GForce 7 Iron Golf Swing Trainer Review

GForce 7 Iron Golf Swing Trainer Review

On first inspection this felt like an unmanned hose and something that belonged at a trick-shot display. The other initial thought was how it looked and felt like a regular golf club apart from the whippy shaft.

The back story of the GForce 7-Iron Nxt-Gen 2022 swing trainer is that it’s been designed by PGA coach Stuart Small. When he passed his exams in 2000 he was thrown by the first lesson that he gave in that he wasn’t prepared in terms of the knowledge required. He had dismissed the biomechanics as they looked complicated but he then threw himself into the science behind the golf swing and he then developed the GForce Swing Trainers.

VIDEO: Discover why the GForce Swing Trainer was selected for Editor's Choice 2023

There is bundles of online help here to help with whatever fault that you struggle with, be it your takeaway, strike, path, shot shape etc and there are drills that you can quickly put into use with the swing trainer. The big one is the slice which is the curse for a huge percentage of golfers. The over-the-top move is generally caused by a poor transition and sequencing and the trainer prides itself in being able to help you produce a better move.

Thankfully this isn’t my poor shot but where I struggle hugely is my sequencing. Having done a biomechanics test years ago my claim to fame was being able to baffle the instructor so much that he had never before seen a sequence such as mine. Good players unwind from the ground up – I tend to rely on my hands to get me out of all sorts of poor positions and, if/when that does go wrong, my ball striking is worryingly inconsistent for a 6-handicapper.

The flexible shaft really helps you to understand the weight of the clubhead. The early shots tended to go right as the hands can’t quite ‘save’ the shot as with a normal club but, in time, you learn how not to throw yourself at the ball or flick the hands to square the clubface. Most of us can generally tell what sort of swing we’ve put on a shot and this is brilliant at exaggerating in both feel and shot shape what you know that you’ve just done. My 30-year fault is that I fail to make very much use of my torso but, with the better swings here, I produced a lot better shots.

A word too about the quality of the club itself. The best thing that you can say about it is that it’s legal for both play and practice which is very impressive for a training aid and also is a huge help for when you go back to hitting your own 7-iron – so what you learn from the trainer can be quickly transferred to your on-course game.

The original 2016 version was quite heavy so when switching from the swing trainer to a regular club it messed around with the timing of the swing because it required a different force to swing something heavy versus standard club weight. So they have brought the weight down with this new 2022 model to match that of a regular golf club which means that the transition from swing trainer to regular club was much easier and your timing was not affected.

The midsize grip is fantastic and the shots were travelling a very similar distance to a normal 7-iron. It was so satisfying that you would actually consider using it on the course as, when you get it right, it’s so easy to swing and the ball flight was certainly higher than my normal one which is very low.

What was interesting was that I lent it to a higher handicapper whose swing was fairly inconsistent and he struggled to keep it on the range to the right. An hour spent with the trainer would have done him wonders. As much as anything I would use this as the perfect warm-up aid; both to ease my body into moving again and to get some very immediate feedback about what works best in my swing.

This is a brilliant bit of kit, really clever. If you are able to put a good swing on a little backfoot punch you can pull it off, similarly I find it almost impossible to hit a high fade but this at least gave me a far better idea of what I need to do throughout the swing to make that shot happen.

Rory McIlroy is said to have used it and it’s advocated by the Pete Cowen Golf Academy. It is also the only USGA approved swing trainer so you can carry it in your bag and use it on the course which is another huge tick in its box.