Swing Tempo - John Novosel's book

[umpiremark]

There are a few threads on here talking about tempo; and a few threads talking about John Novosel's 2004 book, "Tour Tempo."

My purpose to starting this thread is to gleen information off of those golfers who:
a) read the book, listented to the tapes, watched the videos and incorporated Tour Tempo into their swings;
b) found either success or disaster with Novosel's methodology and/or swings in your personal game.

Questions then:
a) What did you find most surprising about incorporating Tour Tempo into your game?
b) What did you find most discouraging?
c) Did it work; did you change; what were the benefits; what were the setbacks?
d) How long did it take to make a complete swing change/improvement for you on the course ?

I hope this turns into a lively discussion about experiences, because I just read the book (3 hours) and practiced last night into my backyard net but have not done more than just that - yet. I hope to read posts on this thread, keep practicing with the tempo tones and post back here my results. Will you share yours? THANKS!!

[shankapotamus]

a) What did you find most surprising about incorporating Tour Tempo into your game?
b) What did you find most discouraging?
c) Did it work; did you change; what were the benefits; what were the setbacks?
d) How long did it take to make a complete swing change/improvement for you on the course ?

a)The instant improvement, and the simplicity
b) nothing.
c)Si, Si, more consistent, none.
d) I hit about 200 balls on the range before i went out and I shaved three strokes off of my score, and I was putting terribly.

[alansmithdc]

I found the whole cd setup cumbersome. Perhaps the micro unit that goes over the ear would work. Ben Hogan in his book Five Lessons said if a golfer adheres to the fundamentals outlined in his book, that the tempo naturally takes care of it's self. But, maybe I'll get the micro unit and give the whole process another try.

[gspjeb]

a. how free it made my mind of swing thoughts....was pretty refreshing
b. how difficult it was to change years of ingrained out of sequence tempo
c. absolutely worked for me and drastically changed my consistency. I found that on those days that before I just felt off with my swing....I could listen to the tones and basically reset myself...worked great for me. I had to be careful about not getting too tense while trying to match the tempo consistently.
d. took me about 2 months to really really ingrain it to stay. I started shooting better almost immediately but took a bit for it to become my permanent tempo.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Tempo is the first thing I check when my swing starts to turn sour. It's the glue that holds the swing together.

The trouble with Tour Tempo is that Novosel uses the same word to mean two different things. Tempo is the overall speed of your swing, and rhythm is the relative duration of its parts. Novosel uses "tempo" for both. 21:7 and 24:8 are two different tempos with the same rhythm. I think Hogan had the two words confused, too. After all, he was a golfer, not a musician. If you get the tempo right, the rhythm takes care of itself.

Also, the CDs lock you into discrete tempos that might not be what you are comfortable with. Also also, if you count the beeps on the audio track using a metronome, their rhythm is 2:1, not 3:1.

It doesn't take long to work tempo into your swing if you just relax and swing the club the way that feels right for you. You know if you're swinging to fast or too slow.

[alansmithdc]

Thanks for the great feedback.. I'm still a little confused. It sounds like the Tempo trainer is messed up. Is the microtrainer better, or should I stick with finding my own rythum?

Alan

[The Recreational Golfer]

There's a "feel good" tempo we all have, I would suspect, but that's too slow. You can hit good shots with it, but they lack authority. There's one more speed, a faster one, which could be described as "controlled, but athletic." That's the one you want. When you find it, your rhythm will be right there.

[alansmithdc]

Im anxious to give it a try.