“Moe Norman was an extraordinary man who intuitively developed the Single Plane Golf Swing, which he taught to Todd Graves. Through this wonderful book, frustrated golfers can learn to swing like Moe and improve their games.”
—Anthony Robbins
Best-selling author
America’s #1 Life & Business Strategist
“Nearly twenty years ago, I asked Moe Norman this question: ‘If I were to write a movie about you, who’s the person I should talk to about your swing?’ Moe didn’t hesitate. ‘Todd Graves,’ he said. ‘Yep, Todd Graves. When I see him swing, I see me. Yep. I see me’.”
—Barry Morrow
Oscar (Rain Man) and Emmy (Bill) award-winning writer
“One of golf’s greatest untold stories, Moe Norman’s life illustrated a simple and powerful truth: greatness is built from practicing the right swing in the right way. In this book, Todd Graves has given us a blueprint for that swing, for those practice habits, and most of all for a process that builds success.”
—Dan Coyle
NY Times best-selling author of The Talent Code and The Little Book of Talent
“As a practicing spine surgeon of some forty years and wannabe golfer, I was introduced to Moe Norman’s Single Plane Golf Swing. I was overjoyed to learn that my patients with aging and degenerating spines could continue to participate in the sport they love so much by adopting this swing. The Single Plane Swing taught by Todd Graves is exactly what the doctor ordered. I have continued to introduce my patients to this alternative and proven golf swing.”
—Ralph Rashbaum, MD
Co-Founder, Texas Back Institute
The Single Plane Golf Swing:
Play Better Golf the Moe Norman Way
© 2015 Todd Graves
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Published by Brown Books Publishing Group
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Dallas, Texas 75248
www.BrownBooks.com
(972) 381-0009
A New Era in Publishing™
Art direction, book design, and principal photography by Jon Vopni. www.VopniParsonsDesign.com
Additional photography by Dale Stroud. DaleStroud@gmail.com
Illustrations by Ron Hicinbothem
ATTENTION CORPORATE CUSTOMERS:
This book may be purchased for business, fund-raising, or promotional use. Special covers
and back pages can be created to customize the book for an event or other purpose.
Contact: Graves Golf Academy
12716 Cobblestone Parkway, Oklahoma City, OK 73142
Toll Free inside the US (866) 377-2316
Outside US (405) 562-9225
www.MoeNormanGolf.com
First Edition: February 2015
ISBN 978-1-61254-892-0
LCCN 2014919426
Printed in the United States 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For more information or to contact the author, please go to
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword | By Rick Carlisle
Acknowledgments
Introduction
How to Use This Book
About the Authors
FOREWORD
By Rick Carlisle | Head Coach, Dallas Mavericks
In 1997, I was a 7 handicap who struggled to strike the ball consistently solid. As an improving player, I loved the game but couldn’t quite get to that elusive higher level of play.
The solution was a simpler method and a great teacher. Todd Graves coached me from a 7 handicap to where I could shoot par. The Single Plane Golf Swing created and perfected by the late Moe Norman is the most effective way to learn or improve ball-striking. And Todd Graves is the greatest living practitioner and teacher of this method.
I met Todd in the summer of 1997 at a ball-striking exhibition he was conducting in Indianapolis, Indiana. At that time, I had some friends on the PGA Tour and I had even caddied in the Open Championship in 1996 for Peter Jacobsen. But I had never seen anyone hit the ball as consistently straight and solid as Todd did that day. His swing appeared simple and efficient, but it was definitely different.
I was very intrigued with what I saw. When I talked to Todd that day, it was clear that he was more than a great ball-striker. He also had a gift for communicating the nuances and differences between the Single Plane Golf Swing and the “conventional” swing.
In 1999, Todd introduced me to the great Moe Norman. We took a memorable one-hour minivan ride from Moe’s home club in Titusville, Florida, to Orlando, where Moe was doing a clinic. During that ride, it was obvious that Moe’s relationship with Todd was special. Over the years, they had spent countless hours on the driving range hitting balls, talking golf technique, and creating a unique bond. Moe told me he was proud that Todd was the only person he ever “mentored” on his approach to the Single Plane Golf Swing. “The only one worthy, only one worthy,” he repeated in his one-of-a-kind voice.
My twenty-six years in professional sports have been devoted to competition and teaching. I was fortunate to play on an NBA Championship team in 1986 with the Boston Celtics, and I was humbled to receive NBA Coach of the Year honors in 2002. On a journey like mine, there are people I’ve played and worked with that are “originals” who have influenced my professional life dramatically—great basketball men like Larry Bird, Chuck Daly, and Rick Pitino. As you read this book, you will find that Todd Graves is one of these rare “originals” in the context of teaching the golf swing.
The two greatest ball-strikers I have ever seen are Moe Norman and Todd Graves. This book is your opportunity to learn Moe Norman’s Single Plane Golf Swing from its greatest living practitioner and teacher.
TODD’S
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I think of the path I traveled to get to a place where I could write a book that teaches a golf swing that defies every golf convention for the past fifty years, I know it would not have been possible without the support of my loving family and great friends. On days when I questioned myself, they steadied me.
I was also fortunate to be exposed to some wise people who had a great influence on me, notably Steve Jobs. “Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking,” the late Apple founder wrote. “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow you heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
When I re-read this quote recently, I thought that Moe Norman and Steve Jobs were similarly dedicated to their own truths. Moe spent his entire life defying conventional golf dogma. Moe said his favorite song was My Way by Frank Sinatra.
I believe sincerely that Moe was a genius, but he was so shy that he couldn’t articulate his vision. In many ways, I believe that I have helped Moe to communicate and spread the word about a different and easier way to play golf that he created. To do this, I have been down many paths—as a kid who fell in love with a game, a college athlete, a touring professional golfer, and now an instructor running a company dedicated to helping others learn Moe’s swing.
I could not have trekked down these uncertain roads without the guidance and friendship of Moe, my lifelong mentor, and without the tremendous support from so many people, our paths would have never crossed.
First and foremost, I must thank my parents, Don and Cheryl Graves for helping me to pursue any path my heart wanted to follow.
No one pushes me harder to overcome my insecurities than my brother Tim Graves, who continues to encourage me and carry the torch that lights the often undefined path.
Saying thank you does not express my gratitude to Tracy Bielich who, behind the scenes, is my biggest fan and supporter.
A great deal of thanks must be extended to Tim O’Connor, my co-author, who somehow found a way to express my thoughts on paper and to photographer Jon Vopni, who found a way to put pictures to the words.
TIM’S
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many other people who have assisted me, including Larry Olson, Scott Renfrow, Dave Predzin, Clay Farnsworth, Trent White, Pepe Sigal, and Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle. You are my teammates.
I am also grateful to Tim Norman, Rich Norman, the entire Norman family, Gus Maue and Ron Mark, and the Estate of Moe Norman for their support and belief that I can carry Moe’s legacy into the future of golf.
And thanks to publisher Brown Books, who helped get this book over the final hurdles of publishing.
I’ve always dreamed of paying tribute to Moe with a book that people could savor and enjoy and with whom I could share his special gifts. I am filled with gratitude for the people who shared my dream and helped make it a reality.
There are a lot of people to thank for their help in writing this book, and Todd Graves is at the top of the list.
Our mutual respect for Moe led us to meet, become business colleagues and friends, and our mutual desire to pay tribute to Moe and increase awareness of his Single Plane Swing led us to write this book together. Of course, it would not have been possible without Todd taking the financial risk. Thanks Todd for your faith in me, for the great kitchen and Starbucks sessions, and for significantly increasing my knowledge about golf—and how to feel a great golf swing.
Thanks to Jon Vopni for his impeccable photographs that make this book such a beauty and to his wonderful partner in business and in life Sandra Parsons, who also contributed mightily. Thanks to Paul (Swing Machine) Wilson for putting me in touch with Jon.
I am thankful for Scott Renfrow for his help and patience with the photo shoot, and the great people at Eagle Creek Golf Club in Orlando. I’m also thankful for the help of Andrea Gordon with CP Images and advice from John Gordon and Hans Deryk.
Paul Henry, Paul Dewland, Tom Jackson, Nick Murphy, and Bob Brehl provided plenty of encouragement. I owe a huge debt to Mark Evershed, who helped start this journey by introducing me to Moe and helping me gain his trust. Thanks to Fred Shoemaker and Karl Morris for their inspiration.
I’m especially thankful to my parents, Margaret and Dennis O’Connor, for their love, blessings, and for nurturing my fascination with golf and writing.
Finally I am so grateful for Sandy, whose support made it possible for me to dive back into writing and for Corey and Sean, who are great sons and sports guys. (It doesn’t get better for a sports dad.)
INTRODUCTION
“Only two players have ever truly owned their swing—Moe Norman and Ben Hogan.”
–Tiger Woods after winning the 2004 Target World Challenge
While Tiger’s famous quote about Moe made me smile the first few times that I read it, eventually it occurred to me that it was both a wonderful tribute to my late friend and incredibly ironic.
Hogan won nine major championships, and at the time of this writing, Tiger had won fourteen majors. Both are among the best-known golfers in history.
Aside from golfers of a certain age in Canada and a relatively small group of avid golfers, Moe Norman is largely unknown in the world of golf.
With a tangled set of teeth that resembled a jack-o’-lantern, a high-pitched singsong voice and an odd penchant for repeating words, and a devastating inferiority complex and excruciating shyness, Moe Norman lived largely hand to mouth throughout his life in relative anonymity.
Yet this strange and quirky man perfected a biomechanically superior golf swing that earned him the reputation as the greatest ball-striker in the history golf. Not the best golfer. The best at hitting a golf ball exactly square on the clubface—every time. Indeed Moe Norman owned his swing.
Now through this book, you can learn the swing and approach to the game that made Moe Norman the greatest ball-striker in golf.
Although Moe trusted few people—his friends were almost exclusively golf professionals like me—I was extremely fortunate to become friends with Moe in his last decade of life. In fact, he became my mentor, and I learned Moe’s swing so thoroughly that I was dubbed Little Moe.
As I developed a friendship with Moe, I wanted to know what Moe had figured out that no other player had. Moe looked, acted, and swung like no other player I had ever seen, yet some of golf’s biggest stars such as Lee Trevino and the late Ken Venturi said he was the greatest ball-striker in history.
His swing was so different: his arms were straight and pointed at the ball, his stance was wide—his feet were well outside his shoulders with a driver—and his feet remained flat on the ground well past impact.
Everything changed when I saw a video of Moe Norman in action. It took me by surprise: His set-up, swing, and follow-through were so different.
EVERYTHING CHANGED THE MOMENT I SAW A VIDEO OF MOE NORMAN IN ACTION.
I first saw Moe swing a club on a VHS videotape. Before I had even met Moe, I knew that beyond how different his swing looked, there was something else fundamentally different going on that I couldn’t quite understand.
I popped the VHS tape into the player. While watching Moe hit balls with the camera behind him (providing a down-the-line perspective), I drew a line on the screen with a marker that traced the position of Moe’s club shaft at address. I inched the tape through his backswing and back down into impact and drew another line. Wow, I thought. I rewound the tape of the swing a few times from address and back down to impact.
Holy cow! The lines drawn on the screen at address and impact matched almost perfectly. Then it occurred to me. It was my eureka moment in golf: I realized that Moe Norman swung on a Single Plane.
Every touring professional and elite amateur that I’d ever seen started with his hands and arms low—underneath his shoulders—and moved them higher to hit the ball (what pros call the impact position). They swung on two planes. By starting with his hands, arms, and shaft at the impact position, Moe had a Single Plane Swing.
It just made so much sense why Moe could hit the ball with such machine-like precision and compress every ball perfectly. A one-plane swing was simpler and had far fewer moving parts. I wondered how no one had discovered this before. Eventually I realized that Moe was an intuitive genius. He saw and felt things in his golf swing that few if any ever had. He was not blinkered by convention or hamstrung by concerns about what other people said was correct.
As I came to understand Moe’s swing and approach to golf, I started to think that perhaps the conventional swing was just too difficult for most golfers. Then it struck me: Despite more than one hundred years of golf instruction and technological advances in teaching and understanding the swing, this strange fellow called Moe had developed a swing that was easier to learn, master, and understand for the average golfer.
I dedicated myself to enhancing Moe’s legacy and to teaching Moe’s Single Plane Swing so that more people could experience the joy of playing golf, rather than the frustration and confusion that most golfers suffer. Since my brother Tim and I created the Graves Golf Academy in 2000, we have taught more than 5,000 people at our schools and sold more than 250,000 instructional DVDs.
In spending more than 10,000 hours—including individual lessons—in helping golfers learn the Single Plane Swing, I am convinced it’s the best swing for amateur golfers for the following reasons:
• By following Moe’s model, you can monitor and maintain your swing on your own.
• Compared to the traditional swing, the Single Plane Swing places far less stress on your back, resulting in fewer injuries.
• It allows older golfers to play better golf and have more fun for many more years.
IT TOOK ME BY SURPRISE: HIS SET-UP, HIS SWING, AND FOLLOW-THROUGH WERE SO DIFFERENT.
Some critics say Moe’s skill came from hitting millions of balls and his savant-like personality. This is true, at least partially. Developing any skill, especially a golf swing, takes time and dedication. However, without his unique, self-discovered swing, he would not have become the most accurate, consistent, and skillful shotmaker in history.
In this first major book to examine Moe’s golf swing and approach to golf in detail, you will learn why Moe’s Single Plane Swing is superior to the traditional swing for amateur golfers and how he arrived at perfect impact every time. We will make the case that Moe’s approach can make golf far more fun for millions of golfers.
We will take you step-by-step through the sequence of Moe’s swing so that you can learn it, focusing on the movements, as well as the feelings of the Single Plane Swing and provide drills so you can learn the swing.
We will also teach you how to practice the Single Plane Swing and how to monitor your progress so you know you’re performing and feeling the motions perfectly. Lastly we will teach you the fundamentals of shot-making using your Single Plane Swing, as well as how to take your Single Plane Swing from the range to the golf course, so you can hit the ball with the power, accuracy, and consistency that you’ve always dreamed of.
First, we will share how—like millions of golfers—I struggled and agonized over my inability to improve. That is, until I met a strange and wonderful man from Canada who changed my life and subsequently the lives of thousands of golfers.
We are also excited to tell the compelling and bittersweet story of Moe’s life, the challenges he faced, and the endearing and often quirky attributes and stories that made him one of the greatest characters in the history of the game.
Our successes in helping golfers gain greater enjoyment from the game and my desire to preserve Moe’s legacy has led me to write this book with Tim O’Connor, Moe’s biographer and the author of the best-selling book, The Feeling of Greatness: The Moe Norman Story. Tim’s knowledge of and compassion for Moe, as well as his twenty-year career in golf journalism and communications, makes him an ideal writing partner.
For years, I’ve wanted to create a high-quality book that shares knowledge about Moe and his approach to the game, celebrates him, and tells some of the stories that have made him one of the greatest characters in golf. Fulfilling this goal brings me a lot of joy, and I hope this book brings you a greater appreciation for the gift of Moe Norman.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Caution: This book will not satisfy the engineer inside of you. We have gone into detail describing movements in the Single Plane Swing, but we haven’t over-analyzed it.
The book will likely entertain your intellect. By closely reading this book, you will have a thorough understanding of Moe’s swing and approach to the game, which you can apply to your own game.
But knowing how doesn’t mean you can
As I discovered, you do not play golf by thinking. Swing thoughts do not work. You probably know that from your own experience. You are looking at this book because you want a new approach that will provide the results you’ve always dreamed of. Like Moe, this golf journey will be different than any you’ve experienced.
We encourage you to use this book in a way that mirrors the way I learned from Moe:
• Learn the mechanics of the swing so you know how the Singe Plane Swing works
• Learn the feelings of the movements of the Single Plane Swing (see “Feeling It” in chapter 11)
• Match the model—mimic and compare yourself to pictures in the book
• Commit to an improvement plan*
• Monitor your practice sessions with video (see “The Importance of Feedback” in chapter 11)
Note: References to alignment are based on right-handed golfers.
I suggest that when you first purchase the book, read through it once to enjoy learning about Moe and why he was such a perplexing and fascinating person. Reading all the way through the book will provide you with a thorough understanding of the Single Plane Swing and Moe’s approach to playing the game. But the real learning will take over when you cross the threshold and experience the feeling of the swing.
I am also convinced that if you learn the Single Plane Swing, put in the time, monitor yourself, and become a feeling golfer, you will own your swing.
And then you will experience what Moe called “The Feeling of Greatness.”
Let’s get you started
*I tell the same thing to all my students who are dedicated to improving: do not play golf for a minimum of six months while you are learning the Single Plane Swing. That is, do not play golf with the intention of trying to score or perform. That generally leads to a focus on results, which undermines the process of learning the feelings associated with the swing, and typically puts a golfer back in his or her head thinking mechanical thoughts rather than playing. (The section on “Feeling It” also deals with this aspect of learning.)
