Why I Got Level 1 TPI Certified
I started playing golf at 32. Late to the game by most standards. And like most people who pick up golf I immediately started collecting tips. YouTube videos, a lesson here and there. A lot of time spent trying to rotate more, stop swaying, and staying in golf posture.
It would work for a few swings, sometimes even a few holes. Then it would come back: the sway, the standing up through impact, whatever I was trying to fix that week always seemed to creep back in the next week. I had an idea on why this was happening, but I hadn't connected it to golf yet.
The Biomechanics of a Golf Swing: Why Your Body Compensates.
I spend my days helping people understand why their bodies do what they do. And the answer usually goes like this, your body isn't making a mistake. It's solving a problem with whatever it has available. If your nervous system perceives a threat, it protects you. If a joint can't access a certain range of motion, your brain finds a workaround. The output looks wrong, but the system is doing exactly what it should given the inputs it's working with.
The Titleist Performance Institute built an entire diagnostic framework around this same idea applied specifically to the golf swing. When I started going through the Level 1 certification I quickly realized I wasn't learning a new way to think. I was watching my clinical reasoning show up in a sport I was personally trying to get better at.
What is a TPI Screen and How Does It Fix Swing Faults?
TPI has a 16-point physical screen — pelvic tilt, pelvic rotation, torso rotation, overhead deep squat, single leg balance, hip rotation, and so on. Each test checks whether your body can physically do a specific thing the golf swing demands. And each physical limitation maps to predictable swing faults.
If your trail hip only has 40 degrees of internal rotation instead of the 60 it needs, you literally cannot rotate into that hip during your backswing. Your brain knows this. So it slides you laterally instead — that's sway. A golf instructor sees sway and says "rotate, don't slide." But you can't rotate, the joint won't let you. No amount of practice or feel drills changes the fact that the range of motion isn't there.
That's the thing that got me. TPI's golden rule is: never prescribe swing pattern drills without first restoring the physical prerequisite identified by screening. That's my entire clinical philosophy in one sentence. Don't try to change the output until you've addressed the input.
And it goes deeper than just mobility. TPI differentiates between three categories when someone fails a screen. If you can't do the motion even with assistance — that's a mobility restriction, a hardware issue. If you can do the motion when someone stabilizes you but not on your own — that's a stability deficit, a motor control issue. The intervention is completely different depending on which one it is. Stretching a stability problem doesn't work. Strengthening a mobility problem doesn't work. You have to understand what is occurring at the tissue level before deciding the intervention.
This is why I see golfers who've taken dozens of lessons and still fight the same faults. It's not a lack of effort or talent. It's that nobody checked whether their body could actually do what it was being asked to do. The brain prioritizes completing the task over performing perfectly from a biomechanical perspective.
TPI calls these "hacks." If your thoracic spine can't rotate, your brain substitutes lumbar extension to fake a turn. That becomes reverse spine angle, and eventually it becomes low back pain. The swing fault isn't the problem. It's the symptom.
For me personally, this matters because I'm not just treating golfers — I am one. I have a spondylolisthesis. I was once told to stop lifting heavy. I got a second opinion, adjusted my approach, and I still squat heavy and run multiple times a week years later. The lesson I took from that experience is the same lesson TPI teaches: structural findings and movement limitations aren't life sentences. They're starting points. You figure out what the body actually needs, you address it, and you build from there.
Why TPI Certification?
So why did I get certified? Because TPI formalized a diagnostic system that connects physical capacity to sport performance using the exact logic I already use in the clinic. Screen first. Identify the root cause. Differentiate mobility from stability from coordination. Intervene at the right level. Retest. It's not a new philosophy for me, it's the same one applied to a game that many of my patients care about getting better and one I do as well.
If you've been fighting the same swing fault for months or years and tips and lessons haven't fixed it, consider that the problem might not be your swing. It might be what your body is working with underneath the swing. A TPI screen takes about 20 minutes and can tell you whether you're dealing with a technique issue or a physical one. That distinction changes everything about how you spend your practice time.
If you want to get screened or just want to talk through what's going on with your game click the link below to schedule your complimentary consultation. If it’s a golf issue we’ll discover that in the consultation and then go through a TPI Level 1 screen and you’ll walk away with a routine to help you improve what we found, if you need more than that we’ll address that as well.
Hope to see you soon,
Dr. Jake