Back in the day, golfers were dissuaded from doing major strength training. Big muscles were thought to be inhibitors of a good golf swing.
A couple players in the 1980’s started to lift and get pretty strong… Keith Clearwater and Bill Glasson come to mind. However, they weren’t super successful, so legitimate strength training was frowned upon.
It really wasn’t until Tiger Woods changed his physique and continued to win that strength training became a focus for the tour player.
Still, I see few players actually doing a barbell bench press. Most of them will opt for dumbbells instead, and some will perform a dumbbell bench press while lying on a stability ball to work their core.
That’s NOT legitimate strength training.
If you are completely untrained, you’ll get stronger from doing that stuff, but you’ll never bench 250 pounds.
Do you need to bench 250 to hit the ball further?
Not necessarily.
However, if you are interested in building your overall strength, the bench press is the best exercise for building upper body strength.
Why?
Because it allows you to push the most weight. The world record bench press is far greater than the world record overhead press.
This is why the bench press is included as one of the core exercises for building strength.
Below is tutorial from the Starting Strength Youtube channel that shows you how to perform this critical exercise.
