How Pro Long Driver Josh Jackson Uses Valor
About Josh Jackson
Josh Jackson, golf instructor and professional long driver, began playing golf at the age of 12 with his father. The rest is history.
He fell in love with the sport in his young adult years, moving away from a short stint with collegiate-level football to pursue golf. Now, the 6’1” world-ranked long driver can drive the ball over 400-yards with a club head speed of 154.8 mph and a ball speed of 222 mph.
In an interview, Jackson emphasized the importance of proper technique in hitting a golf ball. The amount of speed and distance he can generate all depends on his positioning and mechanics.
Josh’s Use of Valor
Josh has been using Valor, our proprietary wearable motion capture system, for about a year now.
“I use Valor as much as I can to figure out how I can correct certain techniques or movements during my training,’’ said Josh.
He enjoys seeing different angles and measurements of his movement that he previously had not been able to study. With this new knowledge, he is able to make changes in his swing that has helped him develop his technique and speed up his training.
“For long drivers, we try to move as fast as we can and hit the ball as straight as possible. I usually make sure that I’m loading my body up correctly before my backswing and downswing with Valor.”
Although he does not have a set schedule for when he uses Valor, Josh brings out the suit every time he notices that he is having an off-day with his swing. From there, he studies the graphs and metrics shown in our software to pinpoint areas in which he can improve and work from there.
“If I see a big number on the Launch Monitor, I’ll revisit my session in the Brave app to study what went right with my swing. I try to understand what I did differently in that swing to see if I can slowly increase the numbers on the Launch Monitor going forward.”
So far, Josh has seen lots of improvement in his swing, thanks to Valor. He recalls that in one of his first sessions with Valor, he noticed that his better swings happened when he slightly relaxed his arms and moved his body harder. He claims that he would not have found this out without the help of Valor’s software.
He also recounts that in another session, he was able to improve his club head speed by 4 mph — something that normally would have taken him months to be able to achieve!
“That’s a lot when you’re moving at the speed I am!” Josh said.
Valor in Josh’s Future
Josh is moving to Ohio in the next month, where he will serve as a golf instructor for a new facility. He is excited to experiment with the existing technology in the facility, and bring Valor with him for his new athletes to try out. He hopes to use Valor on his athletes weekly to understand how they’re moving and tracking improvements over time once it includes optimization tools. One day, he would even like to use Valor every day on athletes.
“I really can’t wait to see where [Brave] goes. I get texts every month about new features and software updates — I’m just really excited to see [Valor] generate optimal numbers and help out many more people with their movement.”
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Written and edited by Julia Duarte. Julia is a second year at the University of Virginia, intending to study Global Public Health and English. She’s interested in world-changing technologies that make an impact on humanity on a global scale. Driven by her passion for writing, she helps Brave spread their message: motion capture made accessible. In her free time, she enjoys journaling and watching episodes of The Blacklist.
