By Todd Graves, Graves Golf Academy 

I have multiple golf personalities, four to be exact. My first personality is of a professional golfer who, like most professional golfers, loves the challenge of playing the game of golf. My second personality is of a teacher who, like most teachers, loves to help others learn and play the game by using my first personality’s experience. My third personality is of a golf swing technician who enjoys breaking down flawed golf swings and rebuilding better ones. It is my fourth personality, the golf coach, who is writing this article.

Before I put on my whistle and sweat pants and tell you to run a few laps, let me explain the simple difference between my golf coach and my golf teacher personalities. As your golf teacher, I stand by the chalkboard and show you the correct fundamentals of Moe Norman’s Golf Swing. This includes his single plane address position, perfect club movement and ideal technique. As your golf coach, I am not so interested in using chalk. My expectation already assumes you understand the fundamentals. As your coach, I am more interested in you. I know that by understanding you as a unique person I can motivate you, on a more personal level to work on the fundamentals. The main difference between me as your teacher and me as your coach is you, the student. So put on your golf shoes, call me Coach Todd, and lets get some work done on your golf game.

First, to be coached, you must have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of Moe Norman’s golf swing. If you don’t, I need to revert to my teacher personality and send you back to the classroom to show you. The fundamentals are critical. If you don’t know them yet, you must go back to your Swing-Like-Moe playbook and memorize them. You can also find the information at www.swinglikemoe. com. Go study if you need to. Once you know the fundamentals forwards and backwards, here is how you work on them.

Stand in front of a mirror and grip a six iron. How does your grip look? Does it look like Moe’s grip? Yes? No? Why not? What do you need to change? How about your lead arm? Does it align with the club shaft? Yes? No? Change what needs to be changed.

“Now turn to a down the line view hitting away from the mirror.” Does the club align with your trail arm into the single plane? Yes? No? If not, why not? Check your face-on view again. Now change what you need to change.

How wide is your stance? Is it at least shoulder width? Do you need to widen or narrow it? Is your lead foot turned slightly toward the target?

Turn again away from the mirror. Are your legs relatively straight? Are you bent from the waist? Are you standing 26.5 inches from your toes to the golf ball?

Now, take a few deep breaths, have a seat for a minute. Ok, break’s over; do it again.

That was just the warm up. The more you repeat this practice, the more you memorize the perfect address position which is typically where most mistakes are made. Now let’s get to work on your golf swing. We’re going to the driving range.

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Get to Work

Are you ready to practice? Do you have your golf clubs, range balls, gloves, shoes, and some band-aids? How about a bottle of water? Get ready for the best practice session of your life. But before we get started, let me give you a little inspiration.

You only have this moment. It is the most important one that you have. Turn off your cell phone and put down the Snickers bar. You need to focus on your objective. What? You don’t have one? Let me give you one. We are going to work on your golf swing today. This will be a practice session like no other that you have ever had. Why? Because today, every swing will make you one second closer to the golf swing of Moe Norman. As a matter of fact, you can be better than Moe but it won’t happen if you sit around, so lets get started. 

Put a club on the ground aiming at your target. This is your intended ball flight line. You will learn from this line. Every shot you hit will start left, straight or right of this line. If you pay attention, this line is the most important line in the universe. Remember, your address is perfect, we already took care of that in front of the mirror. Now, you are working on the movement of the golf club. The line will tell you everything you need to know about the path and face angle of the golf club. Each shot is either a success or failure.

Next, keeping the club between your toes and the golf ball, hit a golf shot at your target. Pay attention to the flight of the ball. Did it go right? Left? Straight? Was it good or bad?

If you hit a bad shot, it doesn’t matter. How did it feel? Did it feel effortless, like poetry in motion or did it feel out of balance. No matter how it felt, learn from it.If you hit one directly down the line, celebrate and congratulate yourself. But don’t get too overconfident. Now do it again, 100 more times.

Ok. Take five and a drink of water.

How do you feel? Was your practice productive? Did you learn anything? Great, now do it again, 100 more balls, this time with a driver.

You see, as your coach, I’m here to push you to do things you may not want to do. I push you to be better. That is my job. For you to get better, you either need me or the most lacking character trait in our society today; self discipline.

The very first thing that Moe Norman told me about learning the golf swing was that it is hard work. When I asked him how to learn his swing he said, “you must believe in yourself.”

In my opinion, to work hard you must believe in yourself. Let’s hit some more golf balls.

You should be thoroughly exhausted now. It’s time to hit the shower. But before you do, let me give you one final secret that only the great golfers and the best athletes know. It is the one thing that separates the great ones from the average players and it’s just about the only time the great ones don’t listen to their coaches.

The great ones don’t go to the showers, the great ones go the extra mile. They hit 10 more golf shots, 15 more putts and 8 more chip shots. They give it an extra 10 percent.

It is this extra 10 percent that will make you a better golfer and make me, Coach Todd, the coach of a winner.

See you tomorrow, same time same place.