Severity
Severity is how much a swing fault is expected to cost you in performance. SwingVantage shows it as a priority label, such as High priority, and Motion Lab adds a Fix or Watch status.
Severity is the estimate of how much a fault is likely to cost you in performance terms — measured in strokes, points, distance, or accuracy depending on the sport. In SwingVantage, each known fault carries a set severity level that reflects how much that fault usually costs. A fault that produces a 30-yard slice on every drive is Critical — it costs distance, accuracy, and scoring on every swing. A fault that causes minor inconsistency on low-percentage shots is minor — real, but not worth prioritizing ahead of higher-impact issues.
Severity feeds the ranking. In a launch monitor diagnosis, Critical faults come ahead of High and Medium ones. That holds however many lower faults are present, because fixing the bigger fault should pay off most. Minor faults are noted but rarely become the primary recommendation while bigger issues remain.
Severity is estimated based on typical performance impact across the population of athletes with similar fault patterns. It is not a promise of what the fault is costing you specifically. A fault rated High may have a larger or smaller impact on your individual game depending on your other strengths and compensations. Severity is a useful prioritization signal, not a precise measurement of personal performance loss. It should be treated as the engine's best estimate of impact given the evidence, combined with your own knowledge of which issues are costing you the most in practice and competition.
Tips by skill level
Start with the highest-priority finding. It is the issue the system estimates is costing you the most performance. Even if a lower-severity finding feels more obvious or annoying in practice, the highest-severity faults are likely the root of most of your performance loss.
Once the most severe faults are resolved, smaller ones become your focus. Elite players often have no major faults left and are refining minor ones. At that stage, the severity differences between findings shrink, and contextual knowledge of your game matters more for prioritization.
Example
A path fault that produces a 30-yard slice ranks as a high priority; a minor tempo inconsistency ranks low.
How it shows up on video
Severity is not drawn on the video itself. In the report, it shows as a priority label next to the fault, and Motion Lab adds a Fix or Watch status. A costly fault is not always the most obvious one on video, so read the label rather than judging by eye.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a low-severity fault does not matter. It may still affect performance. Severity is a typical rating for the fault, not a measure of what it costs you.
- Prioritizing a visually dramatic fault over a less visible, higher-severity one — severity reflects how much a fault usually costs, not how obvious it looks.
- Expecting a severity label to shrink as you improve — the label describes the fault; progress shows when the fault stops being flagged at your retest.
- Ignoring low-severity findings entirely — low-severity findings often represent early-stage faults that can grow into bigger problems if the primary fault is addressed without awareness of the compensatory patterns.
In SwingVantage Motion Lab
In Motion Lab, each finding shows a Fix or Watch status, and the main issue carries a priority label, such as High priority. In its findings list, only the main issue can read Fix; the others read Watch at most. In a launch monitor diagnosis, each fault shows a Critical, High, or Medium badge, and that priority decides the order.
Frequently asked questions
How is severity different from confidence score?
Severity describes how much the fault is expected to matter for performance — how big the problem is. Confidence score describes how certain the diagnosis is — how sure the system is that the fault is actually present. A finding can be high severity but low confidence (the system suspects a big problem but does not have enough data to be sure) or low severity but high confidence (a minor issue the system is certain about). Both dimensions matter for prioritization: ideally you focus on high severity, high confidence findings first.
Can severity change over time for the same fault?
The label itself does not change: it is set for each fault type and reflects that fault's typical cost. What changes is whether the fault is still flagged, and how it ranks against the other findings in your latest analysis. Its real effect on your game can also shift as other faults are fixed.
Related terms
- Primary vs. Secondary FaultThe primary fault is the swing issue with the highest severity and impact on performance; the secondary fault is the most likely co-existing issue.
- Rules EngineThe rules engine is the core that checks your shot data and symptoms against sport-specific target windows to find the best-fitting pattern.
- Recommendation EngineThe recommendation engine ranks possible fixes by impact and confidence so you get one high-leverage priority fix — not twenty competing tips.
- Confidence ScoreA confidence score rates how much to trust a finding, based on how much good evidence supports it. SwingVantage shows it as a word, such as High, Moderate, or Low, rather than a number.
See it in a real analysis
Try SwingVantage on one of your own swings — free to start.