The P1–P10 golf swing positions, explained

Updated 6 October 2026

"You're across the line at P4." "Get the shaft under your trail shoulder at P6." Coaches talk about a golf swing in numbered positions because a feeling is hard to share and a frame is easy to point at. The P-system gives each important frame of a swing a name, P1 at address through P10 at the finish, so a golfer, a coach and a piece of software can all mean the same moment.

The system is widely credited to Mac O'Grady, and was spread by his students, among them Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer of Stack & Tilt. The numbering below is the one used by most instructors today.

The ten positions

Everything here is described for a right-handed golfer. For a left-hander, swap left and right: the lead arm is the right arm, the trail arm the left.

The pattern is worth noticing: the backswing and the follow-through mirror each other. P2 and P8 are both the shaft parallel to the ground, P3 and P9 both an arm parallel to it, and the downswing passes back through the same checkpoints, P5 and P6, on its way to impact.

P1: Address

The golfer set up over the ball, before anything moves. Grip, posture, ball position and balance are all decided here, and most of what goes wrong later was set up at P1. It is also the reference everything else is measured from: how far the head has moved, or the hips have turned, is measured against where they were at address.

Common fault: a poor grip or posture, which the rest of the swing then has to compensate for.

P2: Shaft parallel, backswing

The end of the takeaway: the club has swung back far enough that the shaft is parallel to the ground.

Common fault: too much wrist movement early, breaking the triangle formed by the shoulders and arms, and a clubface that is already open or shut.

P3: Lead arm parallel, backswing

The lead arm reaches parallel to the ground on the way back.

Common fault: the lead wrist cupping (extending) here, which opens the clubface.

P4: Top of the backswing

The highest point of the backswing, where the club stops going back and starts coming down.

Common fault: a cupped lead wrist at the top. Most good players have a flat or slightly bowed lead wrist here.

P5: Lead arm parallel, downswing

The lead arm back at parallel to the ground on the way down.

Common fault: this is where casting, early extension and flipping begin to show: the club releasing too early, or the hips moving towards the ball.

P6: Shaft parallel, downswing

The shaft parallel to the ground again, just before impact. Many coaches treat P6 as the most telling position in the swing, because by now there is little time left to correct anything.

Common fault: an open clubface, or a shaft that is too steep rather than sitting under the trail shoulder.

P7: Impact

The moment the club strikes the ball, and the only position that directly decides where it goes.

Checkpoints: a square clubface, the shaft leaning towards the target, the weight shifted onto the lead foot, and the hips and chest already open.

P8: Shaft parallel, follow-through

The shaft parallel to the ground after impact.

Checkpoint: both arms extended, with the trail arm rotating over the lead. A lead arm already bent here often goes with a cupped lead wrist at impact.

P9: Trail arm parallel, follow-through

The trail arm reaches parallel to the ground after impact: the mirror of P3.

Checkpoint: balanced on the lead foot. A golfer still rebalancing here was usually manipulating the club earlier in the swing.

P10: Finish

The end of the swing: the body facing the target, the hands high around the lead ear, and the weight on the lead foot.

Checkpoint: being able to hold the finish until the ball lands. If you can't, the balance problem started earlier.

Positions are checkpoints, not a swing

It is tempting to treat the P-positions as poses to copy. They are better thought of as checkpoints: places to stop the video and look. The forces in the swing move the ball, not the positions, and a swing that passes through textbook positions with the wrong timing can still miss the ball. What the system gives you is a shared vocabulary for comparing one swing with another, or with a model, at the same moment.

How Swing Analyzer finds the positions

Swing Analyzer tracks the golfer's body through a video and names the positions automatically, so you can jump straight to P4 instead of scrubbing for it. It finds seven of the ten from the body and the sound of the strike:

• P7, impact, is the frame where the strike was heard. Every other position is placed relative to it, before or after.
• P4, top of the backswing, is where the lead hand stops rising before impact and turns back down. Hands tend to hover at the top for a few frames, so the app takes the middle of that hover, and shows how many frames it could reasonably have been.
• P1, address, is where the hands began their one continuous move to the top, working back from P4. A waggle is recognised as a waggle, not taken as the start of the swing.
• P3, P5 and the follow-through arm position are found where the lead arm passes through horizontal, within 10 degrees, in the backswing, downswing and follow-through.
• P10, finish, is the highest the hands get after impact. Golfers rarely hold perfectly still at the finish on the range, so the app doesn't wait for them to.

P2, P6 and P8 are not found yet. All three are defined by the club shaft, and the app tracks the body, not the club. They are listed as needing the club rather than guessed at from the arms.

One difference from the standard definitions: in the follow-through, the app currently measures the lead arm passing horizontal, where the standard P9 is the trail arm. The two happen close together, but they are not the same frame, so treat the app's P9 as approximate.

The app works out which hand leads from which arm stays straight at the top, assumes a right-hander when it can't tell, and lets you set it.

A position the app can't find is listed with the reason rather than left out: not in this swing, needs the club, or no strike recorded. Without a strike, the backswing and follow-through positions can't be told apart, because only impact separates them.

What you can do with them

• Jump to any position from the list, or see them all as a page of stills.
• Compare two swings aligned on their positions. Rather than matching frame for frame, the app lines up the positions both swings share, so the top of one backswing plays against the top of the other even when one golfer's tempo is slower. It needs at least two shared positions.
• Overlay one swing on another, lined up on the golfer's hips and shoulders at address.
• Measure tempo from them: the backswing is P1 to P4, the downswing P4 to P7.
• Ask for coaching on a swing, which looks at the frames at each position and ties each fault it finds to the position it was seen at.

For positions to be found reliably, the whole body has to be in the frame and the strike has to be audible. See how to film your golf swing for analysis.