Tour Tempo: Golf's Last Secret Finally Revealed (Book & CD-ROM)

I have always struggled getting quick and duck hooking golf balls or coming out of shots and hitting irons off the heel. After a couple weeks of practicing the tempo explained in this book I can hit all my clubs well. I always struggled with a 4 iron. Today I maintained my tempo and flushed my 4 iron four times off the tee. They were all dead straight. This book gave me one of those light bulb moments. Every serious golfer should read this book.

There are a lot of good reviews here which discuss the general precepts of the book. Rather than rehash those, I'll discuss my own experiences.Last week I reached one of my personal goals for 2007 and broke 120 MPH with my swing, a speed rarely reached by amateur golfers. If I can do this - trust me - most people reading this can too. I'm a middle-aged engineer with a day job and family life like everyone else. And at 5' 8" and 134 pounds I've never been confused with an athlete. Unlike most golfers I know, however, I no longer spend endless hours tinkering and beating balls on the range in the hopes that something magical will happen since I discovered Tour Tempo.Like many other reviewers here, I've read all of the books and had all of the lessons. Most of it did very little or just made me worse despite my considerable effort and persistence. 3 years ago I bought Tour Tempo soon after the book was published after reading some favorable reviews. I read the book cover-to-cover the first night and tried the tones on the course the next time I played. I instantly picked up additional accuracy and distance with every club in my bag. My drives were 20+ yards longer.Was it a golf miracle? Of course not. No such thing exists. Slow, steady improvement is as good as it gets for me. I will say that nothing has ever given me the instant, sustained improvement as the concepts in this book.After a summer of additional improvement and accuracy I began to plateau. I realized that part of my problem was that I had ingrained bad habits from many years of practicing wrong. For instance, I tend to make the classic amateur mistake of letting my right hand get too strong on the grip. Fixing these errors and resisting the temptation of falling back into my old habits of beating balls on the range and thinking about mechanics has been a challenge. I suspect that this is trap where many people - including those who wrote less favorable reviews here - have fallen into. It took me years to build up bad habits and they haven't disappeared overnight.For the past year my improvement has come from steadfastly practicing with good tempo on every swing and using some of the other Tour Tempo products. In particular, they have built upon the concepts in this book with a "player" that has short game tempo tones for improving the rest of the game. The other products mentioned in the book have provided the resistance training to improve my swing speed.I'm not totally there yet, but I'm confident that I will become a scratch golfer in my lifetime. At each level of improvement I find myself slowly trusting my swing and natural instincts more and more. Instead of focusing on mechanics, I think about the rhythm and music associated with the tempo tones from this book and the game is more enjoyable as a result. (Hitting the ball 30 yards farther and straighter than younger guys twice my size sure makes it more fun as well).Let me conclude with another reason why this elegant book belongs on every golfer's bookshelf along side of Hogan's "Five Lessons" and other great works.Instructors have been videotaping golf swings in an effort to help students improve for about 25 years. Thousands of instructors, hundreds of thousands of students. Let's say for the sake of argument that 1 million golf swings have been recorded over this period and carefully reviewed by qualified pros. Is it conceivable that over this period of time a critical key to learning the golf swing was in front of everyone and nobody saw it? A relatively simple change that will instantly help almost all amateur golfers hit the ball farther and with more accuracy?And who would you expect to make this discovery? Most of us would expect that the golf equipment industry that spends millions on R&D - and even more on marketing its products to us - would make this discovery. Or perhaps legendary instructors like Butch Harmon or David Ledbetter.These expectations are natural because we live a golf world where big corporate money dominates all aspects of the game from instruction to equipment to entertainment. It is a personal joy for me to imagine the author of this book - the little guy, like us - uncover such a startling discovery that will ultimately change how all of us, pros and hackers alike, learn the game.It's an American story that would make Thomas Edison proud.

The entire book is based on improving your golf game through a faster, smoother, highly regulated golf swing (in time). The two keys here are hitting a 3;1 ration of backswing to downswing and hitting a consistent total time for the golf swing (just over a second). Of course this is all easier said then done and it's very clear that the book is probably best targeted for the golfer who is already shooting in 80s or below. The author provides the key to a good golf swing, the Y and L practice swings. This is represented in many golf books and videos as the "mini" swing. In this way, there is nothing original about the book, but the advice is probably good when he says that all good swings are rooted in mastering these two swings. So, if you are a golfer with a flawed swing that is mechanically flawed (aren't we all to some extent?), then a great deal of caution is required. Because the golf swing is fundamentally based on weight transfer, any fundamental must at least address this feature of the golf swing. This book doesn't mention it once (or if he does, it is in passing). The drills themselves are designed to put you in the right position to strike the ball, but are too static to help a beginning golfer. For example, the Y-drill, which is recommended in tons of videos and books (by many names), is about the final delivery of the ball from just below the waist to impact. In my opinion, he is on the money with this drill (as are all other golf teachers) as fundamental. However getting into this position is tricky business and forcing a swing to have a 3:1 ratio and fast doesn't guarantee that you'll ever get into this position. This is where you really need something else beyond the book. And quite honestly, the author is a businessman and avid golfer, it's pretty audacious for him to offer golf advice as a non-teaching professional. And although he hints that he is a teaching professional, it's not part of his bio on the book, and it's probably because he isn't really a PGA teaching professional.In summary, here is the takeaway ...Power and distance = club head speed which comes with a fast swingIf your swing is fast enough, there is no time to go wrong (assuming it's already polished)You WILL have sore muscles swing this fast since you are using your core muscles much more aggressivelyYou ARE at risk for a back injury swing this hard since the lower back is twisting with a great deal of torque (your body is not made for this kind of stress)You will improve your consistency IF you can work out your swing mechanics with the Y and L drills (but why didn't this happen with other golf books?)For the price of the book, it's definitely worth the very quick read. The CD has sound tracks so you can swing at different speeds all that follow the 3:1 ratio (allows you slightly slower swing speeds). But if your back is prone to injury, I'd stay well away from trying to achieve golf swings this fast. But the 3:1 ratio is what should be kept in check so you're not overly slow or fast in either the back or forward swing.Although the book asserts that this is the secret to a great golf swing, a great deal of caution is needed. The book provides a method to improve your golf game by regulating your temp to a 3:1 backswing to downswing ratio. This is very well established and although the author claims that he discovered this some time ago, it doesn't really matter who did it, it is verifiable through the use of video.

The book offers good advice if your backswing is very slow. But if you're reasonably competent -- i.e., you can get the ball in the air most of the time and headed toward the target -- getting the tempo of your swing to match the magical ratio isn't going to fix your faults miraculously. For me, I found that I still had to work on ground contact and face angle, which I feel are of paramount importance.I recommend this book only for early beginners, to get the right habits ingrained. Intermediate and advanced players won't get much out of it.

I found my swing tempo was too fast so consequently I had a problem with muscling the club from the top. I found that swinging in the rhythm suggested in the book really improved my ball contact and direction.Probably a lot of people have heard about the importance of good tempo but don't know how to achieve it. This book will help.

I absolutely recommend this tour tempo system. I was hitting in the 90's with occasional 88 or 89 at the most. Been playing 5 years. In the last month after only using this system for a few days I hit 87, 86, 87, 85, 83. All under what I usually hit and even in bad conditions with rain and wind. I'm a professional singer so can really feel the beat so it's easy for me. If you have no sense of rhythm it may take a little longer for you. I do advice warming up properly on the range first to get the rhythm set before you go out. Then just smile and swing.

great read. understanding the tempo of the swing has really helped my game. not finished working with it and grooving into my swing out on the course but there was an immediate improvement.. 5*

Slight problem re Disc but .Resolved in a professional satisfactory manner.

i've only practiced twice at the range listening to the tour tempo cd and am already seeing an improvement in ball striking, distance and accuracy, this really does work!

Very interesting book. Not easy to get the recommended swing tempo but I am working towards it. Results so far are encouraging.