SWING ANALYSIS
A Long Way Back Daniel Berger is healthy and contending again thanks to big swing changes BY DAVE ALLEN
WHEN DANIEL BERGER decided to shut things down following the 2022 US Open,
stead of hinging from his pelvis, Berger would arch his lower back, which put undue stress on the facet joints in his lower lumbar spine. Then, because his shoulders turned too flat and he strug- gled to get his arms up on the back- swing, “he would end up in a massive reverse spine angle to elevate the club,” Blackburn says. The reverse pivot led to the third and perhaps most destructive movement – an excessive lateral hip slide towards the target on the downswing, causing a lot of backward bend and way too much stress on the lumbar vertebrae.
he and his team spent a lot of time looking at 3-D motion capture hoping to pinpoint what was leading to severe lower-back pain. It didn’t take long to find the answers. “Some things are very obvious when it comes to causing back pain in golf and he had three of them,” says his swing coach, Golf Digest Teaching Profession- al Mark Blackburn. “The combination was murder on his back.” His problems started at address. In-
PHOTOGRAPH BY DOM FURORE
52 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026
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