Anybody made cheap mooring whips

I use my brothers lake house only a hand full of times a year. So I can't justify paying 400 buck for whips. So I heard of people using 2" PVC pipes to do the same thing as whips. Then I found this guy that used a smaller PVC pipe with a 3/4" fiberglass rode inserted into the center of the PVC with a cast iron flag pole holder. This seems like it would be the strongest. I just want to here if anybody else has done anything similar?