Hello! John and advanced ball strikers forum.
Previously I was elaborating on the rotation of the arms in the forward swing after explaining the rotation in Moe’s back swing.
Yes John, the rotation of the level shoulders and the arms are coming out of their sockets leading to a high finish was related to my statement you quoted. With the left wrist going to the sky and the right hand shaking hands with the flag stick is a result from the horizontal tug when performed properly. The rotation of Moe’s left arm is not forced and minimal compared to someone that is " trying to hitch a ride," as Moe would say. Moe worked down the line and up the line with a natural release of the club head with no twisting and turning.
The Real Moe Norman was bowed through the ball at impact with the continuation of the horizontal tug beyond the ball where he maintained the bowed position of the left wrist to the sky in a upward path or up the line. The release is out in front of you the way Moe and myself release the club and not at the ball. This allows the extension to go down the line where the arms come out of the sockets with help from the level rotation of the shoulders.
The horizontal tug is the pulling of the left arm and the generation of the top of the left shoulder to the sky. It was described in the book of how the left arm moves away from the body and continues down the line to insure a square club face long after impact. The tug continues up the line and can only be done when the left arm is the leader. Golfers that release at the ball will have trouble continuing with the horizontal tug the way Moe and i retain and excel to the finish. When the horizontal tug is performed you want to lead more with the heel of the club head rather than having the toe of the club head too lively. In my second book i will be talking on the continuation of the horizontal tug after the vertical drop is performed in great detail. This will lead to how Moe got his incredible flight.
I would be glad to answer any questions from the forum.
Thanks for your question John (Lag) Erickson
Greg Lavern
The Real Moe Norman
Authors Lawson Mitchell and Greg Lavern
Let’s talk a bit about page 82 which I found interesting. Moe’s grip pressure in the left hand being strong enough "to draw blood’.
and you mention that although the grip was firm, he was tension free in the wrists. You mention that this is a difficult combination to master.
It’s one of the key elements also that I teach students in my module #5. Did Moe give you any specific drills or things to work on to do this?
I found I could get this early on by simply pounding an eternity of golf balls… but it would be one of the first things to disappear from my swing after taking time off… (I don’t think Moe took time off!)
There is a tendency to want to grip the club light to get the oily or free wrists hinging feeling… but I always liked to have a firm grip on the club also.
Would be interesting to get your thoughts on that.
I know Moe used those wrap on grips and left a space between them for the flesh of his hands to sink into giving him about the best possible connection to the club. Knowing your hands are locked onto the club I think would really encourage the freedom in the wrists… as least for me. I always hated feeling like I was losing a grip on the club… so I went into full cord grips early on. I know Knudson used those great Crown Classic Cords with the red and white cord in them. I miss those grips.
I was having a discussion last night with my wife about wrist speed and hand pressures. She plays the pedal harp professionally at a very high level and has lots of protocols for developing hand strength, with and without using the muscles in the forearm.
We talked about the 2 sets of muscles in the hand (around the pinky and the thumb) and how important they were to high speed wrist movements (without applying force from the forearm mucsle). If you use the forearm muscles to contract the middle fingers it puts the tendons under load across the wrist joint.
After lots of back and forth she suggested that the strongest way to hold the club, and still have wrist speed would be to ‘cup’ the hand (like you would if you scoop some water out of a river to drink it). An action of pulling the knuckle of the pinky finger towards the base of the thumb. No forearm tension is created, although its quite hard to do!! seems to work though
I know little about tendons, muscles, and connective tissue within the hands and wrists…and what activates what. So I won’t be much help there.
And I was having a hard time visualizing cupping the hand, I presume around the club. That sounds like a train wreck to me but maybe you can post a picture for discussion. But off the top of my head, a harp player plays with the wrists perpendicular to the floor in large part. I can only really talk about wrists/hands/forearms from a drumming perspective. I think some of those things are directly related…no, actually they are. PP3 in Homer’s work is identical in location and function for those playing wrists down…or what is called a matching grip.
From my experience, beginning drummers have weak wrists, not necessarily from a muscular sense, but in that they are not conditioned for the tasks that will be called upon them…mostly speed and fluidity. They therefore substitute more arm action in compensation and that’s no good in the long run. It’s the fine bending of arm action and wrist action at the correct time with a lot of finger stuff going on- just comes with practice I guess.
It’s kinda of like this. If you were to start a constuction job and hammered away all day for the first time, your wrists may be quite sore. In time, those wrists will become very strong. It’s the developed strength and mobility that will allow you to one day hold the hammer as tight as you wish…given the task at hand…and still have free and strong wrists available when needed.
dthiele: Hope my use of the words “train wreck” in the post above is not taken as rude…although I can see how it could be seen that way. Sorry if it did and apologies to Mrs. Dithiele too.
Also forgot to mention that drummers can also play with vertical wrists much like the harp player does. I often switch from vertical hands/wrists to down hands/wrists while playing depending on what I’m doing at that point in time. I have changed my grip pressure dramatically since finding ABS. I used to have medium firm hands…now I strangle the snot of the the grip, but my wrists can be as firm, or flexible as I like…again, depending on what I am doing with them. RR
Basically using these muscles in the hand to grip as much as possible, meaning the forearms dont need to provide as much force.I think this happens naturally in some grips and depends on where you place the club in relation to the fingers/palm.
So that’s what hands look like underneath the surface. I would agree.
That little red thingy muscle at the base of the little finger is more like a locking mechanism. The muscles, or whatever those red things are under the thumb is more of a support structure. And the relationship to the amount of fingers used is critical and whether or not they are supporting the club from underneath: the more the fingers are underneath, the weaker the grip really is whether or not there is a large fold over of the palm or not. But like Lag said…many ways to do it…and that’s why pounding that impact bag will develop the hands and wrists quickly. In my day, we hit tires.
And IMO, there is nothing wrong with feeling a lot of pressure with the thumb and forefinger of the R hand…what Hogan called the “swing wreckers” or something like that. Maybe he called them pinchers…don’t recall. I believe what he meant by that was that they COULD BE if used to soon from the top.
Just like drumming…if you attack a drum head from on high using the wrist along with pressure from the pinchers, you’ll just dive the stick head into the surface and the elbow kicks out of place. Instead, when doing it correctly, the stick will drop ( dropping the club), the wrist will lag, and when the time is right the hand unloads.
Yes, on the page you are referring to, Moe gripped and squeezed the golf grip with the last three fingers so firmly that he was trying to draw blood. You can be firm in the grip pressure but still have soft flexible wrists with no tension.
I do the same with a high arched wrist and have soft flexible tension free in the arms and wrists.
Moe and myself squeezed a tennis ball to get strong with the hands and fingers. Of course hitting eight hundred balls a day also makes you strong in the last three fingers. If you squeeze the last three fingers like your going to draw blood the forearm muscle underneath the left arm will flex (from the wrist directly up the forearm) THOUGH THE WRISTS STILL REMAIN SOFT AND FLEXIBLE. That is the way it is with Moe and myself. Possibly the conditioning with the tennis ball and hitting hundreds of balls everyday helped to master this combination of being strong in the fingers but still capable of having soft flexible wrists with little or no tension in the arms. Another reason why Moe squeezed with the last three fingers as if he was drawing blood was to keep the back of the left hand firm and strong through impact with no breakage. Evidence of being strong in the last three fingers and still have the flexibility in the left wrist to be BOWED through impact proves you can grip the golf club firmly and still have soft flexible wrists tension free.
John you can’t go wrong teaching your students to grip the club firmly in the last three fingers and to develop strong hands. Moe use to show emotion when he would hear people say “grab the golf club like a bird,” ha ha! you would just see his big meaty hand wave through the air in disgust. Moe would say, “not me…not me, i am trying to draw blood with my last three fingers.”
When Moe and myself would practice hitting 800 balls a day we would wedge the balls into piles to gathering them up. We only used our left hand and arm. This was also a method of conditioning for strength in the last three fingers with the dominate hand and arm that leads the golf swing.
The spaces or grooves in Moe’s Goodwin black dot pattern with red trim were wrapped the way you specified for non- slippage particularly in the wet weather. He would wrap them going up the fairway and tape the bottom with black hockey tape. I had a set he gave me but they wore out. Best grip I ever used. Wish I could get them but the rubber factory where Moe would get them stop making the rubber wrap on grips.
The red and white crown classic cord I am also familiar with as Moe would have some on his drivers that were built up with five or six layers of tape under them to his specs. When I use to practice with George Knudson he would use the same grip on his Spalding forged irons and persimmon woods. George Knudson on the other hand had very thin grips.
I asked George one day when we were hitting some balls together, why he did not build his grips up? He simply replied,
“I like to feel the steel.”
Thank you
Greg Lavern and Lawson Mitchell
Author’s The Real Moe Norman therealmoenorman.com
As Greg and I discuss some of Moe’s concepts, I want to make clear that Moe was a pure CF swinger, the best I ever saw… and I firmly believe and as Greg knows, if you go with a passive wrist release from P3 ( where the shaft if parallel to the ground before impact) that Moe flat out had this down. CF wants things in a straight line… just like a weight on a string will pull that string tight… Moe’s answer to this was pure simplicity… to align the left arm and shaft in a straight line back and through. It makes sense and for anyone who ever saw Moe hit a golf ball, it’s a method not to be discarded as some novelty or some “one of a kind” action.
My years on the Canadian Tour saw several of the guys working on Moe’s stuff, but never in a complete way that Greg has.
Kelly Murray used some of Moe’s ideas as did a few of the other guys… but most CF swingers move the shaft from low to high through impact, including myself while I was working with TGM swinging protocols… and the low to high method is no doubt problematic. Moe’s solution is simple and more than effective.
Hitters and swingers can use the same set ups… backswing loading, and similar transitions also. Both methods need to get the club into the slot on the downswing. Whether the hands act as passive hinges into impact or active motors (hitting) the delivery of the club into P3 is very similar… so even for students here working on hitting protocols, there is a lot to learn from Moe’s processes.
My own swing is very much a hitter’s move… and I never had the time to try and master Moe’s complete methodology… so I am grateful to have Greg here to discuss what he learned from Moe as Moe was one of the great ball strikers the world has seen.
Back to Greg,
Moe told me his wide stance was modeled after “The Great Pyramids of Egypt” He told me… “There still standing”
Knudson was wide, Hogan was wide, Trevino was wide. We don’t see these kind of wide stances much today…
How much do you think this has to do with the movement to lightweight gear that I know Moe was so opposed to?
Hi John (lag)
Moe would set- up with feet wider than shoulder width with the shaft as an extension of the left arm forming one straight line. After sweeping the club away and just before the completion of the back swing Moe was ready to lead and pull his left knee to the target in proper sequence as he made his vertical drop. Moe was leading and lagging as (John lag Erickson) also demonstrates with tremendous lead and lag in his own golf swing. With the shaft parallel to ground level as the end of the grip is going down the fairway as the left side generates and the right side is retained results in the shaft and club head returning to the initial set-up position of one straight line of shaft and left arm totally connected.
When Moe mentioned to John regarding his wide stance “The Great Pyramids Of Egypt, There Still Standing,” Moe was referring to the strong structure the way the Egyptian builder made the pyramid long lasting. It was made with a solid foundation and strong structure “Like the Rock of Gibraltar” also a saying Moe would use for something that would not move.
All the great ball strikers John( lag) mentioned would have the same rational for standing wide. The wider than normal stance will encourage great separation of the left knee and right knee as the legs drive forward on the downswing while over the ball or in the batters box. With the wider stance it makes it very difficult for the shoulders to go over top of the legs that would become a concern for a golfer who prefers to stand narrow would experience lots of twisting and turning. Moe, and other great ball strikers in his era all preferred the wider foundation.
The wider stance is utilized more for purity of technique while the shallow stance supports twisting and turning to hit it as far as you can. The distance seekers focus on velocity and lightweight golf clubs in the C swing weight range to develop speed. Moe and myself concentrated on mass since our swing weight was between E3 and E5 with swing speed created through the proper sequence of motion for maximum speed at impact with preference to be target oriented rather than not knowing where the golf ball is headed. Today’s golf courses require extra distance over accuracy and the light weight clubs are the answer to golfers needs with so much new technology available. The golf courses in my opinion should have some more variety that demands shot making. One thing for sure Moe would never touch a licorice stick which would have destroyed his tempo and flowing motion as Moe always wanted to know where the club head was and feel it, particularly with a good persimmon driver that was the ultimate for The Real Moe Norman.
Thank you
Greg
Author’s Lawson Mitchell and Greg Lavern
The Real Moe Norman
Greg, what did Moe do to get his irons so heavy? I think he was hitting an old set of GolfCraft irons… if memory serves me correct. Was he dropping lead into the shaft or were the heads just that stock heavy? The persimmons are easy enough to just drop more lead into the heads. I know Moe tipped his shafts also.
It’s a chicken or the egg debate on gear… I tend to favor the egg theory that a proper golf swing will evolve from starting out with heavy gear. The chicken would be afraid to use heavy gear because they feel they are not strong enough… but how are you going to get strong if you keep using light gear?
As far as golf courses… there are still a lot of tracks out there where you need to hit the ball straight. Most all the older ones… and certainly all the classic older tracks up in Canada.
I’m really enjoying your book Greg, and I recommend anyone get a copy of it.
I’ll keep posting interesting insights that you learned from Moe to discuss and consider here. I appreciate you taking the time to share with us here on this forum…
To John Lag Erickson
From: Greg Lavern
The Real Moe Norman developed his desired swing weight in his irons with lead tape, 5 to 6 layers of tape and led
shot placed in the shaft with a rubber plug so their was no rattle in the shaft.
Moe had two sets of irons he liked. There was a set of Tommy Armor Silver Scots and the Golf Craft irons with the square toes that he preferred in tournaments. All his persimmon woods had a single long strip of lead tape with the same method of plugging lead shot in the shaft. The irons were loaded up with many strips of lead tape on the back of the iron heads. A club maker Moe knew in the Florida area would do the work and made sure his clubs were to his specs for practice and play.
Moe used xx shafts during the years we practiced and played and preferred an x or a stiff tipped as he aged.
When The Real Moe Norman started teaching me in 1974 he introduced me to the heavy gear. I have never changed
the swing Moe taught me or the x shafts at E3 to E5 and still use these specs at age 55.
John, the persimmon driver you sent me is very strong and to my liking with the smaller head and will let you know how i
hit it once i get a nice day here in the snow. ha ha. Wish i was down in the nice weather striking the ball. Anyhow, I will
keep you informed on how I progress with it.
There is a different character in the flight of the ball with the heavier gear. If a golfer wanted to make a change to heavier swing weight from their light weight clubs would change their approach to the golf swing. Strength and muscle memory would be achieved for a repeating swing motion.
I see big strong guys on the golf channel using light weight equipment and would make greater progress with heavier gear without losing distance as they would be hitting the ball much solider. The average player would hit more fairways and greens if only change their equipment specifications.
There are still many courses in Canada and United States with small greens and tree lined fairways that demand straight ball striking that takes away swinging out of your shoes and more course management. This will force the golfer to swing more within himself with good tempo. Moe use to swing 80% with some yards in reserve when needed.
I am glad you are enjoying the book John. There is many years of knowledge put into this book from the horses mouth that both Lawson Mitchell and myself contributed as the author’s of The Real Moe Norman book.
It can be picked up at www.therealmoenorman.com website available in softcover black & white and a special hardcover edition all in color. Lawson Mitchell the other author is a well known club professional at the club at Indigo in Daytona Beach Florida who has taught a number of senior touring professionals and new prospects playing other professional tours.
John, it is my pleasure and appreciate your genuine hospitality. Feel free to direct more questions or your membership to test my knowledge. Let me know when you have finished the book.
Thank you
Greg
Author’s Lawson Mitchell and Greg Lavern
The Real Moe Norman.
Hello John,
from: Greg Lavern
I see you have the same sand wedge i use from your two pictures of a front and back view. It is the same head model though my shaft is yellow. I don’t know where you got yours but the one i have Moe gave it to me with memories tied to it every time I use it. Where did you get yours lag?
Moe would play his Sandy Andy with the big flange and one day pulled this special club from his trunk and said " here pal this is for you." This happened after Moe gave me a bunker lesson teaching me how to spank the sand while using a board in the sand to get the bounce technique down for a nice level SPANK.
Moe then said to me ," I have a big flange on the bottom of my sandy to spank it out with no digging ." " Now you have one."
With a big smile on his face he also said, " don’t thank me, just go practice."
The sand iron Moe gave me is illustrated in the book that I still have in my bag from the late 70’s which Moe recommended to use out of the bunkers and long rough around the green.
The Real Moe Norman was a excellent sand player and probably one of the top three in the world, particularly during
the years i was fortunate to learn from him.
Thank you
Authors Greg Lavern and Lawson Mitchell
The Real Moe Norman
