Work the angles
I tried the 'golf swing beauty filter' — the results were surprisingly good
Alexandr Spatari
Cruising around Instagram recently, I encountered something that I had no idea existed. It came courtesy of Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher Shaun Webb and Best In State Mike Granato, the pair behind Athletic Motion Golf.
In a recent video they explain the important of videoing your golf swing from the correct angle—and the pitfalls you fall into if you don't. Granato, speaking in the video, calls the incorrect angle the "beauty filter for golf swings" because it'll mask a golf swing that is steep and over-the-top, and could lead golfers down a wrong path because of it.
"When the camera is positioned up near the chest looking down, it makes the swing look more shallow than it actually is," Granato says. "If you compound that by moving the camera out towards the ball line it exaggerates it even more."
Fascinating stuff that I needed to test for myself, so I enlisted the services of my boss, Sam Weinman, who didn't know he was being enlisted, but whose golf swing you can see below.
Sam sends the club slightly over-the-top on the downswing. It results in a high fade for his good shots, and a left-pull miss on his bad ones.
Shooting his swing from the golf swing beauty filter angle—which you can see on the left, Sam's slight over-the-top move disappears. The angle of the camera makes it look like he's swinging from in-to-out, maybe even about to hit a draw!
The ideal way to film a golf swing is with the camera position directly in line with the grip. From this vantage point, which you can see on the right, we get a more accurate look at what's causing Sam's ball flight. His club is tracking more from outside-in with an open clubface.
Simply put, the 'golf swing beauty filter' angle on the left makes Sam's swing look shallower, and less over the top than the hands-high down-the-line angle on the right.
Using the golf swing beauty filter isn't a bad thing, by the way. It just depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to look good, then go for it.
But if you're trying to get the most accurate view of the plane and direction of your golf swing via a camera, then always remember the best way to film your golf swing: Keep the camera so it's hands-high, shooting straight down the line.