The most effective golf training club you will ever use!
About The Whippy TempoMaster
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I made a rope tool
I was not the greatest student. I tried hard, a little too hard. On one golf swing I broke three ribs because I was hitting so hard with my right side. On another swing I dislocated my left thumb. When I dislocated my thumb Jack took my club away from me and told me that that was it. "Golf is just too dangerous for you", he said. He told me he was not going to work with me anymore. We went into the clubhouse and he bought me a cup of coffee and then told me that if I would go home and learn to swing a rope over the next few weeks and come back then he would reconsider. I was not sure what he was talking about but I agreed. I really had no other choice.
At the age of 48 I decided to take up golf in order to attain some degree of physical fitness or at least an excuse to start exercising. I wanted to get half-way decent at the game so I took lessons from Jack Mann. Jack played on the tour with Hogan and Nelson and at that time worked mostly with active touring professionals. It was Jack who worked with Lon Hinkle to get his game back together after his automobile accident. At the time I was working with Jack it was thought by many well learned people that he knew more about the golf swing than most anyone in the world.
I made a rope object, and tied a towel to the end of it, so I wouldn't hurt myself, and began to work with it. I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was supposed to do but I messed around with it and after a couple of days began to understand what Jack was talking about. I got pretty good with the towel, and after about 10 days took the towel off of the rope and replaced it with a ruberrized baseball. Now this was a little dangerous because that baseball could hit you upside the head. Over the next 6 weeks I drove as often as I could to a driving range outside of Dallas where no one would recognize me and tried to learn to hit golf balls with that baseball on the end of that rope. It was not easy because the baseball really had no club face. However, after a couple of weeks I was able to strike a ball 150-175 yards with that baseball. Occasionally I would catch one square and it would go 200 yards. There was several other problems with this apparatus, one of which tended to produce a major swing flaw. This was that on the backswing if I did not raise my left elbow that baseball would hit me on the funny bone.
What I needed was a training device that would let me strike golf balls with a club face that I could square up to the ball and a shaft as close to a rope as possible. I made such a device. I used a regular driver and replaced the shaft with a very flexible material. It was so flexible that you could just about bend it double. When I tested it the head flew off after the 5th shot but I knew after the third ball that it was going to work. All 5 of those balls went dead right. That was why I knew it would work. I recovered the head, went back home, and then to the hardware store, and bought some better glue and put that club back together.
I needed to swing something better than a rope
I went back to Jack and over the next 9 months working with that club and Jack I dropped my handicap from 18 to 0. Six months after inventing this club I shot 69 from the back tees at Glen Eagles CC in Plano, Tx. Should have had 67 because on #4 the pin was up close and my tee shot landed 4 feet in front of the hole but backed off into the water. I thought I had made a hole in one but ended up with bogey. Not only did my handicap come down, but I added right at 100 yards to my tee shot.
From 18 to 0
I never had any intention of getting into the golf business
I never had any intention of going into the golf business. I made the original Whippy TempoMaster just for myself. I knew it would work for me but I never considered that there would be a demand for it. However, over the next few months a demand presented itself. I made these clubs one or two at a time mostly for touring professionals and teaching professionals that saw me working with it when they visited Jack. The really good players knew immediately what it was for. Even now these players are the ones that buy these clubs. The high handicap players, mainly me, was who this club was made for. It was made so as to force them to feel what it is like to swing the golf club instead of hitting with their hands. Unfortunately, except for the most open minded, these individuals are slow to accept The Whippy TempoMaster because they cannot visualize how they could strike a golf ball with this club. Simply stated, if they are right sided hitters, hitters who hit from the top then there is no way they can strike a decent shot with The Whippy. The Whippy TempoMaster, I have been told, and I believe this is true from my own experience, is the only tool that can convert an over the top hitter into a left sided controlled swinger with right sided power. My wife told me I was an idiot if I did not get a patent on this club. I did apply for one and received it. The demand increased and I was forced to set up a manufacturing facility.
The Whippy TempoMaster was introduced at the PGA Merchandise Show
The Whippy TempoMaster, that is what I named it, was introduced at the PGA show in Orlando. We sold out our entire inventory in the first two hours. These sales were to teaching and touring professionals. We sent over 40 putters out on the PGA, LPGA, and Nike tours the first day of the show. The Whippy TempoMaster was the only golf training club in "Golf Illustrated" 10 best training devices. Currently it is being used by over 70 active touring and long drive professionals. It is the only training device that I know of that touring professionals will actually purchase. Vijay Singh, Sandy Lyle, and Paul Azinger have been seen having long drive competitions with The Whippy. Vijay has a full set of Whippys. Azinger and Lyle have almost all of The Whippys.
February 28, 1998
Before Jack died he told me "Doc, of all of the people I have worked with in my life time you are the only one who ever changed the method of applying power to the golf ball and the only reason you could do it was because of that whippy golf club you made. It is the only training device ever made that actually works." He did not tell me this on his death bed but he did shortly before he died. I have been told the same thing by several other major teaching professionals. Currently, The Whippy TempoMaster is used by nearly every major teaching professional in the United States.
Originally I made only 4 clubs, the driver, 5-iron, PW, and Putter. Now we make them all. I started making the full set really just for myself. Summer before last I shot it one under in Austin, Tx with a full set of Whippys. However, since making the full set there are a bunch of people who have bought them to use on the course. They are using them in practice rounds. Whenever they need to score they will use their regular clubs. There is one player on the southern Senior Tour who uses the Whippy Putter in competition. The Whippy TempoMaster does conform to USGA rules. A full set consists of Driver, 3-Wood, 2-iron through SW and Putter. In left hand we make only Driver, 3-Wood, 5-iron, 7-iron, Pitching Wedge and Putter.
The Whippy TempoMaster does work
There is one player that I worked with who was written up in The Dallas Morning News. I met Art on the driving range. I have a problem in that if I see someone really struggling with their golf swing I cannot help but intrude. I showed him my Whippy Golf Club and told him what I thought his swing problem was. Art was receptive, and I worked with him on three occassions over the next 6 weeks, and he worked with The Whippy TempoMaster in between those sessions. He entered a tournament in an attempt to win an amateur spot in the Byron Nelson Pro Am. In competition he shot a gross 76 which gave him a net 58 with his 18 handicap. He won the spot. He was not sandbagging. He was a legitimate 18 before I met him. He had never broken 95. It was Art that made us redesign the head of The Whippy TempoMaster. He learned to hit it so hard that he would "cave in" the face of the club. The last time I saw Art he could still hit it outta sight and he scores consistently in the 70's.
If you really want to feel what it is like to swing the golf club instead of hitting with your hands then The Whippy TempoMaster is what you need. It works. It is the only training aid that will force you to feel the swing. Feel is the only thing you have to work with. If we can help you give Tom a call at your convenience or email him.
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The story of Dr. Melvin's creation
Dr. Melvin with a few golf balls we found.
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