Striving for improvement in your game is addictive. When you’ve got the golf bug, all you can do is think about the game.
As a golf addict for going on 20 years, the feeling is all to familiar. I’m the guy that rehearses my swing any chance I get. In the living room. On the subway platform. At the bar. Heck, sometimes I even dream about my swing thoughts. What can I say, it’s a sickness.
Since last summer, I’ve been militant about improving my swing. I’ve always known how to score, but now it’s my mission to build a consistent, technically sound swing. That includes practicing two to three days a week, and learning all I can about how my swing works.
I’m fortunate to have plenty of top golf-instruction minds at my disposal, but sometimes, diagnosing my swing comes from other sources. For example, the app Sportsbox AI has become my go-to for quick swing diagnoses.
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How Sportsbox AI is helping fix my swing
Sportsbox AI is an app that uses motion-analysis kinetic software to convert videos of your swing (taken on your smartphone) into 3D models to provide real-time, corrective feedback. The app has the backing of some of the brightest teaching minds in the game, and was recently acquired by a group led by Bryson DeChambeau. The two-time major champ himself even utilizes the app to work on his own game, if that tells you anything about its swing-nerdiness.
Over the past few months, I’ve been using Sportsbox AI to analyze my swing after every practice session — and it exposed a couple of glaring flaws in my swing.
Too much hip rotation
One of the cool things about Sportsbox AI is that it provides a generally acceptable range for just about every movement in the swing. One such movement is called “Pelvis Turn,” which measures how much your hips rotate during the swing.
Early on in using Sportsbox, I noticed that my pelvis turn numbers were always in the red when I reached the top of the backswing. Upon further inspection, it turned out that my hips were turning too much, too early in the swing.
Now, a big hip turn may sound like something good, but it is easy to overdo it. When you turn your trail hip too much early in the backswing, it reaches the end of its range of motion. And if this happens before you finish turning your upper body to the top of the swing, you have to lift your arms to complete the backswing.
This is a problem that many recreational golfers have — and it was killing my swing. Sportsbox AI flags the issue in my swing every time it happens, letting me know when I need to watch how much I am turning my hips during the backswing.
When I first started using Sportsbox, my hip-turn number was as much as -51 degrees (negative is turn away from the target). But now, when I am swinging my best, I am closer to -39 degrees, keeping my pelvis turn numbers in the green.
Early extension
I’ve always had a bit of early extension in my swing, and Sportsbox caught it right away. One of the features of the app is its “Swing Flaws” feature which tells you if it catches a common flaw in your swing.
One way you can monitor for early extension is the “Chest Bend” number. When you bend at your hips and your chest gets closer to the ground, it helps keep your pelvis back and out of the way, reducing early extension and allowing room for your arms to swing freely.
With my old swing, my chest-bend number at the top of the swing was around -6 degrees, which is right at the edge of the range for the top of the swing. After seeing that, I made sure to bend at my hips more to initiate the downswing, and my chest bend number is now around +2 degrees.
This number is great for me to keep an eye on throughout the swing, as it tells me if I am early extending during the downswing. In my experience thus far, so long as I keep the chest bend numbers in the green, I do not early extend nearly as much.
If you’re someone who wants high-level analysis of your swing, Sportsxbox AI is a great option. The amount of data it throws at you can be intimidating at first, but once you begin to interperate what all the numbers mean, you’ll understand your swing like never before.
