Golf Exercises for Flexibility

Life is complicated and much of what we stress about is completely out of our control. Take for example, this economic issue that every news channel bombards us with hourly. Do we really understand anything about it? I know I don’t. From what I understand is that emotions play a huge part of it and other than that, it’s an enormous guess to what is really going to happen.

Personally, I don’t like guessing too much and as far as the news is concerned, I would rather just turn it off and let others worry about it. Worry is a killer – even doctors will tell you that. My recommendation for those of you stressing is to turn the TV off and get out of the house. Get active. Nothing feels better than a bit of activity and what better activity than hitting a few golf balls. Golf is a great stress reliever.

I am not talking about going to the golf course and playing 18 holes. I am talking about the meditation of striking golf balls. I personally love it. I don’t really even know why other than it is a great get-away. When I was a kid, I spent much of my time in the open fields of Oklahoma. Those no cell phone – no pressing email days. I miss those days where for just a few hours, the only thing that existed was me, my clubs and a bag of Titleist. I even enjoyed picking them up after I hit them. Weird how we miss the little things.

All I know is that these things I call little are just me, minimizing their value. They are actually huge. I sometimes underestimate their importance.

I think I’m gonna hit a few balls today. Range balls of course – I have emails to answer this afternoon.

Well. It is a shame actually that the Natural Golf Company and Graves Golf Academy can’t find common ground to work together to help people. I truly mean that. I have a long history with Natural Golf – some good and some not so good – it gets a bit messy.

The Natural Golf that many of you know from the past should be applauded – they are probably responsible for bringing Moe Norman to your consciousness. This is a great thing. In this blog, I will stay away from their company harassing me personally – I will stick to the only thing important which is helping golfers learn about Moe Norman and becoming better golfers.

The question we often get asked is “What do you teach that is different than Natural Golf“?

The answer is – almost everything. The fact is that I believe that Moe Norman is the model for human ball-striking perfection proven by his ability throughout his lifetime. His club movement (the Single Plane) is obvious to anyone who knows the golf swing. I learned this through years and years of my own trial and error. (I don’t think anyone has spent more time and money learning golf than me).

More importantly, everyone who models Moe improves. That is the fact we recognize every day in our golf schools. And, this is the best part of what I do. Every day I am able to help people learn what I am passionate about.

Our differences in what we teach may seem minor yet, when it comes to ball-striking and human efficiency, the details are everything. Here are a few of the differences.

1) We teach overlapping grip position – the hand position Moe Norman used to win all of his tournaments. (Natural Golf teaches 10 finger position.) Why? Because the hands are a major speed producer and you must use them as such. Our experiences with the 10 finger grip position show improper use of the hands during the swing which can slow the club down dramatically. So, do you need a larger grip? The answer is absolutely no, you do not. As a matter of fact, the larger non-tapered grips often contribute to losing speed. Moe Norman never used non-tapered grips unless forced to because of his sponsorship from Natural Golf. When he used them he complained saying how the grips were too big. The clubs he gave me are tapered and some are only slightly larger.

2) We believe in modeling Moe Norman. (Natural Golf finds modeling Moe impossible even though they continue to use his image and likeness claiming that he was idiosyncratic). The fact is that swing plane is SWING PLANE established by a properly fit club relative to the body. The club either moves correctly on plane or not. Moe’s golf club does exactly what a golf club should from start to finish. I have seen thousands of people achieve the same club movement of Moe Norman by simply doing what Moe did. When you know how Moe did it, it is really that simple. When you finally realize that Moe is the model, you stop wasting your time guessing and just copy Moe, you will improve – every time. Will you be exactly like Moe. Probably not however, the closer you get, the better – the most important thing is that there is no guessing here.

I am speaking from experience here after teaching thousands of students and eight years of operating the Graves Golf Academy. I have said it before, when you model Moe, it is not rocket science – to steal a phrase – just do it, it works and it is proven by the best ball-striker the world has ever known.

3) You do not need special equipment with big grips. This is the scam of the century in my book and the reason Natural Golf and I have gotten into this mess in the first place. Large grips and long upright clubs have nothing to do with swinging the club on a Moe Norman Single Plane. As a matter of fact, Moe Norman’s clubs (his favorite ones) had flat lie angles. But here is what is important – the clubs must fit your single plane address position regarding the shaft and the spine angle relationship. Doesn’t this make sense? Think about it for a minute.

If you impact where the club aligns with the trail arm and the lead arm is straight at impact, doesn’t it makes sense that the club has a relationship to the body also. What is this relationship? When you look at Moe, Moe’s spine stays at the same angle at address to impact. This perfect biomechanics efficiency makes the club length and lies angle critically important. when your clubs get too long and upright, you have serious problems with impact. Once again, I have been watching people struggle with Natural Golf equipment for years. This is a shame and a waste of money.

4) The spine is a critical element in the golf swing. This makes sense when you consider the hands are attached to the arms and the arms are attached to the shoulders and the shoulders are on top of the spine. Once again, this is not rocket science, this is anatomy. When you move the hands, the arms move. If you incorrectly position your spine, you will have difficulty moving your arms. This is what happens with an improper address position caused by clubs that are too long and too upright.

Finally, I have an apology to make. I apologize not starting the GGA sooner.

We have had great success and a heck of a lot of fun helping people learn the greatest golf swing on the planet. Tim and I plan to take GGA to new levels of helping people improve their golf games. If you get to know our company, you will quickly learn that is no better team to help you than the GGA staff.

The fact is that our success speaks for itself and yes, often makes us a target. I don’t mind being Natural Golf’s punching bag. I will do it for Moe Norman and helping people learn his golf swing. I can take it – if Natural Golf only understood that when they attack me, they attack Moe – who they promote.  Messy, isn’t it?

Great to see all of the alumni working on Swinging Like Moe. This is what we (GGA) enjoy and seeing how others improve and keep working at their golf swings is fun. I only wish that we could see these students more often. Having seen some of the issues over the past year, especially some of our alumni, I wanted to mention some of the main issues we see as instructors.

The one we see so often is this:

1) Clubs that are too long and upright.

This is a huge problem. Here’s why.

When you hold the club in the fingers of the lead hand (CORRECTLY), it creates a perfect relationship between the radius bone and the arm. Yes, I said fingers of the lead hand. This is your left hand if you are a right handed golfer and your right hand if you are a left-handed golfer.

I call this the “perfect” angle between the lead arm and the club because this is the angle that forms at impact. Since the lead arm is straight at impact, the club aligns with this arm and you are “forced” to deal with this angle.

Now, here is the fine print. This angle formed by the club and the lead arm must intersect the spine at the Mid-spine-intersect™ point.

Why? Because of biomechanics. You simply can’t help it due to this angle between the lead arm and club.

Now, here is the problem. If the club is too long, you will find that you can’t form this perfect angle. Why? because there is not enough room for the club to fit between you and the ball. So what happens? You stand up and move away from the ball. In other words, you stand up because the club is too long.

You see, the club, if incorrectly fit, is affecting your ability to swing the golf club. To compound the problem, if the club lie angle is too upright, the problem gets even worse.

I don’t care if you go buy clubs from Academy Sports or Walmart but they must fit you correctly if you are going to have a chance to improve and stop fighting your equipment.

By the way, Moe’s golf clubs were not long an upright. As a matter of fact, the clubs he gave me were flat (3 degrees). If he was ever given a club that was too long or too upright, he would choke down on the club to modify the club length. Why? So that it did not disrupt the “perfect” angle.

Make sure your clubs fit before you get into this golf season – PLEASE! If you want to, fill out our Free Club-fitting form and Tim will help you get the measurements you need.