Moe Norman, Human Ball Striking Machine

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How to Become a Human Ball-Striking Machine

Becoming a great ball-striker

What would it be like to strike a golf ball as efficiently as a perfect machine with every shot flying laser straight with perfect trajectory and distance?

In many conversations with Moe, he often commented that he wanted to be the best ball-striker. When I asked him how he finally achieved this task he said "It's hard work".

There is no doubt that becoming a great ball-striker is, as Moe called it, "hard work". However, what exactly is work? Is there a shortcut?

What is hard work?

Often I ask people if they enjoy practice. Some do however, many do not. Why?

Work = Time + Effort

Hard Work = Time + Effort + Frustration

The reason I have found is that people who do not like to practice are generally confused, lost and frustrated. And anyone frustrated will most likely avoid the practice that keeps them frustrated. So why does practice keep so many people frustrated? The answer is simple. I call it mental misdirection or focusing on the wrong things.

Most people focus on ball flight results. Of course, when you play golf, the results of the ball flight is extremely important, however; it is HOW you hit the ball that will determine the balls flight. I believe that there is a way to avoid the frustration of practice and it has to do with WHAT you focus on.

Don't work - train.

I want to introduce you to the idea of "training" as opposed to working on your golf swing. Training implies that you are making correct movement and learning how to repeat that movement. By shifting your ideas to training your correct golf swing movement, your practice sessions will involve training and not working.

Training = Progress = Fun

I often run into concepts about the golf swing that hinder learning and change. Let's begin with some concepts, myths and understandings as we talk about the process of improving and having more fun with your practice.

You must be born with talent to learn Moe's swing is not true.

Many people, instructors included, use this statement to validate or invalidate a students ability to learn and develop into a great ball striker however, No scientist has ever proven this statement. I would further ask anyone to define talent.

As a matter of fact, the more scientist research the phenomenon of skill and ability, they find exactly the opposite. What they have discovered is that highly skilled performers of any skill, simply developed the skills through training and the more scientists look at these subjects, whether it be playing the piano or hitting a golf ball, the highly skilled simply trained more. This "training' element became so obvious that scientists discovered that time put into training was the ultimate factor, so much so that they began to call this factor the 10,000 hour rule.

In other words, to become a master at anything, you must put in 10,000 hours of training to become an expert.

The Shortcut

I believe there is definitely a shortcut. Step back for a moment and consider the 10,000 hours of training required. Most of us learning any skill, can put in 10,000 hours however, half or more are wasted with incorrect fundamentals making little progress toward mastery. The goal of training is to make forward progress and work toward an objective and I believe anyone who is willing to put in the time and effort can swing like Moe.

The shortcut everyone is looking for involves Modeling Moe Norman. This includes:

Developing a correct concept and understanding - Understanding Moe Norman's single plane golf swing
Practicing Correctly - getting feedback on how close your are to the model
Acquiring great feedback on progress

Lets begin by developing a few concepts and understanding about Moe Norman's single plane golf swing and a few other myths and mis-understandings.

Regarding Moe's golf swing - take nothing for granted.

If Moe placed the club a foot behind the golf ball, there is a bio-mechanical reason for it. Model it. If Moe has the club positioned slightly outside the line at address, Model it.

The purpose of all Graves Golf Academy websites is to help you develop and understand the Moe Norman Golf Swing Model. Study it, Learn it and Model it.

Modeling Moe Norman

There is good news and better news regarding the fact that the only shortcut to becoming a great ball-striker is by Modeling Moe Norman's golf swing. The good news is that Moe, through his 5 years of trial and error and lifetime of great ball-striking, has already done the work for all of us. Moe did the work and as Ben Hogan once said, "dug it out of the dirt". All you have to do is copy him by finding a way to match his positions and club movement. The better news is that this is the trick to short cutting your learning process.

Finding a way to match Moe, as the model, is the key to you Swinging Like Moe.

What makes a golf ball fly?

Ranging from "the club is in the palms" to "back and through on the same plane", people have concepts about the golf swing. One concept that is often misunderstood is what makes a golf ball fly. Sometimes understanding how the golf ball flies relative to the club-face impact is helpful to understand.

The golf ball flies due to spin and the dimples on the ball that increase the surface area on the ball. When you strike a golf ball, the club-head has loft. This loft imparts backspin (every club that has loft imparts backspin). The path, face angle, speed of the club-head, loft and direction of the face angle determine the direction, height and distance of the golf ball.

Most people, in some way or another, understand this concept however, many do not know that at the moment of impact with the golf ball, the club face is not square to the target. The club face is actually open to the target. Let me explain.

To strike a golf ball correctly, the ball must compress. Compression is simply when the ball, because it has elasticity, compacts against the club-face and then rebounds due to the mass of the club. At this time of compression where the ball actually compacts and "sticks" to the face of the golf club, is when the club face squares to the target.

What is important is that the face is square to the target when the ball separates from the face, not when it hits the face.