David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer for the Nintendo Wii was unveiled in the U.S. at the 2010 PGA Merchandise Show.
It looks like a very cool and very useful tool for golfers who are looking to improve their game without having to brave the elements or find time to head to the range.
Incorporating David Leadbetter’s Seven Steps to a Better Golf Swing, “My Personal Golf Trainer” analyzes: grip, posture, alignment, ball position, coil, swing shape, and tempo. Offering instructional videos and drills within each of these seven basics, players can improve their swing step-by-step and then graduate from training mode to the practice range and onto a full 18-hole game where after each shot the golfer has the option to get feedback from David Leadbetter and suggested drills for improvement.
Taking advantage of the new gyroscopically controlled MotionPlus controller, introduced in June 2009, David Leadbetter’s “My Personal Golf Trainer” 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. It then offers the opportunity to compare the users own swing with an ideal swing to identify areas for improvement. Swings can then be replayed in 3D so the user can view his/her swing from any angle for detailed analysis.
This trainer then goes further and provides step by step corrective drills which it guides you through in an interactive process. To date, a few golf training devices have been available for the home, but have only given basic feedback limited to just the impact portion of a swing. “My Personal Golf 
Trainer” is comparable with professional golf trainers costing thousands of dollars and similarly provides complete analysis of clubhead speed, angle and force through the entire swing process, and includes weight transfer, swing plane and tempo.
My Personal Golf Trainer features an hour worth of golf video featuring David Leadbetter demonstrating a series of swing drills and fourteen interactive drills designed to correct various aspects of your golf swing.
Every swing you take is analyzed and gives you immediate feedback on what you’re doing wrong and how to improve it. Once swing faults are identified, David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer suggests drills that will improve the particular fault that’s been identified in your golf swing.
According to the gents at the booth, it is incredibly accurate, the Wii Motion Plus is a gyroscope designed to give you one to one feedback capturing a detailed swing that some of the big dogs in the space cannot duplicate.
As you play and get some swings logged, the software will customize for you a series of golf drills for you to follow to aid in improvement.
Presently the software only offers full swing golf tips, evaluation and drills and no short game or shot shaping drills or training are included.
That is something that they’re going to be implementing in the next iteration of the software.
Something else that broke my heart, this release of the David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer is for right handed golfers only, there’s been no functionality built into it for us southpaws.. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? First club manufacturers and now software companies! Curses on you all!
David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer release date is sometime in March, 2010 with a suggested retail price of $99 and they’ll be available in golf shops and sporting goods retailers throughout the country.
Something that shocked me and something, from a business standpoint, I disagree with, they’re not going to be selling them in electronic retailer or gaming stores. They’re very adamant that David Leadbetter’s My Personal Golf Trainer is NOT a game, but a training tool for golfers who are looking to improve their game.
Does this look like something you’d be interested in using and if so, do you think it’s worth the $99 SRP?
Here’s more 2010 PGA Merchandise Show posts.
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A fellow lefty I feel your pain.
The video game sounds gimmicky.
Does the Wii controller attach to something with a regular golf club grip? I can’t imagine the feel being anywhere near right. If I refuse to buy Callaway drivers because I don’t think the feel is right how would a glorified TV remote be any good as a training tool?
THANK YOU for your review. I also am a fellow southpaw and I was considering buying this program. In fact, I really could not wait for it to be sold in the US. I’ve been following it’s progress since late last summer. But nowhere could I find if it supported left-handed play. Now I know.
It’s a shame, really. I would think, from a software standpoint, that it would be fairly easy to incorporate left-handed play.
Hey Darren!
Fellow Lefty! Yeah, I’m with you, I was surprised that they didn’t incorporate left-handed play, like you said, it doesn’t seem like it’d be that difficult from a software perspective.. but who knows. What I do know is they won’t be getting $100 bucks from me. Seems like the industry norm to exclude us “right” handed golfers, no?
From the developer: Sorry about not incorporating a left handed option. It really is a lot harder than it sounds. We have a lot of interactive tutorials on how to get the right positions, and we provide live feedback saying, lift it higher rotate the face etc, we have hundreds of responses for each of hundreds of positions. A left handed player is the opposite directions, and rotations, as is the weight shift, leaning forwards is backwards when you stand the opposite way around. Much of the video presentation is set up for facing the screen, and your facing is also opposite. The ‘ideal’ paths for the swing planes which we use all have to be re-recorded as the paths are different. We have already completely filled the space on the DVD, with the current data, code and graphics. We did not have the spare space to even fit in a second language option, so duplicating the whole data for a left handed player was unfortunately not possible. Sorry !
As of April 10th, as it been released yet ? When and where can we expect to see it ? I read somewhere that only golf shop would carry it; I can’t imagine why they would, they would be competing against themselves or they would only offer it ridiculous mark up’s.
No left handed? Lame response. Check out the DDI entry at Wikipedia. Not inpsiring.
Stewart-DDI So the answer is no to lefties? While we may be a minority in the percetage of golfers, we ARE golfers who want to improve OUR game. Eliminating a market right off makes no sense. Golfers take their sport seriously. We are willing to spend hundres or even thousands of dollars on ways to improve our game The sales are out there waiting to buy this product. I can’t believe after you doing all this work to build what appears to be the best training product available, that adapting it to work for lefties is that much of a stretch. Please look into the possibility of engineering a Left handed version. It can’t be because you can’t afford to include a second disk at the $100 price tag. Tell us there is hope for a lefty version in the next release.
I can understand left-handed golfers being dissapointed, but reworking all the data – videos, voice recordings, data analysis responses would almost double the development costs. There’s a huge amount of data to create from scratch – it’s not just including a second DVD, and it’s not just replace right with left and left with right as a find and replace action in a document. So why would someone want to almost double development costs to add say a possible 10% in sales.
Another consideration would be that including a second DVD would be like offering a free second copy to everyone. Right hand owners could pass on their left hand copies for free or for a small profit. Likewise left hand buyers could sell the version for right handed people.
Last consideration is manufacturing stocks. Already the are two versions for different TV encodings PAL and NTSC. To overcome the reselling activities, there would have to be 4 versions.
None of this offers a manufacturer a commercial incentive to cater for left handers in this field. It’s not personal – just simple business sense.
When I was at the PGA 2010 show in Orlando, they were saying there might be a lefty version by Christmas. So has that been kicked to the curb? Should us left handers stop dreaming about it?
Darn! I bought it and did not realize you couldn’t play it left handed I thought for sure there was an option on there for it. Oh well for us lefty folk, I think Phil could probably take advantage of the Technology and hopefully come up with something Similar. His short game video was awesome.. By the way.
I just spent $80 on this program just to find out that it does not incorporate left handed instruction. This is total BS and Leadbetter should be ashamed for putting his name on this product. Does he not give lessons to left handers either?!?!
The other thing that irked me after reading the EXCUSES from people at how hard it would be to incorporate left handed instruction (which is crap) is why Wii or IMG academies chose not to put in bright red letters on the cover “RIGHT HANDED INSTRUCTION ONLY!!!”
Thanks for wasting my time and costing me a trip to the store to return this (if they’ll take it).
Used copy of My Personal Golf Trainer anyone?
I purchased the Wii program for $100.00 not realizing it didn’t support lefties. I opened and inserted into the Wii and not until trying it for the first time did I realize this program would not work for me. As a result of opening the product the Big Box store I purchased it from said they would not refund my money. No where on the product case does it mention “DOES NOT SUPPORT LEFT HANDED GOLFERS”. I feel as if I was take, for $100.00.
I am a lefty that bought it and I am disappointed as well. I lost $100 and the only upside is that my son is right handed and can use it. I am so frustrated for getting taken in like that. I am in a state of shock that they can get away with an overpriced game without dexterity options. I will never buy anything from that developer again EVER. Just wondering why EA Sports didn’t get the rights? At least they would have done the game right.
That is very unfortunate that the software doesn’t include lefties.
I happened upon this article while looking for some reviews and possible information, for me it seems that the software is somewhat buggy. It may have reached a limitation of the motion plus, software or wii motion plus. But it seems like I frequently run into a situation when the remote will not detect properly and it would like me to hold it in some strange position. I’ve found that making sure you are at a 90° or 180° angle and even just letting go of the remote buttons and retaking position seems to help. Overall I find this software to be extremely helpful, and fun.
But realistically, I think that they should market this for the Kinect. I think it would be a much more functional software on the Xbox Kinect since you can scan in your own equipment, body, etc… I know the Kinect wasn’t available at the time of this softwares inception and now I’m sure there are a few companies looking to lead that market.
Also, I think this would even be worth quite a bit more if it were to include some sort of specialized remote. I tend to have difficulty getting the correct clubhead positioning (I’ve heard from others also) in my experiences with the Tiger Woods games, and it carries into this software (though I find this software to be much more accurate).
I love this software, and even though I’ve only had a few hours to play it, since my wii is pretty much dominated by the children, through the remainder of winter I plan on developing a routine of at least 5 hours a week. The drills are extremely helpful as well as the instructional videos. Also, after a decent stretch of playing I can feel the effects in my core muscles (which do need quite a bit of development, especially after this long off-season
)
Anyone considering this, should definitely grab it (if you’re right handed) I think the price tag is definitely worth it and it’s provided me more instruction, and more extremely detailed instruction than my entire golf class provided). The information is actually more detailed than an instructor could be, the software can provide real-time information throughout your entire swing, and like the review says it suggests drills based on your previous swings. For anyone serious about improving their game, this is definitely a bargain compared to individual instruction.
I’m sorry…I mean I think it’s the right idea they have,but I dont think Wii will have any authority when it comes to these types of video games that analyze your swing mechanics. I think that the Xbox360 Kinect is going to have some pretty sick stuff come out in the next little bit that revolutionize games like these. We’ll see. But hey, it’s a good think Leadbetter is getting his name out everywhere right?