The Masters – A Ballstriking Nightmare
I love the Masters tournament. If you are a fan of golf, you have to. It gives me the golf bug and makes me want to get out there and work on my game. Especially my short game. What bothers me a little is that the ball-striking somewhat let me down.
Don’t get me wrong, the guys played great in tough conditions. Not the weather. It was perfect. What I am talking about is the course, competition and stage -those conditions. And under those conditions, the ball striking was, to say the least, frustrating.
Kenny Perry played great steady golf, until he came to the finishing holes and drove the ball into the bunker on 18. Tiger drove it into the woods and made bogey on the last two holes on Thursday and Sunday. Chad hooked it into the left side rough. I have played Augusta and the tee shot on 18 is no bargain. The hole dog legs right, uphill with a sloping fairway left into the bunker. Most of the guys try to bomb the ball down the right side. If they miss, like Tiger, they end up right. If they turn the ball at all, it ends up where Chad or Kenny hit it, in the bunker or left. Whatever happened to hitting fairways?
Augusta is one of the most generous courses for hitting fairways. Some, like 10, 13 and 15 are almost too big to miss. Thank God or we would never see a fairway hit on the back nine. Tiger, missed the fairway on 14, 17 and 18 in the last round. Oh by the way, did you see his tee shot on 1?
The quality of Ball-Striking always bothers me in every tournament – especially the Masters where we are watching the best of the best playing their best. I can understand a few stray irons of of the sloping lies into the undulation greens. What bothers me is the quality of the drives.
It wasn’t me standing there under those conditions so could I be a bit too critical? Possibly. I still love the Masters, the most beautiful golf course in the world and the greatest stage for golf. I would just like the guys to hit the fairway on 18. Maybe they should take out the bunker on the left and make it easier.
New Websites
Two, that’s right, TWO new websites. www.moenorman.ORG is our website dedicated to the memory of Moe Norman and his legendary golf swing, and most recently, we have released www.moenormangolf.com – a site designed to offer you, the Moe Norman follower, a better, more enhanced web experience.
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Moe Norman’s Golf Swing – Method or Answer?
Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding types of golf instruction. The author presented a nice argument that golf instructors should understand all methods of instruction and that many instructors are single method instructors which according to Jim Mclean, give the same lesson to every student. Jim McLean uses Ben Hogan as a model for his instruction but claims that other golf swings adhere to his mechanics teaching.
After working for years with many of these “conventional” instructors, I adhere to Moe Norman’s golf swing.
Many would call this a method but I have another reason for offering Moe Norman as a solution to the everyday golf instructors instruction. My main reason is that when students learn to swing like Moe, they improve every single time. Moe gives us the answer to what must be done and because of this, I do not think of Moe Norman’s golf swing a method.
Consider the fact that Moe Norman had no formalized golf instruction yet he figured out a way to strike a golf ball more consistently than any human being alive. Consider that his golf swing, by conventional standards, did not fit into any of the molds.
In my opinion, all conventional methods are variations of one biomechanically inferior method. This is why you see so much variation and types of instruction. The difficulty of the conventional golf swing opens the doors for thousands of interpretations.
The problem with golf instruction, from the beginning of golf, is that there has never actually been a study that asks this question: ”What is the best way with the human body to strike a ball on the ground with a golf club”. When you ask this question, you are implying that the there is an ideal movement of the golf club to strike a golf ball perfectly. In other words, you are matching the machine (human body) with the tool (golf club) to produce a result of perfect golf ball flight.
The human body is a machine and, although we come in different shapes and sizes, we are all built with the same parts. The task of perfect ball flight remains the same. Isn’t the goal to find the easiest way?
Through trial an error and a mind that allowed out-of-the-box thinking, Moe Norman discovered a way to match the machine to the task of striking a golf ball.
Moe Norman’s golf swing is not a method, it is the answer the human body is looking for and the answer to anyone looking for an easier way.
