Off the tee · Fairway wood
What is Fred Couples's swing tempo?
Fred Couples's 1992 The Masters fairway wood is a 0.90s backswing into a 0.27s downswing — a 3.34:1 tempo ratio over 1.16s from takeaway to impact. That is slower through the backswing than the 3:1 ratio usually quoted for tour players. Timed by hand from tournament footage to 1/100 of a second.
0.90s
Backswing
0.27s
Downswing
1.16s
Total duration
3.34:1
Tempo ratio
The three marks
Every number above comes from these, and nothing else. Read off the footage by hand, in seconds from the start of the clip.
0.00s
Takeaway
0.90s
Top of backswing
1.16s
Impact
Source footage: 1992 The Masters, 10th. Raw marks: takeaway 3.47s, top 4.366s, impact 4.634s.
The shot
Fred Couples, 1992 Masters: his lone major, a green jacket at Augusta. A fairway wood off the 10th, played with the languid, dreamy tempo 'Boom Boom' was famous for: a smooth 3.34:1 stretched over a full 1.16 seconds. Feel the patience.
How this compares to “3 to 1”
The rule of thumb says a tour backswing takes three times as long as the downswing. This one is 3.34:1, which is slower through the backswing than that. Across the whole library the spread is wide enough that 3:1 is best read as an average of very different swings rather than a target any one player hits.
More hand-timed swings
Swing to it, don't just read it.
Elite Tempo plays this 3.34:1 as beats you can swing along to, then times your own swing the same way so you can see how close you got.