How To Draw Lines On Golf Swing

How to analyze your golf swing from Down the line

Bill Schmedes

Bill Schmedes III, a.k.a "BS3 Golf" is a PGA Class A Teaching Professional from Rhode Island. He was named "Top 25 Golf Instructor in New England" by New England Golf Monthly Magazine. He can be reached via his website or on Twitter and Facebook.

Over the years there has been vast improvement in technology bringing virtually anything you're interested in straight to your fingertips. The game of golf and golf instruction is no different! Technology over the last ten years has not only changed the way I think as a golf instructor it's also changed how I teach. Improvements to cameras, shutter speeds, and golf instruction software are all things that have helped myself and thousands of other instructors around the world. The golf swing typically starts and ends in just over one second, so even the best eyes in the business can have problems catching everything without the aid of slow motion video. Now thanks to the SwingReader App by Ubersense, golfers all over have access to the same technology that I do! What makes SwingReader stand out from the competition is its ability to slow down the video, or change the frame rate per second, this allows you to see everything very clearly throughout your swing. They also provide you with an array of different tools allowing you to check out specific positions in your swing. You can also compare your swing to some of the best players in the world and then send that video to your friends, or better yet, your golf coach! After videotaping your swing there are certain positions you need to pay attention to when looking at both the face-on and down-the-line views. Below learn how to sequence through your swing from the down-the-line view.

Address

Golf swing analysis setup

A proper address position is one of the most important keys in the golf swing. I tell my students if you can't start correctly you won't end correctly! When looking at the address position in the down-the-line view I always make sure the player is in a nice athletic set-up position. An athletic set-up position shows the player with the appropriate amount of hip and shoulder bend (proper posture), a slight flexing of the knees allowing for the weight to sit in the balls of the feet, and the arms hanging naturally. A common theme I see in many players is poor posture at the set-up position. Typically their backs are too rounded and because of that the hips tend to sit underneath the player to much. Also, the second thing I see is players reaching for the golf ball at address; this can affect the players swing plane in the takeaway and downswing. That being said when viewing your video you should be looking for two things from this view. First, good posture: posture is one of the most overlooked important keys in the golf swing, if you don't start with the proper posture and you can't maintain that posture, you will have trouble with your ball striking. Look for a relatively flat back with your rear sticking outward, use Justin Rose as a good example, as the backside goes outward the knees will want to flex appropriately causing the weight to move towards the balls of the feet. Second, the arms should hang naturally from their sockets, if you're doing this correctly you should be able to draw a line directly down from the trail shoulder and it should run through the arm into the trail hand. Making sure you have a sound address position should be the easiest part of your swing to improve because the motion hasn't started yet.

Takeaway Plane

golf swing plane

How the club moves away from the ball in the takeaway is extremely important. What the player does in the first few inches of the takeaway can make or break the rest of the backswing. I begin by drawing a line that begins from the hosel of the club head. This line should run directly through the shaft of the club and bisect the body around the hips. This is what we call your primary swing plane line! The club head should trace this line until it's parallel to the ground or around hip height. If the head is on-top of the plane line the player either has too much arm lift or is too close to the ball at address. If the head is below the line the player is typically either rolling the hands in the takeaway, has an unstable lower body, or is too far from the ball at address. If you look at Justin Rose you can see his club head and hands are directly on the plane line at hip height, this is what you should be looking for. When watching your takeaway plane you should also be paying attention to the angle of the clubface. For the average golfer, I like to make sure that the angle of the clubface matches up with the players spine angle (player must be in proper posture for this to work, see above). If you look closely at the picture you will see I have drawn a line representing Ernie's spine angle. I then have drawn a line on the angle of the clubface, you can see how both lines are close to matching up, and this will ensure that the clubface is close to being in a "square" position. Continue reading →

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