What can you get out of this tutorial?

It will help golf instructors understand the new things they are hearing that could apply to what they teach. It may also disabuse them of things they have heard over and over in the past that are, frankly, wrong.

It will show golfers diligent enough to slog through it, and moreover to practice as much as it takes, some new things about how to swing that are different from the traditional golf swing.

It will allow you to read some of the published papers and articles in journals on biomechanics, sports medicine, and kinesiology. You might, or might not, be able to read and follow the details, but you should be able to understand what the results are. You will also gain an appreciation of how science figures out what is going on in a golf swing.

You may be able to better understand other things about golf besides swing biomechanics, because now you know the physics. Some of my examples relate to golf, but not specifically the biomechanics of the swing; I talk about golf clubs, golf balls, and their interaction. I hear golf instructors and golfers discuss these topics at length, so I am not hesitating to bring them up in this discussion. They illustrate a golf-relevant point of physics, and they may be easier to understand in terms of a club or a ball.

A few points in the use of this tutorial:

If you choose to read or skim it from beginning to end, there are "next page" and "previous page" arrows at the top and bottom of each page.

Below is a table of contents of the course, with links to the pages. You can dive in where you wish, but be forewarned that the material assumes you know and understand what came in earlier pages.

It is organized in two "books": Principles and Applications.

The "Principles" section is a tutorial on the physics and biology you will need for a quantitative understanding of golf biomechanics.
The "Applications" section applies those principles to golf. It covers my current (2023) understanding of the swing, and draws upon published papers and articles -- and gives you links to them for more detail.

I do expect you to know a little math. It is all stuff you should have learned before or in high school, including:

Eighth grade algebra. Solving simple equations, and manipulating equations with multiple letters as unknowns.
Eighth grade trigonometry. We may use a bit of ninth and tenth grade stuff, but we'll develop what we need; I don't expect you to know it when we start.
Basic geometry, at least the terminology.
How to read and understand graphs. Seriously, folks! Understanding graphs is a survival skill in today's world anyway.

Every now and then, I hear someone say (or see them write on social media), "Well, how many equations have you had to solve this year? Learning that was a waste of time." And I shake my head. If you are like that, I hope I can convince you otherwise. A sense for algebra is absolutely essential to thinking quantitatively -- about golf and about almost anything.

You should pay attention to the examples. The deeper we get into the principles, the more opportunity to include golf situations as examples, and I try to do so whenever I can. Even if you don't sweat the numbers in the examples, it is essential to understand what the problem was and roughly how we got to the answer. Often, the answer itself is enlightening; I will try to discuss the message in the answer whenever possible.

Occasionally there will be an optional point where you may get some deeper insight if you can handle the math. Such optional notes will be inserts with a green background, and might even be listed in green in the table of contents. But they are optional! You can skip it if your math skills can't deal with it. You will not have as deep a grasp of the material if you skip it, but you will still have a decent working knowledge.

Some, certainly not all, of those green notes will require more math than the bullets in the list above. Occasionally, I may explain something in terms of calculus or some other branch of math or science. Again, it may be an opportunity to grasp a little better the concept I am explaining, but you will still have a decent working knowledge of my point even without the green note.