Fred Couples

Frame 0 is a picture of how to stand to a driver: roughly 30 degrees of forward bend hinged from the hip joints with the chest over the toes, insteps at shoulder width, athletic knee flex with pressure through the middle of the foot, and the arms hanging freely under the shoulders so the handle sits low. There is nothing here a coach would touch.

Feet, knees and hips set one clean line down the target line at frame 0, the ball sits forward with visible tilt away from the target for the driver, and the address is completely still across frames 0-1 with no fidget. The shoulders read very slightly open to the foot line from this angle — minor, but it is the one line that does not quite match the rest.

From directly down the line the hands and handle are too small and shadowed to judge grip strength or face alignment, so that goes unscored. What is visible is good: the forearms are soft and connected in front of the chest, the hands hang about under the chin with sensible space from the thighs, and nothing looks gripped tight — though there is a small amount of extra tension in the trail arm at frame 1 compared with frame 0.

Frames 1-2 show a genuine one-piece move: club, hands, arms and chest go back together with no hands-first pickup, and the lower body stays braced with zero sway off the ball. The clubhead works slightly inside the hands sooner than ideal rather than staying outside them, and the wrists set a little late — the hinge arrives in a lump between frames 2 and 3 instead of building progressively.

The head and spine stay dead centered through frames 3-5 — no slide, no dip, no rise — which is the best part of this backswing. The shoulder turn gets to a useful but not full coil, and the trail hip gains only moderate depth, so the chest ends up doing a bit less work than it should. The arms stay reasonably in sync with the turn but start to outrun it late, which is what produces the slightly disconnected top.

The shaft at frame 5 sits on a nicely rounded plane, roughly halfway between vertical and flat — that is the tour-quality part and it proves you are turning, not lifting. But the hands have settled low and behind the trail shoulder rather than finishing high with width, and the lead arm has visibly softened and the wrists have over-hinged, so the club sags at the top. That loss of structure is why the downswing needs a re-shuffle before delivery.

Posture and head height are held beautifully through the change of direction — compare frame 5 with frame 6 and the spine angle is unchanged, no stand-up, no dive. The problem is the order: by frame 6 the shoulders have already unwound a long way while the hips have barely opened, so the upper body is leading the change of direction instead of the ground. Pressure does move into the lead foot, but it happens with the arms rather than clearly before them, and the shaft holds its plane rather than

Rotation never stalls — frames 7 through 9 show the body continuing to turn through the ball with no flip to rescue it, and the tight two-frame gap from top to strike shows real acceleration. But the pelvis does not clearly lead: the chest is opening almost in step with the hips at frame 6-7, so you lose the stretch that free speed comes from. The trail heel is also still planted heavily at the strike in frame 7 instead of being pulled up by rotation, which caps how far the hips can clear.

The head stays clearly behind the ball with the spine tilt fully retained at frame 7 — no stand-up, no slide — and the weight is stacked on a bracing lead leg. The hips are open at the strike but less than they should be given how far the chest has come around, a direct consequence of the trail foot still being anchored. The hands and clubhead are blurred and screened by the body at the strike, so shaft lean cannot be judged from this angle.

This is the best-graded part of the swing. By frame 11 the chest and belt buckle face the target with the hips fully cleared, the weight is entirely on the lead leg, and the trail foot is released onto a vertical toe. The position is then held perfectly still across frames 11-14 — that is balance produced by sequence. The motion overall looks slightly effortful through transition relative to how smooth the finish is, which is the one thing keeping this from top marks throughout.