Martin Hopley
By

The My Personal Golf Trainer for the Nintendo Wii solves a problem many golfers have. We all want to get better and improve and accept the need for lessons, but cost and time usually prevent us from doing so. However My Personal Golf Trainer offers you a lesson with Leadbetter in your living room.

David Leadbetter is renowned for his work with Nick Faldo and many other world class golfers over the last 30 years and now you have the chance to have a tailored lesson from him at a fraction of the cost and you don’t have to go to Florida either!

Using the Wii Motion Plus controller and a Wii-Fit Balanace board, My Personal Golf Trainer analyses the movement of your arms and body during the swing. It is the first home golf product to record and analyze a full golf swing from address to backswing, impact to follow through, in three dimensions and over time – all on a home TV screen.

Each swing is recorded and then you can replay and analyse it using the types of tools you normally see on top of the range video analysis systems. To help you improve David Leadbetter then offers instructional videos and suggests drills for each of the seven basic components of a golf swing: grip, posture, alignment, ball position, coil, swing shape, and tempo from his best-selling ‘7 Steps to a Better Golf Swing’ principles.

You can improve your swing step-by-step in easy stages, following on-screen instructions, and can then graduate from training mode to the practice range, and finally onto a full 18-hole golf game where the golfer can choose to receive feedback from Leadbetter, including suggested drills for improvement, after each shot played.

Watch the video below to see more.

Review

Start the My Personal Golf Trainer software on the Wii and you go through some intro videos and set up instructions which is a little time consuming but is required.

To use My Personal Golf Trainer you hold the Wii remote with both hands and put your left thumb on the 1 and 2 buttons and your right index finger and right thumb on the A and B buttons, which enables you to form a neutral golf grip. The Wii controller is obviously a little thicker than a real golf club, but at least you have you hands in the right position relative to your body.

From there you can go through the practice drills to work on a given area of your swing or set up. However if you are a reasonable golfer you are probably better going to the driving range to start making some swings.

This is where My Personal Golf Trainer really comes into its own as the ability to see the path and plane of your swing on screen, pause and view it from any angle in 3D and compare to the ideal swing is excellent. From this area David Leadbetter will recommend some drills for you to do using video clips and then you can try again after you have worked on them and track your progress over time with the Skill Tracker.

One area that is also very useful is the balance and weight transference feedback you get using the balance board is also very good. It is probably one of the most useful aspects of My Personal Golf Trainer for lower handicappers, although taller players may find the width of the balance board a bit narrow for their normal stance.

There is also a course mode for you to take your new swing game to an 18 hole course and to work on your course management. With only one course it is more of a practice facility then a golf game, but is useful nonetheless.

IMG Academies and Data Design are behind My Personal Golf Trainer and they are keen to emphasise that this is a comprehensive high end teaching aide rather than Wii golf game and priced at almost twice as much as a normal Wii game it certainly is positioned for this market.

On one hand it is costly but compared to a live lesson with Leadbetter it is a bargain and gives you access to all the analysis tools and drills that were previously only available to top professionals.

If you are a beginner or an aspiring mid to low handicapper then we think you will benefit from using My Personal Golf Trainer . The software will help you to improve your posture, weight transference and swing positions as well as helping you to understand how this affects your angle of attack and shot shape.

However the Wii remote is obviously thicker than a normal grip so you will need to combine this with using a real club on a range to ingrain your new swing before taking it to the course. If they could link the Wii to a device like the Leadbetter Swing Setter that looks and feels more like a club then they would really be on to a winner.

Overall My Personal Golf Trainer on the Nintendo Wii is much better than an instructional video or book because of the personal interaction and is a very impressive use of the technology available with the Nintendo Wii platform.

Golfalot Rating:

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More information at www.mypersonalgolftrainer.com

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