Learn To Golf: Finding the Perfect Swing

July 5th, 2009 by articles

How many players in the whole history of golf could consistently hit the ball where they aimed?.By all accounts, the number is two.Do you know who they were?

The first, and best known one was Ben Hogan. Moe Norman is the name of the other golfer. Norman was an underground legend. He was a Canadian pro who rarely left his home country but was well known to all the top touring pros from Lee Trevino and Nick Price all the way to present day superstar, Tiger Woods.

Like many of you, I have only seen Ben Hogan on video and in the slo-mo footage I have acquired over the years. Moe, on the other hand, I saw in person several times both during tournament play and at clinics he gave later in his career.

I was actually a caddy in Moe’s group for two days (I was looping for another pro at the time).

What set these two apart from virtually all their peers? Why is it that they were so different?

But just think of how rare this skill is. Countless men and women have toiled at this game,but only these two could literally hit the ball and, without looking, head straight down the middle of the fairway to play their next shot.

Moe was certainly a challenge to understand because of his personality and he was awkward in most social situations.

Moe’s cause was not aided by the fact that he frequently butted heads with the ruling board of governors and that such disagreements became quite public.

Many dismissed Moe’s rambling as gibberish when he tried to explain the foundational elements of his swing. Often accused of uttering idiotic drivel, few serious teachers or writers gave any credence to whatever insights the man attemted to share. He was often ignored or dismissed as an aberration incapable of sensibly explaining how he executed his considerable ball striking skills.It was difficult at best to weave a comprehensible swing theory from the thought fragments that Moe shared from time to time.

Recently, a whole new generation of golf teachers have rediscovered Moe and are now attempting to reconstruct the man’s great swing.

This has led to the emergence of a number of competing “swing theories”, each purporting to have uncovered the Da Vinci Code that is Moe’s swing . Some of these methods can be more surely described as good marketing hype than sound and useful theory.

The pretender swings being marketed today lack the power and penetrating ball flight of the original swing. Few of the methods which purport to piggyback on Moe’s move replicate the man’s powerful action through the ball .

My colleagues and I have tried these new methods and to a man (and a lady) all have encountered a disturbing loss of distance with every club in the bag.

To discover the secret of a powerful golf swing, go here. Click Here

In my youth, I caddied on one of the minor pro tours. You will recall that Moe and my pro were two thirds of the day’s pairing in a pro event.

Beyond being a reclusive individual, Moe exhibited the patience of a toddler when it came to the ponderous pace of tournament golf. Often during these long waits Moe would mutter on and repeatedly bounce a ball off his driver or wedge. He would often drop 5 or 6 balls into a bunker on a just played hole and spank them out to keep himself amused. Where other players might pace about, Moe was more unusual in the manner in which he expressed his nervous tension.

The overlay of myth has now come to shroud the actual behaviour of Moe during his tournament playing days. You have to be more than suspicious if the stories emanate from former tour caddies! Though it might be difficult to sort fact and fiction,no one disputes Moe’s ball striking. Remarkably, long into his senior years Moe still struck the ball with potency and purity.

I can personally attest to the man’s prowess and uncanny accuracy . I volunteered to shag balls (in the era before motorized ball pickers) for Moe during a local exhibition.It was disappointing that so few people came out that day to see truly one of the greatest ball strikers of this or any era. Throughout the exhibit, ball after ball landed but a few feet from where he motioned us to stand.After each series of balls he would simply wave us to a new location. It was always hypnotizing to just sit there and marvel in the artistry of the man.

To learn the one thing that is killing your golf game go here. Peak Performance Golf Swing

What a divide separates these two golfing legends. There is such awide gulf between the savant on the one side and the sage on the other. One man suffered from a failure to connect, the other happily drew a steel curtain around himself.Mountains of text and video have been assembled in an attempt to explain the Hogan swing. The mystery of the Hogan swing has been an elusive quest which has consumed hundreds of golfers for over a half century.

Despite the work of the golfing community to reverse engineer the Hogan swing, the mystery prevails. Hogan has many imitators but few would claim that they are true exhibitors of the method. Mr. Hogan would likely have wanted it this way . Like an Eastern mystic, he advised those who sought his knowledge to find it themselves by digging it out of the dirt. This qualifies as the kind of advice a crusty Calvinist gives to his children.

Hogan didn’t engender warmth of spirit. Hogan was an island surrounded by inhospitable waters.Few people, including his peers ever got close to Ben Hogan.The roots of friendship were never nurtured and tended with golfing fans