Wii Golf? Mais Oui!

Okay, I admit it, when it comes to games, I prefer the sweat and tumble of the 3-D experience to holding a joystick and simulating away. Very twentieth century, I know! Then along comes the Wii Motion Plus technology that actually uses your entire body as the controller, and allows for some truly interactive thrills and spills. For we of the heather and gorse, legendary golf instructor David Leadbetter's "My Personal Golf Trainer" is a cheap and painless way to get your swing analyzed without flying to Florida and dropping $5K on an intensive one-on-one clinic.

The beautiful thing about Leadbetter's entry into this crowded field is that it is both a game and a learning environment. Instructional videos and drills pound DL's "7 Steps to a Better Swing" basics into your head, then off you go to the practice range and eventually the full 18-hole experience -- trees, water hazards and all. Grip, posture, alignment, ball position, coil, swing shape and tempo -- everything you need to know to go from hacker to smacker without passing Go!

The Motion Plus controller actually records the full golf swing from address to follow-through, which you can then compare to an ideal swing to find the weak spots. The results can be viewed in 3-D, from different angles and slowed-down to molasses-vision for detailed analysis. Hats off to the big brains at Design Data Interactive and Professor Leadbetter -- this is no toy, it's a bona fide living room golf clinic in chewable bits and bytes. See you in the fairway.....