golf club. But there is one most-efficient way for your body to swing it — and it is based on what you can physically do.
Most swing problems get coached from the top down: fix the takeaway, fix the grip, fix the follow-through. TPI works from the bottom up. Before we talk about mechanics, we measure what your body can and cannot do — so the plan is built on your actual physical capabilities instead of a one-size-fits-all swing model.
A TPI screen answers questions like:
A series of physical tests measuring mobility, stability, and rotation. It takes about twenty minutes, and it is not a golf lesson — we are not touching your grip or your takeaway. We are identifying which physical limitations are forcing the compensations your instructor keeps trying to coach out of you.
From those findings we build a plan specific to your body. Depending on what the screen reveals, that may include mobility work, corrective exercise, soft tissue therapy, or chiropractic adjustment where a joint restriction is the limiter.
The Tri-Lakes area plays a lot of golf, and a large share of the players are over fifty. Loss of thoracic (mid-back) rotation is close to universal in that group — and it is one of the most correctable limitations there is. Golfers here routinely gain rotation and lose pain from the same set of corrections, which means more distance, more consistency, and more rounds without paying for them the next morning.
Whether you are chasing lower scores at a local course or just want to keep playing pain-free for years to come, the screen shows us exactly where to start.
A screen only matters if it leads somewhere. Your findings feed straight into the treatment side of the practice:
This is the difference between knowing what is wrong and actually changing it.
TPI’s movement principles apply to other rotational, power-based sports too — baseball, tennis, and pickleball players benefit from the same screen.
Dr. Zach Vahldick is a TPI Certified Level 2 Medical Professional and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), which means he evaluates your swing from both a medical and a biomechanical perspective. That combination — clinician plus performance background — is what lets a screen turn into a real correction plan instead of just a list of things you cannot do.
Book your TPI screening before the season gets away from you — or call 417-334-1334.