I have talked about how, when I began my golf swing research, I had chosen Moe Norman’s swing to study because of how it was always being called the “perfect swing.”

I have of course concluded that, while he could strike a ball nearly perfectly straight time after time, it wasn’t an optimal golf swing.

In fact, when you look closely at his motion, it is little more than an elongated pitching motion, and from the top of his back swing to post impact, just a little longer than the “3 to 9 O’clock” part of the swing that I mention periodically.

3 to 9, for those who haven’t followed this blog for years back, means the positions you would hit on the clock face dial when viewed from behind – 3 is the halfway down position and 9 is the post-impact where the club is again parallel to the ground.

Here is Moe hitting what is likely a 3 wood in a demonstration years ago:

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Now, Moe was an incredibly strong little man, as he spent his days doing nothing more than hitting thousands of balls per day when he wasn’t playing, and of course many times he did both.

Golf was a waking-to-sleeping thing for him.

So he had very strong hands and wrists that would have yielded him more distance with his swing than the average person, but there’s no denying that his swing action was little more than a half-motion.

If you don’t believe me, here is Moe at the top of his back swing and at 9 O’clock post-impact:

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His top position was barely past the 3 O’clock position.

Having spent the past few months really looking at the grip part of the address in the golf swing, I can now see clearly that he was absolutely correct about the manner in which he swung.

It was all leading arm (left arm) pulling the club down to pendulum-swing through the bottom, with his right arm doing very little to add power or speed to the down swing:

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Notice the little step-around finish in his follow-through with the right foot, similar to the father of modern long driving, Mike Dunaway.

Moe’s grip, I mentioned before, was nearly the opposite of what I’ve been working on for an optimal right-dominant swing action, but now it makes perfect sense if he was swinging left-dominant and not right.

So, very straight but very, very short in distance.

I have a video tape in which, when he was hitting driver after driver in front of an admiring group, he stated that his perfectly struck driver was sending the ball 250 yards, and that was with a titanium-headed club.

Granted, he was in his sixties at the time, but he wasn’t much longer in his prime, nor did he have to be, sending the ball dead straight, although it was a combination of his technique and endless ball-striking that made him so accurate and consistent.

I would say that anyone with the time to try to perfect this swing would be better served learning how to swing with a right dominant action that might not match Moe for accuracy but would drive the ball 100 yards past his best efforts.

One last point – my grip research is leading me to believe that the optimal grip used in a proper, mechanically-correct Classic Golf Swing action would literally wreck modern golf – imagine being as long as Bryson DeChambeau with the accuracy (or close to it) of Moe Norman.

There wouldn’t be a golf course on earth that could withstand the onslaught of a proper swinger with a good putter.

Time will tell, and I am continuing the work.

More to come.