Shoulder Tilt — Top vs Impact on a Down-the-Line Swing
The Shoulder Tilt panel answers one question: did your shoulders steepen from the top of the backswing into impact, or did they flatten? Tour players typically get steeper through the ball. Flattening — the shoulders laying down — is the pattern that leaks width and sends the club under the plane.
It is a two-frame picture, not a live overlay. One frame is the top. The other is the post-impact frame where your chest is most square to a down-the-line camera. A line is drawn through your shoulders on each frame, and the panel reports both angles plus the signed change.
Where to find it
| Device | How to get there |
|---|---|
| iPhone / iPad | Sessions or All Swings → tap a swing card to open Video Review. Tap the panel type (the name or icon at the top of the panel) and choose Shoulder Tilt. |
| Mac | Same path from the sidebar, or double-click a swing. Then switch a panel to Shoulder Tilt. |
The panel is offered when the swing has a down-the-line video and the filmstrip has found the top, impact, and follow-through frames. Face-on video does not get this panel — the shoulder plane is foreshortened from that angle, so the number would be a lie.
When this swing’s analysis changes, the panel refreshes its measurements while keeping the existing pictures visible. Processing another swing does not refresh this panel.
If analysis is still running you'll see a spinner. If the filmstrip hasn't been computed yet, open Filmstrip once so positions can be found, then come back. If the clip has no golfer in it, the panel says so instead of inventing a line.
Once the panel More menu lands, Help at the bottom of that menu opens this article.
What you're looking at
On iPad and Mac the two frames sit side by side. On iPhone you swipe between them. Tap a frame to open it full screen.
| Label | What it is |
|---|---|
| Top | Shoulder tilt at the top of the backswing (the filmstrip's top frame). |
| Impact | Shoulder tilt on the post-impact frame where your chest is most square to the camera — the fairest frame for measuring the line. |
| Tilt Change | Impact minus Top, signed. Positive means the shoulders steepened. Negative means they flattened. |
The line on each frame is your two shoulders. The degree number is the tilt of that line away from horizontal, corrected for the video's aspect ratio so a portrait clip doesn't stretch the angle.
How to read the change
- Steepened (positive change) — the shoulder plane got more upright through the ball. That's the pattern the grade is looking for, and more steepening is not counted against you.
- Flattened (negative change) — the shoulders laid down from the top into impact. That's the fault. A little is a caution; a lot is a red flag.
The number lives next to the frames so you can see the line that produced it. If the Top frame isn't actually the top, or impact is a frame late, nudge those positions in the Filmstrip and the panel will recompute.
How this is graded
Shoulder Tilt Change is a one-sided grade: only flattening is penalized. Steepening — any amount — stays in the good band.
Defaults (you can change them in Settings → Posture Grading):
- Green if the shoulders steepen at all
- Yellow down to about 5° of flattening
- Red beyond that
The same setting is what colors the grade on swing cards and in Session Stats. Tighten the band as the pattern gets more consistent.
How this is different from Posture Check
Posture Check is address vs impact: spine tilt, plus hip depth (down-the-line) or lateral shift (face-on). Shoulder Tilt is top vs post-impact on a down-the-line camera only. Use both. Spine tells you whether you held your posture; shoulders tell you whether the plane steepened when it should.
Tips
- Film down-the-line, standard lens, on a tripod. A camera a few feet off the target line, or the ultrawide lens, bends the shoulder line.
- Give the filmstrip a clean window — a little setup before the takeaway and a little finish after impact.
- If the Impact frame looks like a follow-through pose you wouldn't measure, that's still the frame the math picked as most square to the camera. Trust the line more than the pose name.
Back to the full screen tour: Video Review — Reading Your Swing.