Laterality and performance in elite male golfers

Abstract

Human beings display laterilised behaviour. In sport, including golf, players adopt a right- or left-handed stance. There may be advantages in going against convention in the position of the dominant hand relative to golf stance. However, no work has investigated this in an elite sample of golfers or considered how various combinations of hand, eye, and foot dominance may be associated with elite golfing ability. This study aimed to establish the lateralised preferences of elite golfers, and how the combination of lateralised behaviours may associate with high-level performance. We elicited hand preference, eye dominance, foot dominance, and full swing stance in 71 male golfers all currently playing professionally on tour and ranked in the top 500 in the world. Performance was measured using rankings and ‘strokes gained’ statistics. There was an underrepresentation of left-hand dominance and left-hand stance in the sample, with a large proportion of players having ‘crossed’ eye dominance. There was limited association between performance and hand dominance, eye dominance and stance. However, higher ranking position was associated with right foot dominance and uncrossed combinations between hand, eye, and foot dominance. This study provides an enhanced understanding of lateralised behaviour in an elite golfing sample.