Moe Norman

The Shortcut to a Great Golf Swing – Single Plane 3D

December 3, 2018 by admin

Stand up and let me ask you three questions.

Can you rotate your body?

Can you bend forward?

Can you bend sideways?

If you answered yes to these questions then you have a great golf swing inside of you right now. You simply have to get it out. This is why I developed Single Plane 3D. To get it out faster.

What is Single Plane 3D? To put it plainly, the Single Plane 3D system is like having a coach with you every time you move your body. When you move incorrectly, the Single Plane 3D system notifies you producing visual and audio signal – in realtime. Realtime biofeedback when you practice is revolutionary and unlike any practice you have ever experienced because unless a coach has moved your body for you – you have never really experienced biofeedback.

The 3D system places a sensor on your torso and your pelvis to measure the position of the body relative to Turn, Bend (forward) and sideband (sideways). When you wear the sensors, the sensors indicate whether you are in the correct position. If not, arrows will indicate whether you are incorrectly positioned. When you match the model of the Single Plane Swing, you will hear a TONE that indicates perfect positioning. This is all happening while you move in realtime.

I developed the 3D system to solve the problem of practicing incorrectly. It dramatically improved the quality of my practice which, in turn, sped up the process and became part of my practice regimen.

This is the regimen and checks that I use to improve and stay on track.

Movement Practice

You simply can’t move correctly enough. Moe would often say “Hit your positions, hit your positions”. You must practice moving into your Single Plane swing positions. To practice my movement I am always moving into my swing positions starting at address. You can do this with or without a golf club or with a Single Plane Trainer. I make sure that even if I am not hitting golf balls on the range, I get a few reps of movement practice in each day. The Single Plane 3D system works you through each position of the golf swing and gives you biofeedback on whether you are hitting your positions.

Heavily Focus on Address

Measuring the Single Plane Address in #D

Moe would often say “If you haven’t got a good address, you haven’t got anything”. The address position determines how you initiate your movement. It also determines the initial path of the golf club. If you make a mistake at address, you must compensate for it somewhere in the golf swing. The golf swing is moving too fast to make adjustments and without a great address, you can never be a good golfer. I make sure I practice my address position every day by doing what I call walk-ins. Walk-ins are when I step into my address position before I hit a shot. No only am I developing my address position, but I am also getting a feel for when to pull the trigger before I hit the shot. This is one of my favorite exercises with the Single Plane 3D system.

Position 1 is key

Over two thirds of the body’s backswing movement occurs from Address to position 1. I call it “The First Move”. The first move looks simple and most people take it for granted and get it wrong. I know personally that if I don’t execute the first move correctly, it throws off the timing of my entire swing.

Rehearse Impact (Position 4)

You must have a way to feel can rehearse the perfect impact position. I’m not talking about hitting balls but rather making sure you can put your body into the positional moment of impact where you trail foot is down, the lead knee is flexed and your body is tilted and rotated correctly with your trial arm bent. You should be able to put yourself into this position and hold it for a few seconds. If your body hasn’t learned the impact position, it will be unlikely that you will hit this position when you swing in full speed. You can also practice impact with a leverage bag and club. Impact is the one of the first metrics I measure with the Single Plane 3D system.

The Finish Position (Position 6) is a Bellweather

If you can’t reach the finish position, you will most likely miss impact. This is something I learned from developing the Single Plane 3D system. I found that people had the most trouble with the finish position because this position requires the most amount of differential between the upper and lower body. This differential is called separation where the upper body rotation separates from the lower body rotation. I continually practice this position without a golf club to develop my rotational ability and “free up” my body. When my body is free to finish the swing, I can maximize my speed.

While the Single Plane Golf swing is an easier way to “get it”, it still takes practice and to most people, practice is monotonous and difficult. Now I have a way you can double-down on your practice, save enormous amounts of time and dramatically speed up your learning.

“How long is this going to take? is the most common question I get asked. You have probably asked that question as well. That’s because when it comes to playing golf, all of us want to hit great shots as soon as possible. I am the same way, I get it.

The problem is not that it takes much time to learn the Single Plane Swing but mainly golfers practice incorrectly. I guarantee that at least half of your practice time or more is simply – wrong. Just think how many hours you are wasting by practicing incorrectly. What if you used that time effectively? Practicing the wrong way is vicious circle The more you incorrectly train, the worse you become. This is why most golfers dread going to the range – because it’s not fun and most of the time, they don’t get better.

The answer to this dilemma is exactly why I developed Single Plane 3D – the only way to get biofeedback while practicing – and know that you are practicing perfectly. I dedicated a website to 3D training. You can even see the quantification of the exact rotations, bends and sidebands of the model here:

https://singleplane3d.com/sp-swing-model/

The shortcut to a great golf swing is practice the correct swing perfectly. So do yourself a favor and take a look at www.singleplane3d.com. On the website you will find everything you need to know about taking your game to new levels and learning how to practice perfectly.

Top 5 Single Plane Breakthroughs for 2017

December 24, 2017 by admin

Hello, Single Plane Golfers.

If you enjoy Moe Norman stories or advocate his simple golf swing – you will probably be interested in hearing about my Top 5 Single Plane Discoveries for 2017.

Each year I learn more about Moe and his amazingly simple golf swing. What might fascinate me, even more, is how much of a genius he was. His insights about the golf swing were direct and straightforward. His messages sounded crude at the time, but as I continue to do research and dig into his golf swing with modern technology, I am discovering that twenty-three years later, he was more accurate than ever

Let’s take a look at my top 5 discoveries of 2017 and what Moe said about them over 20 years ago.

1) The address position is never square.

Moe said, “It’s a game of straight where everything’s crooked.”

Once again Moe was right on. While we align our toe line to the target and square the clubface, the body is open to the goal. We often call this “square” but in reality, other than the club face being perpendicular to the intended target, nothing of the body is parallel to the target line.

Moe Norman Overhead View

Interestingly enough, when I asked Moe how he aligned a golf shot, he always said: “Line up the club face, aim and fire.” He never mentioned the feet or shoulders.

No surprise here but the backswing is two parts.

Moe is right again when he said “IN and then UP “ when he described the movement of the backswing.

We’ve always taught the backswing this way, but this year we quantified it with 3D motion analysis equipment. While the two parts of the backswing are blended into one motion, data shows that the upper body “separates” from the lower body during the backswing motion creating two distinct movements. It is difficult to see but easy to feel. My latest video “Inside the Single Plane Swing” describes this movement and teaches how to feel it.

Single Plane Golf Swing Top View

3. Inside the SPS is a breakthrough concept. Feel is real.

Moe called his golf swing ‘The Feeling of Greatness” for a reason. It’s all about feel. This became more evident with our bestselling DVD for 2017 – Inside the Single Plane Swing. Subtitled “Feel your Swing,” SPS students have been raving about the latest instruction insights. Based on the concept of standing inside Moe Norman’s body while he moved and felt what he felt, the Inside the SPS DVD allows you to focus on the sensations of motion. The instruction is a “first” of its kind and proving to be one of the greatest of all time.

Order Inside SPS here

Webinar Top View Camera

Order Inside SPS here

4. Less is more. Shortening the backswing produces more rotation – go figure.

If you asked any Single Plane Instructor “Have you ever lengthened a backswing?” They would answer with a resounding “no.” Students often think that a longer backswing creates more power. But as science once again proves, golf defies logic.

Quantifiably, a shorter backswing improves the amount of rotation in the backswing to impact total. In other words, when you shorten the backswing rotation, you can rotate more at impact. Together – you can produce total rotation.

A recent student was producing 90 degrees of shoulder rotation going back and only 10 degrees of rotation at impact – going forward. A total of 100 degrees. By shortening his backswing to only 75 degrees of rotation going back, he was able to get 35 degrees of rotation at impact – going forward. A total of 110 degrees.

By doing so, his hands were able to lead, and he produced more speed at the proper moment of his swing – impact.

Nobody ever said golf made sense.

Stabilize and Energize the Single Plane Swing

Order Inside SPS here

5. A ball against the wall stops the hips from a fall. (Sorry but I felt like I had to make this one rhyme.)

In describing the backswing, Moe said “Stabilize and Energize” Well, you just can’t energize if you don’t stabilize. That’s because the hip rotation in the backswing is a critical factor to proper spine tilt and body rotation.

If you take an exercise ball and place it between your lead hip and the wall, you can move into your backswing and feel how the bone stays forward as you rotate. I call this the “wall-ball” drill. Again, the wall-ball exercise helps you feel the movement of the lower body as well as the stabilization of the trail leg.

Graves Golf Wall Ball DrillWall-ball is definitely one of the best new drill discoveries of 2017.

Order Inside SPS here

Distance an issue – Not with the Single Plane Swing

December 16, 2017 by admin

Have you seen Sandra Carlborg? She won the Women’s national long drive championship. You can see her Single Plane swing here: Sandra Carlborg on the Golf Channel.

I did a little research and found that she has adjusted her swing to the Single Plane since 2014. Here you can see her swing from 2014.

If you look at her swing this year (2017) where she wins the women’s National Long Drive Championship, she has lifted her swing into a Single Plane at address.

She hit her winning shot 349 yards. You can see an as significant lift in her hand position creating a Single Plane with her arms and club shaft.

Comments about Sandra and this article – We want to hear from you:

Tough Love – I Better See You in February

December 2, 2017 by admin

It’s Coach Todd here. I have my coaching hat on. I’m not here to discuss your swing technique. I’m here to talk about you. We need to have a heart-to-heart.

I get worried this time of year because we plan our spring schedule, and our schools fill quickly. We have limited seats. Then I hear later in the year that students missed out, and they wait an entire year to come to a school. A whole year! That’s way too long.

Single Plane Golf Schools — Graves Golf School Chipping Instruction

If you are planning on coming to a GGA school, you need to register now. Don’t wait. I don’t want you to miss out. If you haven’t made up your mind yet – I have some profound unsolicited advice for you. If you plan on attending a GGA School, we expect you to –

Raise your standard and your expectations about your golf swing.

That’s right. You need to stop accepting your current golf game. Right now you are taking it to easy on yourself. You agree to mediocrity. You complain that golf is hard and you struggle every year but you don’t do anything about it. It’s time to do something. You need to change. It’s time to get some real results. Now. Let me ask you.

If not now, when?

Look, you and I aren’t getting any younger. We are on the same trip – traveling on the same planet – our ship is headed in the same direction. The only opportunity we have is today. It takes time to make changes, and you need to start now.

Graves Golf Schools — Graves Golf School Notebook

By the way, this isn’t just my advice. This guidance was given to me by Tony Robbins a few years ago when I was sleeping through my life. His no B.S. approach woke me up, and he was right. I was accepting mediocrity and making dozens of excuses about why I wasn’t successful. I was telling myself lies, and I believed them. Things like “I don’t have the time” or “I’m just not strong enough.”

Today I am involved in one of the most successful golf schools on the planet – because I raised my expectations. I stopped making excuses. I raised my standards. Thank you, Tony.

He showed me that the things I was telling myself were B.S. I know because I went to work and overcame them. I realized that my beliefs, the stories I was telling myself, weren’t right. Once I realized this, my entire world changed.

But, you know what the best thing about it was? It helped the people around me too. That’s right. When you raise your standards, the people around you grow their standards also. Their lives get better because I decided to stop suffering. It’s a win/win! But it only happened once I stopped telling myself lies.

I’m telling you that right now, at this exact moment, you are lying to yourself about your potential – and you are suffering because of it. I promise.

So what are you going to do about it? Here is an excellent place to start. Let’s find out what you are telling yourself about your golf game.

1. Old dogs can’t learn new tricks.

I’ve heard this one thousand times, and I’ve taught hundreds of old dog’s new golf swings. I witness hundreds of transformations at the schools. We get thousands of testimonials each year from golfers who were transformed from learning the Single Plane Swing. I promise that you will learn something new within the fifteen minutes of a golf school or I’ll give you your money back.

2. I don’t have the time.

You know it as well as I do, you always have time if you want to have time. I told this one to Tony, and he said that it wasn’t that I didn’t have the time it was that I didn’t want it bad enough. Heck, twenty-three years ago I drove across the United States to watch Moe hit balls so I could learn his swing. If you want something – you do it. It’s that simple.

3. I don’t want to change my swing – it will take too long.

This excuse makes no sense to me. Would you somewhat suffer forever than make a few changes? Do you want to look back at your life and say “I should have?”

4. I don’t like to practice

At one-point, practicing wasn’t fun anymore. Tony told me was asking the wrong question. He then asked – “What if you loved to practice. What if you couldn’t wait to get up every day and get to the golf course to practice?” What would your life be like? What would your golf game be like?

Not only do we lie to ourselves, we ask ourselves the wrong questions. Instead of saying “I can’t do something” ask yourself “What if you could? “. This simple change in how you frame things changes everything.

Bunker Instruction at the Graves Golf School

Here’s the deal. I want to help you. The entire GGA Team wants to help you and see you succeed. We will do everything in our power to help you – if you will raise your standards and see us.

I want to come to a school, and I want to be tough on you. Why? Because I want you to raise your standards, I want you to change and I want results.

The Single Plane Address

November 7, 2017 by admin

I’ve taught thousands of students the Single Plane Swing of Moe Norman. One thing that is consistently true about learning Moe’s swing is the importance of the Address position. Moe was right when he said:

“If you haven’t got a good address position, you haven’t got anything”.

– Moe Norman

Moe also said, “give yourself a chance“.

As I continue to research the swing, Moe’s comment is glaringly more exact. Why? Mostly because the effects of a bad address are now measurable. I can quantify the mistakes and find the causes. Many times the reasons are at the beginning of the swing – address position.

I hope that this article will help you understand that you must consistently check your address position. There are quite a few elements to it including the alignment of the feet, hand position, arm and leg position, spine tilt and bend and rotation. It can quickly get off track.

As usual, I don’t mean to overanalyze the address. It’s very simple. As I always say, just model Moe. But even modeling Moe can be tricky – because what you see can be deceiving. What you see is not still what you feel. Take for example the tilt and bend of the spine.

There are two tilts of the spine, the forward angle which is toward the golf ball and the side bend, which is the tilt away from the target. The trick is that you must have both inclinations to position the shoulders correctly so the arms can extend in the proper position.

Here is a picture of Moe at address – side bend (away from the target) is 20 degrees.

Moe Norman Address — Moe Norman side bend of twenty degrees at address

In my opinion, the side bend is the most difficult to feel and accomplish because it is entirely contrary to the conventional address position of having your arms hanging below your shoulders. With the proper side bend, you need a few other elements including the first foot rotation and trail leg braced.

Once you have the lead foot and trail leg in position, you can quickly align the club and first arm.

In many ways, the grip is a function of this address position. When you have the body in the proper side-bend, the lead holder lifts. This raises the first arm. When you grip the club, the arm is higher and rotated, aligning the back of the hand and wrist to the target. The trail shoulder is lower. When you lift the side to the club, it is rotated under the organization – creating an alignment to the single plane where the trailing arm aligns with the shaft.

Moe Norman — Moe Down the Line Address – Single Plane

You can see in the Down-the-line view what Moe’s legs are straight. His lead arm is higher than his trail arm – both essential variables to the ideal Single Plane Swing.

In this position, the shoulders appear to be “closed” or pointing to the right of his feet line. In actuality, his shoulders are open at address.

The fact that his body is open at speech is significant. At address, Moe’s shoulders are approximately 15 degrees open. When he rotates to the top of the backswing, he will turn about 65 degrees. Making the total turn 80 degrees. Why is this important?

When Moe returns to impact, his shoulders and hips will be 35 degrees open – 20 degrees more than at address. By opening the shoulders through impact, the hands can lead – give the club speed and proper angles into the ball to create compression.

My suggestion is that you consistently monitor and check your address position in a mirror or by using video. The address position sets up the golf swing, and as Moe mentioned, without it, you don’t have a chance.

The Single Plane Golf Swing

August 14, 2017 by admin

Moe isn’t the only player to swing on a Single Plane.Today, there are numerous players that I consider Single Plane Golfers. Bryson Dechambeau and Steve Stricker are the main players that resemble what I consider Single Plane golfers on tour while I find Moe Norman as the ideal Single Plane model.

I find Moe Norman’s golf swing model. He simplified the Single Plane even further with a few changes in his address position. Moe adjusted his spine a bit more the address to resemble the spine angle at impact.

These placed the trail shoulder closer to the plane at address, removing rotation in the backswing and simplifying the entire swing. Notice that Moe stands a bit further from the ball. These allow him to move more downward to reach impact rather than a lifting action.

Here is Reed Howard, one of my students from address to impact.

Reed has mastered Moe’s movement to keep the spine stable and reduce the stress on the back. When I met Reed, he had high rotations in his hand’s positions and over rotation of his body as a result.

Reed’s over-rotation of his body helped his hands lead through impact – however, the club lagged behind the rotation causing an extreme de-lofting of the golf club. My first question was “Do you always hit it that little?”. The first thing I changed was to neutralize his lead hand position, making it neutral so he could place the club face. The swing starts from the grip. Your hands determine the rotation of the lead arm and clubface. By changing Reed’s hand position, it simplified the motion of the first arm. From there, I could begin focusing on the rotation of his torso.

Due to his firm grip and over-rotation of his body, Reed had developed a “late hand action” in his backswing. Why is this a problem? The backswing also has a sequence where you turn your body and then the upper torso continues to turn as the lower body stabilizes. As you turn and the lower body stops, the hands hinge as the chest becomes. Having a late hook of his hands is usually a result of too much turn of the torso. Too much turn makes it difficult to time the downswing into impact.

Learning the Single Plane Golf Swing

I believe that with Bryson’s and Reed’s continued success, the light will begin to shine on the Single Plane swing mechanics. The Single Plane swing will become a household conversation and an accepted way to play golf. The golf world will analyze it and compare it to the tradition of conventional golfers.

The simplicity of the swing has its roots in biomechanics. When it comes to the Single Plane Swing, I claim and profess that the swing is easier than every method that exists and I feel compelled to prove it.

I am not saying that golf is easy nor am I saying that swinging the golf club is easy to learn. What I am saying is that the Single Plane Golf Swing has fewer variables – making it an easier way to play golf.

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