The American golf professional Jim McLean described the swing as a sequence of eight positions. The idea behind it is simple: a swing lasts about a second, and too much happens in that second to discuss it as one whole. Laying eight reference points into it gives you a language for talking about the movement.
The model became popular with coaches because it is usable without equipment: you can freeze a swing on video at each of the eight moments and compare those positions — between two players, or between the same player on two different days.
For each step: what happens, and what SwingIQ looks at when it places your swing next to your reference.
Address
The starting position, just before the movement begins: the stance of your feet, the bend from your hips, where the ball sits relative to your body and how your hands hold the club. Everything that follows departs from here.
In SwingIQ: a different stance or ball position from your best shot often explains in one go why the rest of the swing feels different.
Takeaway
The first movement back, until the club is roughly parallel to the ground. The hands do little here; the movement comes from the shoulders and the torso. A takeaway that runs too far inside or outside has to be corrected later in the swing.
In SwingIQ: the tempo and path of this first movement, because this is where the difference you only notice at the top begins.
Halfway back
Your lead arm is parallel to the ground. This is the moment that reveals how far your upper body turns and how your lower body stays stable — the tension you build through the rest of the backswing.
In SwingIQ: the turn of your shoulders relative to your hips, compared with the swing you were happy with.
Top of the swing
The highest point, where the movement changes direction. The length of your backswing is deeply personal: further is not better. What counts is whether you can accelerate back from this position in balance.
In SwingIQ: the position of your hands and the set of your shoulders at the top, plus how long you stay there.
Halfway down
The transition: the lower body starts turning back while the arms are still following. This is the hardest part of the swing and it happens at speed — in the order of tenths of a second. Much of the difference between a good day and a bad one starts exactly here.
In SwingIQ: the order in which hips, torso and arms get going; that is where timing gives itself away.
Impact
The moment the club meets the ball. It lasts less than a thousandth of a second and determines almost everything about the flight of the ball. Your position here — the set of your hips, where your weight is, where your hands are — is the sum of the five steps before it.
In SwingIQ: the sound of the strike determines exactly which frame is impact, so the comparison happens at precisely the same moment.
Follow-through
Straight after the ball, where the club runs on and the body keeps turning. You can no longer influence the shot here, but what you see does tell you what happened before it — a blocked follow-through points back to the transition.
In SwingIQ: whether your follow-through runs as freely as in your reference, or whether something is slowing it down.
Finish
The end position: in balance, weight on the front foot, chest to the target. Being able to stand calmly in your finish is one of the most honest signs that the swing was in balance — you cannot fake it if the rest was unsteady.
In SwingIQ: whether you hold the finish as steadily as in your best shot; wobbling often gives away a tempo problem earlier in the swing.
The 8-step model is sometimes used to tick positions off: does step 3 check out, does step 4. That is not how we use it. There is no position that is correct for every golfer — build, flexibility and years of habit make that impossible.
What the model is genuinely good at is locating things. If you know the difference sits in step 5, you know where to look and what to talk to your pro about. That is a very different conversation from a number.
The difference this makes
A verdict
Your swing scores 72 out of 100. Your shoulder rotation deviates 8 degrees from the model.
Something to work with
In step 5 your arms get going earlier than in your best shot with this club. Your hips are following instead of leading.
The 8-step model was developed by golf professional Jim McLean. SwingIQ is not affiliated with him or his organisation; we use his framework as a widely accepted way of naming differences in a swing.
Film your next swing and see straight away what is different from the day it worked.
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