The Setup Guide
How to Record Your Golf Swing
You don't need a launch monitor or a film crew — just your phone and a minute of setup. Get the angle roughly right and ProPlay.Golf can read your swing, match you to your tour-pro twin, and turn it into advice you can actually use. Here's the setup we use.
The Ideal Setup
Five things that make a clip the engine loves
None of this has to be exact. Tick off as many as you can — even three out of five gives you a clip that's well worth analysing.
1.Face-on, 8–10 feet away
Stand the camera directly in front of you, facing your belt buckle, about 8–10 feet (2.5–3m) back. Keep your whole body and the club in frame from address to a full finish. This is the single most useful angle.
2.Set it to hip height
Film from roughly belt level. The easiest reference on the course is the top of your golf bag or a pushcart handle — it sits at almost exactly the right height and keeps the angles undistorted.
3.Hold it in portrait
The golf swing is a tall, vertical movement, so a portrait (upright) frame keeps you large in shot with the least wasted space — and it's how the app shows your swing back to you.
4.Use good, even light
Natural daylight is ideal. Keep the sun behind the camera so you're lit up, not silhouetted. The clearer your body and club edges, the more precisely the engine reads your swing.
5.Add down-the-line if you can
An optional second angle — camera directly behind you, looking down your target line — reveals your swing plane and path. Two clean angles give the match engine far more to work with.
The Mount We Use
The Ulanzi R094 Super Clamp
The hardest part of filming yourself is holding the phone steady at the right height. A clamp solves it for good. This is the one we keep in the bag — it grips onto a golf bag, pushcart or trolley in seconds and you'll never need a playing partner to film for you again.
- Adjustable jaw clamps onto a bag strap, pushcart frame or trolley rail
- 360° ball head squares up the perfect angle in seconds
- Compact and tough — lives in your bag, no tripod to carry
- Standard 1/4" thread fits almost any phone holder
- Usually under £20 — a fraction of a dedicated tripod
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. We recommend the R094 because it's genuinely what we use.
No mount yet? Improvise.
You don't need to buy anything to get started today. Prop your phone against the side of your golf bag, a pushcart wheel, a range basket or even a water bottle — angled to hip height and facing you. Lean it back slightly so it doesn't topple, frame your full swing, and hit record.
It won't be tripod-steady, and that's completely fine. A slightly wonky clip you actually capture is worth far more than the perfect clip you never get round to filming.
The One Thing That Matters Most
Don't chase the perfect clip
The single biggest reason golfers never track their swing is that they wait for perfect conditions — the right light, the right angle, nobody watching. So the footage never gets taken, and the improvement never gets measured.
ProPlay.Golf is built to read everyday phone footage. Far more valuable than one flawless clip is a steady stream of ordinary ones: that's how you see whether a change is sticking, spot your patterns under pressure, and watch your swing genuinely improve over a season.
Get the angle roughly right. Hit record. Bank the swing. Do it often.
Free and anonymous to start. Takes less than a minute.
FAQ
Recording Your Swing — FAQ
Angles, distances, height, kit and lighting — everything you need to film a swing worth analysing.