Among
the thousands of stories about Moe Norman, the late eccentric genius
of golf, is a nugget that exemplifies just how precisely he could
hit a golf ball.
Moe was playing with the late Ken Venning one
morning in Florida. Unable to hit balls before they teed off, they
hit three balls each off the first tee. As they made their way down
the fairway, Venning said it looked like he was walking toward a
mushroom in the middle of the fairway. As he walked on, he was
shocked to see Moe’s three balls – touching.
So, how did Moe become arguably the best ballstriker
in the history of the game?
Between the ages of 14 and 19, Moe worked
obsessively on his swing, hitting upwards of 1,000 balls a day until
he had his move “trapped.” He built up calluses so thick that he had
to cut them off with a knife to hold a club properly.
According to Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the
runaway bestseller Outliers, Moe did what enormously skilled people
have always done: he put in his time.
To become a master at anything, Gladwell argues
authoritatively that you need to put in 10,000 hours at that skill.
So there it is: If your students really want to get
better at this game, they have to put in the time. Not 10,000 hours,
but improving does involve a significant investment in time. It’s
that simple. This will come as relief to your students, but some
researchers argue it takes 21 days to learn a new motor skill until
it’s patterned on the brain.
The original 21-day theory was developed by Maxwell
Maltz, M.D., a renowned cosmetic surgeon with New York Hospitals.
The reason for it, according to Maltz, lies in the brain, but it
goes beyond the structures of memory and lies partly in psychology.
As a plastic surgeon, Dr. Maltz found a link between
self-esteem and the brain. “When you change a man’s face, you almost
invariably change his future. You change his physical image and
nearly always you change the man – his personality, his behavior,
and sometimes even his basic talents and abilities.”
Of course, most golfers don’t want to hear about the
time that they must devote to improving. In fact, most don’t like to
work on learning new skills because they move out of their “comfort
zone,” a phrase Moe often used.
Teaching professional Todd Graves has some insights
into this. He says hitting a good golf shot sends a shot of pleasure
to the brain. Golfers want that “hit” which is accentuated when they
are playing the game.
“When you’re trying to improve, it doesn’t feel
comfortable, and it actually makes you feel bad,” says Graves, a
close friend of Norman’s, and co-owner of the Graves Golf Academy
based in Edmond, Oklahoma.
“Moe said he practised so much because it made him
feel good. It gave him joy,” said Graves, an expert in Norman’s
single-axis swing. (Graves will coach the actor who plays Moe in the
upcoming Hollywood movie about the legend.)
But Graves says that golfers can improve: they just
have to put in the time.
According to Graves, golfers don’t need to hit
thousands of balls to improve. Just putting in dedicated time– even
at home or in the office – can make a mammoth difference.
To overcome a bad habit, Graves says students have
to reprogram their minds and bodies. Mainly, it’s a matter of moving
into the correct positions. Graves advocates that his students
isolate particular moves, and repeat them “over and over” for months
– daily if possible.
Eventually, they will “trap” the correct move, and
it will integrate into the student’s overall swing which will
gradually improve.
“There is no quick fix,” Graves says. “Learning
anything takes time and repetition.”
Tim O’Connor is a journalist and president of
O’Connor Golf Communications. He is the author of The Feeling of
Greatness: The Moe Norman Story. He can be reached at
tim@oconnorgolf.ca.
