Tour Tempo Player Package Review

Tour Tempo Player Package with Tour Tempo Book

Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: A useful upgrade from the original book.

I reviewed the Tour Tempo instruction book a couple of years ago and thought that it offered some interesting insights into the golf swing. Using high speed video, author John Novosel has determined that one of the major differences between a Tour Player and a Hacker is in their tempo. All Tour players, Novosel claims, have a swing with a 3:1 swing-set-through tempo. Some swing faster; others, slower, but the the ratio is always the same.

I’ve found this principle to be quite useful, and when my swing goes awry, one of the things I concentrate on is getting my tempo back on track.

At the core of Novosel’s original book was a cd that contained tracks of beeps in several variations on the golden ratio: 27/9 (slow) to 18/6 (fast) and so on. You were supposed to listen to the beeps and remember the tempo. It wasn’t a problem for me—I come from a musical family, but I can imagine that others would have difficulty. If you were clever and computer included, I suppose you could have ripped the tracks to a mp3 player and used that on the range.

The Tour Tempo people also seem to have thought it a shortcoming in their program, for they’ve since developed a “Tour Tempo Player,” a small electronic device the size of an IPod, which plays the beeps. You can wear it at the range or on the course, and set the beeps at the desired speed.  The player also will play a series of beeps designed to help you keep your short game on track.

I recently acquired the Tempo Player Player Package—which in addition to the book includes the player, an instructional DVD and a CD with musical tracks in the proper tempos. All are extremely useful additions to the program. I’ve worn the player at the range and find that it helps me get into a groove. Perhaps more useful is the musical cd. They’re not great tunes—consisting mostly of a snare drum and an electric piano—but I can remember the music much more easily than the beeps.

With the addition of the player and musical cd, I give the Tour Tempo a grade improvement from B+ to A.