Wondering what a TPI screening actually involves? Here’s how a Titleist Performance Institute assessment can improve your game and help prevent injury.
Key takeaways
- A TPI screening is a 45 to 60 minute whole-body movement assessment. It shows what is physically limiting your swing.
- It separates swing faults that are technique problems (for your coach) from physical limitations (for us).
- Book one if you have pain, a stubborn swing fault, or an injury comeback.
- Research links the screen to clubhead speed and handicap. It can’t reliably predict who will get injured.
So you’ve heard someone mention a “TPI screening” and nodded along like you knew exactly what that meant. Fair enough, I had no idea what it was before I looked into it either. It’s actually one of the most useful 45 minutes you can spend on your golf game. It has nothing to do with your swing plane or your short game. Here’s what it actually is. We run one on pretty much everyone who walks through our door, whether for injury or golf improvement.
What Is the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI)?
The Titleist Performance Institute is the world’s leading educational body on how the human body actually functions during a golf swing. Not how it should look on Instagram. TPI’s whole premise is refreshingly sensible. There’s no one “correct” swing, only the best swing your body can physically produce.
A TPI-certified practitioner can tell the difference between two kinds of swing fault. A technique problem is something your coach should fix. A physical limitation is something we should fix. This matters. No amount of lessons will fix a hip that physically can’t rotate far enough, and hasn’t for years!
At Links Health & Performance, TPI screening is the front door to our SwingLAB sessions and our LinksPRO golf fitness program. Our TPI-certified physiotherapist, Bryce Harry, and TPI-certified osteopath, Kristopher Sanford, run them out of our clinic inside Cromer Golf Club. Learn more about TPI on their website.
What Actually Happens During a TPI Screening?
A TPI screening takes about 45–60 minutes. It runs through a series of movement tests covering your whole body: hips, spine, shoulders, wrists, ankles, the lot. We’re looking at:
- Mobility and flexibility through the joints doing the heavy lifting in your swing.
- Strength and stability, particularly through your core and hips.
- Balance and posture, both standing still and mid-movement.
We score each test against the TPI framework and pair it with video swing analysis, rather than just eyeballing it. “That looked about right” isn’t really a measurement, however confident it sounds.
Who Should Get a TPI Screening?
Any golfer, any handicap. But a screening is particularly worth booking if you:
- Get pain during or after golf especially through the back, hip, shoulder or elbow. Golf shouldn’t hurt more than your scorecard already does.
- Have a swing fault lessons haven’t fixed. An over-the-top move, early extension, a wrist hinge your coach has mentioned four times now. If it’s not improving with coaching alone, it might not be a coaching problem.
- Want more distance or consistency without overhauling your technique first. Sometimes the fastest way to hit it further is fixing what your body can’t currently do, not changing what your hands are doing.
- Are coming back from injury or surgery and want to know where you actually stand before you chase your handicap again.
What We’re Looking for in a TPI Screening
We tie every finding back to a specific part of your swing or body. We’re not just handing you a page of numbers and wishing you luck. Limited hip rotation, for example, is a classic contributor to early extension or lower back strain. Your body finds rotation somewhere it shouldn’t. Restricted shoulder mobility often shows up as a short, inconsistent backswing.
Once we know what’s actually limited, we build a program around it. Our TPI golf assessment, run as a SwingLAB session, is the foundation of our LinksPRO program. We pair it with strength, power and grip testing on VALD ForceDecks force plates and the VALD DynaMo, so we can see what your body can do as well as how it moves. Instead of a generic gym routine that has nothing to do with your golf swing, we tailor the program to your body and your swing. We use real data, updated every 12 weeks.
What does the research say?
Does it link to performance?
The TPI screen does correlate with real golf performance metrics, not just theory. A cohort study of 11 amateur golfers looked at the golf-specific functional movement screen’s composite score. It correlated significantly with handicap (r = -0.78), clubhead speed (r = 0.70), ball speed (r = 0.67) and peak pelvis rotation speed (r = 0.69). Golfers who moved better on the screen generally hit the ball faster and scored lower (Speariett et al., 2020).
Does it explain swing faults?
The link to specific swing faults is also fairly well established. A study of 36 golfers found that some couldn’t complete an overhead deep squat or hold a single-leg balance on their left side. Those golfers were two to three times more likely to show early hip extension, loss of posture, or a slide during their swing than golfers who passed those tests (Gulgin et al., 2014).
Can it predict injury?
The evidence is weaker here, and it’s worth being upfront about. A prospective study followed 41 elite golfers for six months. Out of 30 different movement screening tests, only three could distinguish golfers who went on to develop low back pain. Those three were two rotational stability tests and a plank test, and even they had weak effect sizes (Quinn et al., 2023).
In other words, a TPI screen is genuinely useful for identifying what’s limiting your swing and your performance right now. It isn’t a reliable predictor of exactly who will get hurt. Personally, we like to view strengthening as building resilience. You can’t avoid all injuries, but our goal is to reduce the frequency and intensity of injuries.
Does warming up matter?
One practical detail the research also flags: your warm-up status affects your score. A crossover study of 24 adult golfers found TPI composite scores were significantly higher after a dynamic warm-up than before one, with a large effect size (Skibski et al., 2024). That’s one reason we don’t screen you cold off the street.
Book Your TPI Screening
A TPI screening is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If you’re currently in pain, pair it with an actual assessment from one of our Physios or Osteo’s. Don’t push through discomfort and hope. To find out what’s actually holding your swing back, book an appointment with our TPI and ASCA-affiliated team at Cromer Golf Club.
