An avid golfer and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, H.A. (“Temp”) Templeton spent more than two decades researching the physics of putting and converting the tricky “art” of reading greens into a more predictable science. Templeton, who played golf for more than 50 years and had a handicap of 10-11 in retirement, believed most golfers miss putts because they do not fully comprehend the slopes on greens and often fall victim to the laws of physics—meaning gravity and friction (or rolling resistance, which is commonly known as “green speeds”). His curiosity and frustration over missing putts himself led to the research work that resulted in his book, “Vector Putting: The Art and Science of Reading Greens and Computing Break” (first published in 1984).
A former Air Force scientist and jet pilot, who had flown three times the speed of sound while a program manager for the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane in the 1960s, Templeton drew upon his technical background, love of golf, and ability to apply the fundamentals of physics to putting. Not a physicist, Templeton had to teach himself about the laws of gravity and motion and then learned computer programming for simulations.
Before the advent of personal computers, Templeton did most of his initial work in the 1970s, dissecting the behavior of golf balls as they rolled on greens using a Texas Instruments (TI-59) programmable calculator. Countless surveys of golf greens were made with lasers and other instruments, many of them constructed by Templeton. In the early 1980s, he modeled golf greens and wrote putting-simulation programs in BASIC code for his home-built Heathkit personal computer. Later, he transferred his programs to Amiga PCs for improved graphics processing capability.
After completing his book, Templeton turned his attention to creating computer simulations that would superimpose Vector Putting’s programs and putt predictions onto television video of golfers playing on greens. Templeton was convinced that TV networks could significantly improve their coverage of major golf tournaments by using computer graphics to show how greens were sloped and predict how golfers should putt to make the hole. The Vector Putt Simulator was completed and copyrighted in 1988. Templeton demonstrated his video graphics and simulation programs to major television networks in the late 1980s, but he was ahead of his time in promoting this concept. Since then, more powerful computers have enabled 3D putting graphics and analysis to be incorporated into golf-tournament TV coverage in the past decade.
Born in Atlanta, Ga., in 1920, Templeton grew up in Texas and Oklahoma. He graduated from Abilene Christian College in 1941 and later received a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Southern California in 1949. During December 1941, Templeton joined the U.S. Army Air Force. Early in his military career, he served as a flight instructor and was a trained meteorologist. After World War II, he worked in Air Force Research & Development program on a number of strategic weapons. In the 1960s, Templeton served in the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division and was the special project officer to Lockheed for the “Skunk Works” development of the SR-71 Blackbird supersonic reconnaissance aircraft. While flying in the SR-71 in 1965, Templeton became one of the first 10 pilots to fly three times the speed of sound (Mach 3). In 1968, Templeton retired from the Air Force in Fort Worth, Tex. About 10 years later, he began researching golf full time and then wrote Vector Putting. Until his death in 2001, Templeton played several times a week at the Carswell Air Force Golf Course and was active with the Texas Retired Military Golf Classic tournament, which he helped organize in 1978.