Tempo Teacher Exclusively in Golf Around the World Booth (#773) at the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show!

Tempo Teacher^TM, a new golf training product designed to improve hip rotation on the downswing, has been officially endorsed by Golf Around the World’s CEO Dane Wiren (www.golfaroundtheworld.com) and is available through the website and Spring catalog, in addition to www.tempoteacher.com. Tempo Teacher can be found exclusively in the Golf Around the World booth (#773) at the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL.

YouTube link to Product Review: http://bit.ly/w21Cin

Tempo Teacher^TM is an inexpensive, lightweight, easy-to-use golf training aid that helps golfers swing to hit longer, straighter golf shots. The lightweight Tempo Teacher clips to the golfer’s belt or pants, perpendicular to the target line. The product leads the hips through the swing, keeping the arms and body “in sync”. After a few swings, most golfers find that their hip rotation improves and shots are longer, straighter and more accurate.

Tempo Teacher’s compact size (18″ and less than 8 oz.) easily fits into golf bags, brief cases, suitcases and more, so it’s ready to go when you are. The durable product can withstand hot weather conditions, so you have no worries when stored in your car or golf bag. Most impressive of all? The Tempo Teacher is the best training aid on the market, and less than HALF the price of similar (but bulkier!) products.

Use the Tempo Teacher with other golf training aids if you like – the construction is non-intrusive to your natural golf swing and won’t interfere with other aids. And the positive results are immediate; no more long practice sessions or bad golf lessons before you see improvement in your swing!

Start using the affordable, discreet Tempo Teacher today. It’s the fastest, easiest way to improve your golf swing!

Tiger Woods ends a 749-day victory drought at the Chevron World Challenge; Swing Analysis by GolfDigest.com

Even though Tiger Woods had to beat only 17 other players, a win is a win, and Tiger got World Ranking points for capturing the Chevron World Challenge Sunday. And getting that W has to be huge for him psychologically, especially because of the way he did it–birdieing the last two holes to win by a single stroke over Zach Johnson.

But what has been most interesting over the last several weeks is the way Tiger has been talking about compressing the ball better. We finally saw what he’s been talking about. His teacher, Sean Foley, explained it in a tip that ran in the December issue of Golf Digest. Many commentators–and some teachers–have been critical of Tiger’s famous “dip” on the downswing, saying he needs to stay tall through impact and give his arms room to swing. But both have chosen to embrace this move, and contend that it’s one way to add distance.

“Now I’ve got the club in the right position, supplement that with my weight training, all of a sudden the ball is flying,” Woods said last week.

Here’s Foley on the topic in the December issue:

“One of golf’s oldest cliches is ‘maintain your posture’ throughout the swing. The intent of the message is good: To help amateurs avoid rising out of the address position–either from a lack of hip flexibility or because they’re trying to help the ball into the air. But keeping your head level might be robbing you of some distance.

– Roger Schiffman
Managing Editor, Golf Digest
Twitter @RogerSchiffman

Read more at GolfDigest.com

Super Hot Holiday Gift for Golfers, Under $25 – Tempo Teacher™ Will Make Golfers of All Levels Ho Ho Happy

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for golfers of all levels? Tempo Teacher™ is an inexpensive, lightweight, easy-to-use golf training aid that is gaining swift momentum and acclaim in the marketplace. And it retails for just $24.99!

The innovative product helps golfers swing to hit longer, straighter golf shots by training golfers to correctly utilize their hip rotation and tempo on the downswing. Not a simple task in the game of golf, but somehow, this product simply does just that.

The lightweight Tempo Teacher clips to the golfer’s belt or pants, perpendicular to the target line. The product leads the hips through the swing, keeping the arms and body “in sync”. After a few swings, most golfers find that their hip rotation improves as well as the quality of their golf shots. Shots are longer, straighter and more accurate.

Mike Bailey on Worldgolf.com writes, “Most golf training aids work for somebody. Otherwise they would have never made it to market. But every once in a while something comes along that breaks away from the stuff that’s been done over and over again. Such is the case with a simple product called the Tempo Teacher.

“Clearing the hips, as it’s often referred to, is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the golf swing, especially among mid- to high-handicappers. Even a lot of good players don’t fully comprehend how this is supposed to work, but it’s imperative that the left hip clears out of the way to allow the arms and club to approach the ball on plane from the inside as most all good players do. And the hip turn, by the way, is what actually allows you to square the clubface without flipping the hands.

“This simple little aid, which retails for $24.99, does what it advertises.”

The Tempo Teacher’s compact size (18” and less than 8 oz.) easily fits into golf bags, brief cases, suitcases and more, so it’s always ready to go. The durable product can withstand hot weather conditions, so there are no worries when stored in a car or golf bag. Most impressive of all? The Tempo Teacher is the best training aid on the market, and less than HALF the price of similar (but bulkier!) products.

Jason K of TheHackersParadise.com writes, “What exactly is tempo when it comes to a golf swing and why is it so important? It’s something we hear about all the time, watch or listen to almost any instructor for a few minutes and you’ll likely hear tempo mentioned. So first of all, what is it? Tempo in a nut shell is the rhythm and balance of your body while you are swinging the golf club. (…) Now that we know what tempo is we must ask this, can we improve our own tempo? Yes, in fact we can and this review is about a product that promises to do just that.”

Jason writes, “Overall I found the Tempo Teacher amazingly simple in design and incredibly easy to use. The best thing about the Tempo Teacher is that they’re not focusing on too many of your mechanics and wrenching your body around. I have finished paying a lot of money for lessons before only to find that I didn’t like the feeling I was left with while trying to achieve all of the different mechanical techniques being taught to me. With Tempo Teacher you can use it as a reminder or use it to completely start over with your tempo, all while not worrying about having to suffer that dreaded “get worse before you get better” curse that seems to go along with many swing changes.”

Tempo Teacher can be used with other golf training aids — the construction is non-intrusive to the natural golf swing and won’t interfere with other aids. And the positive results are immediate; no more long practice sessions or bad golf lessons before golfers see improvement in the downswing.

Tempo Teacher™ has been officially endorsed by Golf Around the World’s CEO Dane Wiren (www.golfaroundtheworld.com) and is available through the website and Spring catalog, in addition to www.tempoteacher.com.

This innovative product has also garnered the attention of German instructors Christian Kirchner, ranked Top 5 PGA Instructor in Germany, (www.kirchner-golf.de) and Harald Ruoss (hr-golf.de). These world-class instructors have teamed up to represent the Tempo Teacher™ product line as international resellers. Kirchner and Ruoss were introduced to the innovative product at Tim Cusick’s recent Teaching the Teacher™ program at the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Irving, Texas.

Says Kirchner, “Tempo Teacher has helped my students get the correct feeling of the hips, club and body turning through the shot. It’s simple and a good way to increase the speed of your swing.”

Tempo Teacher, designed by Philip and Conor Butts of Texas, is a simple, lightweight, and easy to use product that helps golfers learn to hit longer, straighter golf shots. It clips to the golfer’s belt or pants, perpendicular to the target line. The product helps lead the hips through the swing, keeping the arms and body “in sync”. After a few swings, most golfers find that their hip rotation improves as well as the quality of their golf shots. Shots are longer, straighter and more accurate.

PGA golf professional and two-time NTPGA Teacher of the Year Tim Cusick endorses Tempo Teacher as getting results for golfers of all ages and abilities. According to Cusick, “Tempo Teacher is an easy to use training aid that provides immediate results to golfers of all skill levels. In a full swing or short game shot, Tempo Teacher guides you through the downswing to the finish. Tempo Teacher has helped my students and me play better golf.”

And PGA Director of Instruction at Thunder Canyon Golf Club David LaFata agrees, saying, “Practicing with the Tempo Teacher will result in a more consistent golf swing and impact position resulting in a lower handicap.”

Hip rotation is critical to a great downswing, and Tempo Teacher was designed to perfect proper rotation. Ben Hogan in his book, Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, states: “(Proper hip rotation) creates early speed. It transfers the weight from the right foot to the left foot. It takes the hips out of the way and gives your arms plenty of room to pass. It funnels your force forward toward your objective. It puts you in a strong hitting position where the big muscles in the back and the muscles in the shoulders, arms and hands are properly delayed so that they can produce their maximum performance at the right time and place.”

Poor hip rotation can result in fat shots, “skulls”, slices and hard hooks. Tempo Teacher provides golfers with an unobtrusive physical guide that allows them to visualize the path of their hips, allowing the golfer to experience the feel of a downswing where the hips lead and the arms and lower body are “in sync”.

Tempo Teacher’s co-inventor, Conor Butts, says, “As a golfer of 23 years and having the opportunity to work with great instructors, I understand the importance of simplicity and results. We have designed Tempo Teacher to give golfers immediate feedback and improve their natural swing, leading to lower scores.”

Co-inventor Phillip Butts says, “I always struggled with wanting more distance out of my tee shots, so I studied the swing of professional golfers and consistently tried to feel the sensation of my hips leading through the downswing.” Phillip’s vision has become a reality with the development of the Tempo Teacher.

Tempo Teacher is a unique entry in the world of golf training aids. It’s inexpensive, simple to use, lightweight (less than 8 oz. in weight) and small (just 18” in length), unobtrusive, and it works.

Tempo Teacher is priced at only $24.99 and is available on the web at http://www.tempoteacher.com/ and www.golfaroundtheworld.com

Tempo Teacher’s “card present” transactions are handled by Square (www.squareup.com), offering a beneficial payment processing method for golf instructors and the instructor community.

Tempo Teacher also offers an Instructor Reseller Program, where instructors receive wholesale rates that allow them to resell the training product to their students: a win-win for all involved! For more information about this program, instructors should contact Conor Butts at conor@tempoteacher.com.

ABOUT THE INVENTORS

Cousins Conor Butts and Phillip Butts are co-inventors and developers of this innovative golf aid. Tempo Teacher is manufactured and produced in Frisco, TX by Sunbelt Plastics Molding.

Conor Butts was born in Tulsa and moved to Dallas in 1992. Conor began playing golf at age 4 with his father on a par 3 course in Tulsa, OK. He worked at the original Hank Haney Golf Ranch in McKinney, TX, where he met Tim Cusick. Conor attended the University of Texas at Dallas and is currently studying Entrepreneurship at SMU Cox School of Business, where Tempo Teacher™ was born in early 2010.

Phillip Butts grew up in the Houston area and played golf in Tomball, TX for Concordia Lutheran High School. He worked at High Meadow Ranch and Champions Golf Club before moving to Tulsa in 2007. He is currently a senior at the University of Tulsa studying Energy Management and Finance, and works at Southern Hills Country Club.

Tempo Teacher Can Help Solve One of Golf Swing’s Mysteries

June 24, 2011 Most golf training aids work for somebody. Otherwise they would have never made to market. But every once in a while something comes along that breaks away from the stuff that’s been done over and over again. Such is the case with a simple product called the Tempo Teacher.

I ran across this a couple of months ago, and it just happened to coincide with something I had been working on in my own swing. I had thought incorrectly for some time that I was too aggressive with my hips, that I needed to slow them down, when in fact, I was actually stopping them early and not really turning them out of the way. (This came courtesy of a lesson from Kip Puterbaugh at the Aviara Golf Academy in Carlsbad, Calif., earlier this year.) And I showed this to several other players, who had a eureka moment when they tried it.

Clearing the hips, as it’s often referred to, is perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the golf swing, especially among mid- to high-handicappers. Even a lot of good players don’t fully comprehend how this is supposed to work, but it’s imperative that the left hip clears out of the way to allow the arms and club to approach the ball on plane from the inside as most all good players do. And the hip turn, by the way, is what actually allows you to square the clubface without flipping the hands.

Invented by Southern Hills Country Club’s Phillip Butts, the Tempo Teacher is a short rod that clips onto the belt near the left hip (for right-handers). When attached, the rod extends just left of the arms and hands at address. The idea is to swing the club without colliding with the rod. The only way to do this is to turn the hips out of the way before the arms deliver the club to the impact zone. Just look at 2011 U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy, for example, and how open his hips are at impact. It’s a common theme with almost all the world’s top players. The hips are also a tremendous power source.

There are plenty of other things that can go wrong in the swing, of course. If you come out of the shot prematurely, you won’t like the result. If you move forward or reverse pivot, clearing your left hip might not do you a lot of good either. You also want what’s called “hip separation,” meaning the lower body is ahead of the upper body. It’s what all good players do, and this little device can help you feel it.

Of course, a good backswing also helps. But this simple little aid, which retails for $25, does what it advertises. (My only criticism is that it’s a little tricky to clip on to your own belt, especially if you have a little extra padding around the middle, but it’s worth the effort.) Best of all, it’s very lightweight and can fit in your golf bag, making it easy for travel.

Mike Bailey, WorldGolf.com Blog

Click here to read the full story at WorldGolf.com

Golf Today Magazine Reviews Tempo Teacher™

June 20, 2011 Today we received an unexpected package from our friends at Golf Today Magazine in Tehachapi, CA. Publisher and Editor, Bob Koczor, has been kind enough to feature Tempo Teacher™ in the May/June edition of Golf Today Magazine. In the section titled “Bob’s Review of New Golf Products,” on pages 32-33, he provides the following review of Tempo Teacher™ golf training aid-

I typically walk away from swing training aids which tie up a golfer with gizzmos as though the golfer was a bale of hay. Tempo Teacher is not one of those tie-ups, however. It’s a simple and easy-to-use training aid which clips onto your belt (left side hip for right-handed golfers) and features a stick-like thin plastic rod sticking out from the clip and running parallel to the ground at a 90-degree vertical position to one’s forefront. This teaching device reminds the golfer about proper alignment and follow-through without becoming bogged down with dozens of mechanical strings, harnesses and contraptions which accompany some other swing trainers. The Tempo Teacher, introduced in early April of this year, gives the golfer immediate feedback in regards to proper hip rotation when swinging a club. Your swing and hip movement must be in sync if you are to maximize distance and accuracy, and Tempo Teacher tells you immediately if you have had the correct follow through for a good hit.

Much thanks to Bob for the candid product review and for the unsolicited publishing in the current edition of his magazine. To view a digital copy or for more information on Golf Today Magazine, visit www.golftodaymagazine.com!

The Golf Hip Turn – One of the Keys of a Solid Golf Swing

May 23, 2011 – The Golf Stuff Blog has published an article originally featured on Golf.com in 2006 that emphasizes the importance of hip rotation in the golf swing. The article, titled Develop a Powerful Base, clearly illustrates that “YOU CAN’T GENERATE power without hip turn, and you can’t move the hips properly on the downswing without firing your right side.” The Golf.com article talks about amateurs struggling with this because they start the motion with the upper body creating an over-the-top swing. This popular swing path actually prevents the hips from rotating through the impact zone properly, and results in a weak slice.

Click here to read more from Golf.com

The over-the-top swing, and weak slice is the reason Tempo Teacher™ was created. Our product provides tangible feedback to golfers who struggle firing the right hip, by forcing them to start the downswing with the lower body and clear at impact. Tempo Teacher creates this motion and keeps the rest of your swing in-sync to maximize the power and distance in your golf shots.

Click here to read more from The Golf Stuff Blog

Teaching Teachers: Knowing how to diagnose different areas of the swing creates a direct path to improvement

May 16, 2011 – Tim Cusick, PGA

PGA Magazine, May 2011

A challenge for all golf instructors is diagnosing a student’s swing so you can start fixing it. I’ve created a refined process that involves looking at four key components in the swing – impact with the ground, curvature of ball flight, where they make contact on the clubface, and ball flight trajectory – and choosing which of the four will be the starting point for what I work on with that student. This is a process that has evolved over the course of my career. I was fortunate to work with Hank Haney from 1983-2005; Hank was a great mentor and much of my teaching is based off what I learned from him. In the last few years, I’ve taken what I learned and formalized it into this four-component system.

Click here to continue reading…

TheHackersParadise.com Product Review

April 22, 2011 – We want to thank our new friends over atTheHackersParadise.com for their recent detailed Product Review. They’ve got a great site with product reviews, golf news, and a form with a loyal following- join the conversation and be part of the unique golf community atwww.thehackersparadise.com.

Overall I found the Tempo Teacher™ amazingly simple in design and incredibly easy to use. Don’t let this simple design fool you, while really it just looks like a stick and a clip it is very useful for the designed purpose. Getting you to lead with your hips through the swing, simple enough concept, but extremely vital in having good tempo in your golf swing. The best thing about the Tempo Teacher is that they’re not focusing on too many of your mechanics and wrenching your body around. I have finished paying a lot of money for lessons before only to find that I didn’t like the feeling I was left with while trying to achieve all of the different mechanical techniques being taught to me. With Tempo Teacher you can use it as a reminder or use it to completely start over with your tempo, all while not worrying about having to suffer that dreaded “get worse before you get better” curse that seems to go along with many swing changes. In the end I was rather impressed with this device, I like that it can be used for a quick driving range session to serve as a reminder in the event of a little set back in my ball striking. Available online at www.tempoteacher.com for about a quarter of the price of a decent lesson ($24.99) plus shipping. At that price you can’t go wrong for such a useful and easy to use training aid.

Click here to read the full review!

The review provided by THP is an accurate portrait of how we designed Tempo Teacher™. The easy of use, immediate feedback, and unrestricted use allows golfers to focus on making better golf shots and not worrying about perfecting one mechanic of the golf swing. I was reading a golf instruction book written by David Leadbetter this week, and there is an illustration of the hips being the “engine” of the golf swing. Quoted from the book, David Leadbetter’s Faults and Fixes, “There are two basic components in the swing – (1) the trunk, which is supported by the legs and feet, and (2) the unit of the arms, hands and club. Now, here’s the concept I want you to visualize. As the first component (your trunk) turns and rotates on a fairly horizontal plane, the second component (your arms and the club) swings on a comparatively vertical plane. (Think of the trunk as being the engine, the hub of the swing around which the arms and club move in a circular fashion.)”

A simplistic approach to the golf swing that is centered around two mechanics, and can greatly improve the results of any golfer! I highly recommend the book mentioned above, and we’ll continue to use it as we work through analyzing the golf swing and the impact Tempo Teacher is having with golfers around the world!

CB

Follow us on Twitter for news and updates: @TempoTeacher

LinksNation.com Product Review

April 13, 2011 – Our friends at LinksNation.com were kind enough to provide an independent product review. Click here to read the full review!

After testing the Tempo Teacher™ for 30 days, our conclusion is that this is one of the most functional teaching aides we’ve ever tested. Unlike many training aides, the Tempo Teacher can even be put in play out on the course to check your progress under gamelike conditions. Instant feedback is hard to beat, and the Tempo Teacher delivers just that.” – Bruno, LinksNation.com

We appreciate the product review, and the guys over at LinksNation.com have been great! I encourage you to visit their blog and other product reviews, they’re doing some pretty cool stuff over there.

Tempo Teacher Launches Blog!

April 11, 2011 – Official Tempo Teacher™ Blog launches! It’s an exciting time for our entrepreneurial venture as we enter the first Spring golf season since beginning sales in late 2010. We’ll be talking about golf-related news, providing swing tips and analysis, and the best products and services available for start-ups.

Tonight we’ll start with product development- so if you’ve ever wanted to create something but didn’t know where to start, keep reading…!

In October 2009, I was playing in a golf tournament, a 4-man scramble to be exact, with my cousin, uncle, and dad. As the day went on, the conversation evolved into something that caught my attention- an idea that stemmed from my cousin to rotate through the ball as if there was a rod extending from my hip. After making a few swings I thought he might be on to something, so we made a trip down to Home Depot and Staples to pick up the supplies for the first prototype. Indeed it worked! We’re talking about an oversized clothes pin with a wooden dowel rod, and it really worked. The next step was create preliminary drawings and find someone that could create real, tangible prototypes that would represent a manufacturable product. Little did we know, this would be a much more daunting task that originally thought.

Being ignorant about how to turn concept into product, like most, I turned to the Internet. I discussed the idea and shared the drawings with a few companies, but it was difficult to get any serious response. Most people were out of state and it didn’t seem like there was a lot of genuine interest in helping out a couple of college kids to manufacture legitimate prototypes. After a couple months of searching, I was finally referred to a company in Southlake, TX – Project Design Services. PDS specializes in CADD design, prototyping, and manufacturing – it was a perfect fit to get us going. The prototypes were all that we needed to get rolling with market testing and research. We didn’t have a sophisticated plan, but we did have a brief set of questions to ask instructors and golfers what they thought about the product as they tested it on the driving range. Needless to say, the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, and that is why we’re in the marketplace today!

After we had proved the concept and decided on a design, we began to look for local manufacturers. I had heard stories about sending things overseas, quality issues, on-time delivery, and everything else that comes with sourcing out-of-country. I wanted to support a local business, and luckily, I found the guys over at Sunbelt Plastics in Frisco, TX. Literally, less than 10 miles from my house, and a family owned business of 35+ years. These guys took the product to a new level, helped get us set up with an injection mold, and we were off to the races. After about 8 weeks of tooling, we had placed our first order of inventory that would be delivered just before the holiday season in 2010. In less than 1 year, we had gone from a goofy concept on a golf course, to having real inventory that was ready to hit the market! It’s been quite the learning experience and we’ve been through multiple prototypes, but the experience has been priceless. The statement is true, everything always takes twice as long and costs twice as much – but we have been able to create a unique, quality, and useful product in a crowded industry on a shoestring budget. We’re already having an impact on the way people learn the game of golf, how instructors teach it, and working towards making the game more enjoyable for all!

This was just half the battle, but we’ll have to discuss other topics such as packaging, websites, graphic design, and all the other aspects of product development over time. There’s a lot that goes into each component of the product, and each requires laser focus so that each part contributes something unique to the product. I’ll be the first to admit that we continue to lack in certain categories, but we have roadmaps to fill these gaps as the product grows and we’re able to reach more people in the marketplace.

If you’re a golfer, I hope that you’ll try the product and let us know what you think about it – we offer a money back guarantee, and have yet to hear negative feedback from anyone. There’s a lot of gimmicks and useless golf devices out there, but I assure you Tempo Teacher™ brings a unique element to this space. If you’re not a golfer, I hope you enjoy the blog posts about being a start-up, testing new products and services, and reading what has or has not worked for us. I’m a firm believer in entrepreneurs and small business, and I want to help others have the opportunity to create their own destiny.

Truly yours,

CB

@conormbutts