Dr. melvin's full story

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 halfway 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 widely believed by many well-informed people that he knew more about the golf swing than anyone in the world.

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 was it.  "Golf is just too dangerous for you", he said. He told me he was no longer going to work with me. 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.

I made a rope tool
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, I took the towel off the rope and replaced it with a rubberized 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 were 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, the baseball would hit me on the funny bone.
I needed to swing something better than a rope
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.

From 18 to 0
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. I 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 a bogey. Not only did my handicap come down, but I added 100 yards to my tee shot.

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 who 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 who buy these clubs. The high handicap players, mainly me, were for whom this club was made. 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 Tempomaster®. 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. 

February 28, 1998
Before Jack died, he told me, "Doc, of all of the people I have worked with in my lifetime, 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 deathbed, but he did shortly before he died. I have been told the same thing by several other major teaching professionals. 

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 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 occasions 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 70s.

If you 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.