Accessory Review: Leaderboard Swing Trainer, by Jeffrey Reed

Hands up if you feel inundated with a cornucopia of golf paraphernalia which promises to fix your swing? We’ve all been subject to gear and gadgets from head to toe, all promising to cure our slice, erase our hook, or rid us of the yips. Here’s a new product which has quickly surfaced above the ordinary products, and has jumped to the top of the leaderboard, thanks to a solid design.

The Leaderboard Swing Trainer, co-founded by PGA Tour star Stuart Appleby, appears to really be onto something in terms of offering a repeatable, fundamentally-sound swing. This training aid consists of two artificial turf platforms: one remains stationary, another slides along aluminum rails while attached to resistance cords. The Leaderboard breaks down the swing into four components: set; load; store; and explode. It strengthens the core swing muscles, while ingraining a repeatable swing. 

I had a chance to talk to Appleby about his new training aid, and asked him what makes his product different than the rest? “I’m a big skeptic,” says Appleby about the “semi-gimmicks” hawked on television and in the back pages of magazines. “There are plenty of products out there that claim they do this, claim they do that.”

Appleby says improving your game is “not about giving a tee that’s another inch longer. It’s not about having a 7,000cc head that’s going to make you even longer and straighter. It all boils down to, how efficient is your swing? And, where are the power leaks? And why are there power leaks? And how can we correct that?”

When I noted the importance of ingraining the golf swing, Appleby said I had hit an ace. “Yes, that’s it.” He said with the Leaderboard, you are “ingraining, you’re building, your solidifying, you’re developing, you’re conditioning.”

The Leaderboard is a credible training aid, with PGA Tour players like fellow Aussies Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy and Robert Allenby all using this swing tool. Says Scott, “I train with it, and then I am able to repeat the same feeling and get great results on the course.”

Before using the Leaderboard, Appleby says he “had a weakness, as most golfers do, in maintaining the proper shape through the impact and the backswing.” In 2005, Appleby ranked 19th on the PGA Tour in driving distance with an average of 300.6 yards. This year, the Aussie joined Gene Littler (1955-57) as the only players to win three consecutive Mercedes Championships. You can’t argue with those results.

Appleby believes the Leaderboard helps him “extrapolate the smallest amount of improvement” in his game, and he says the beauty of the Leaderboard is, it can help the mid- to high-handicapper, too.

The Leaderboard is available for $199.95 US plus $24.95 US shipping and handling, and comes with an instructional DVD with Appleby, a carrying case, and a free sleeve of Bridgestone Tour B330 balls.

For more information on the Leaderboard Swing Trainer, visit www.leaderboard.tv.