Compare your golf swing to a pro, checkpoint by checkpoint

Playing two swings side by side at full speed tells you very little. A tour swing is over in a blink, and if yours is a touch slower the two clips drift apart within a few frames. By the time both reach impact, you are looking at different moments.

Checkpoints fix that. Every swing passes through the same handful of positions, whatever its speed:

• Address, before the club moves.
• Top of the backswing, the frame where the club stops going back.
• Impact, the frame where the club meets the ball.
• Finish, once the body has stopped moving.

Pause on the same checkpoint in both clips and you are comparing like with like. Match the frames, not the clock.

The step-by-step analysis guide adds two more checkpoints (takeaway and transition) if you want to go further once these four make sense.

Two reference swings load with one tap:

• Rory McIlroy, driver. Use this if you are working on your tee shots.
• Tiger Woods, iron. Use this for anything off the fairway or the tee on a par 3.

Match the club. A driver swing and an iron swing look different at almost every checkpoint, and comparing across them sends you chasing differences that are meant to be there:

• With a driver, the ball sits further forward and the shaft is longer, so you stand further from the ball and the swing looks flatter from down-the-line.
• With an iron, the ball is further back and you stand closer, so the swing looks more upright.

If you only have one clip of yourself, film the club that matches one of the samples. A 7-iron against the Tiger clip is a good place to start.

Match the camera angle as closely as you can too. If the pro clip is filmed face-on and yours is down-the-line, the lines won't mean the same thing. The Rory clip is split-screen, face-on on the left and down-the-line on the right. The Tiger clip runs several minutes and shows more than one angle; from about the two-minute mark it is split-screen in the same layout. The filming guide covers where to put the phone.

There is no automatic overlay or synced split-screen yet. You compare one checkpoint at a time, and how the clips sit depends on your device.

• On a laptop or desktop, several clips can sit on the canvas together. Open a pro from the Pros menu, add your swing with Add swing, then drag the frames next to each other. The playback controls drive whichever clip you last clicked, so you pause each one separately.
• On a phone, you see one clip at a time. Tap + to add a second clip (your own swing or the other pro), then use the clip tabs at the top of the screen to flip between them. Your drawings stay on each clip when you switch.

The routine is the same either way:

1. Open the pro sample and set the speed to 0.25x.
2. Pause near address, then use the frame-step buttons to land on the exact frame.
3. Draw your lines and angles. Write down any angle the tool shows.
4. Repeat for the top, impact and finish.
5. Load your own clip and pause on the same four checkpoints.
6. Draw the same lines in the same places and compare the numbers.

Write the numbers down. Two angles on paper are easier to compare than two drawings on different screens.

Keep it to one thing per checkpoint. Three are worth most of the effort.

Spine angle at address

From down-the-line, draw a line from the tailbone up to the base of the neck. This shows how much you bend forward from the hips. Draw the same line on the pro frame.

You are not trying to copy the exact tilt, because height and arm length change it. Look for shape. A pro's back usually looks fairly straight. If your line bends at the shoulders, or you are standing almost upright, that is worth working on.

Leave the line on screen. It becomes the reference for the top and impact.

Lead-arm angle at the top

Use the angle tool on the lead arm at the top of the backswing in both clips: elbow first, then shoulder, then wrist. The tool shows the elbow angle in degrees.

Some bend is normal. What you are looking for is a big gap between the two numbers. A lead arm that folds a lot at the top usually means the swing has lost width, and that tends to cost consistency.

Hip position at impact

From down-the-line, draw a vertical line touching your backside at address. Step to impact and see where the hips are compared with that line. Then do the same on the pro clip.

If your hips have moved forward toward the ball and your spine has stood up while the pro's haven't, that is early extension.

At the finish, just check balance. Can you see yourself holding it, weight on the lead foot, like the pro does? If not, the cause is usually earlier in the swing.

A pro swing is a reference, not a template. Some differences are supposed to be there.

• Body type. Height, flexibility and arm length change how every position looks. A very flexible player can make a shoulder turn at the top that your body won't allow, and forcing it can hurt.
• Speed and tempo. Tour players swing far faster than most amateurs. Don't try to match how quickly they get from the top to impact. Compare positions, then swing at a pace you can control.
• Personal quirks. Many great players have a move that is theirs alone. Copying an individual quirk rarely helps.

The useful question at each checkpoint is: is my position in the same family as the pro's? Not: is it identical?

Once you have found your frame for a checkpoint, you can ask for a second opinion on it.

1. Pause your own swing on the same checkpoint you checked on the pro clip.
2. Tap AI on mobile or AI Coach on desktop, then Analyze Current Frame.
3. You get the swing phase it sees, up to three strengths, up to two fixes and one drill.

Only that paused frame is sent for analysis. Your video stays on your device.

The AI reads one still frame of your swing. It doesn't compare it with the pro clip, so use it alongside your own lines. If the fix it suggests matches the gap you measured against the pro, that is a good sign you have found the right thing to work on.