Issie Lapowsky | Inc. magazine

Perfect Your Golf Swing

The story behind the Orange Whip training club

 

Courtesy company

The "aha" moment: While serving as a caddie on the PGA Tour in 2002, Jim Hackenberg was amazed by the effortlessness of the pros' swings. It looked as if they were swinging a ball on the end of a chain, he observed. He set out to make a club that would help amateurs mimic the fluid movement.

R&D: In 2003, Hackenberg started developing a prototype in a shed at a driving range in Martha's Vineyard, where he was working as a golf instructor. Three years and 10 iterations later, his students began testing the creation: a flexible fiberglass shaft with a lead-filled ball on one end and a steel counterweight on the other.

Hitting the market: In 2008, Hackenberg started selling the device, which he named the Orange Whip, to students and on his company's website, OrangeWhipTrainer.com, for $109. Since then, his company has generated $1.7 million in sales online and in golf shops and country clubs nationwide. Hackenberg, who no longer caddies or teaches, has five employees, an office in Easley, South Carolina, and a production facility in Phoenix.

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Issie Lapowsky is a reporter at Inc. magazine. She has covered lifestyle and entertainment for the New York Daily News, and her work has been published in BlackBook magazine and The Brooklyn Rail. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.