The Incredible Story Of Moe Norman Golfs Greatest Ever Ball Striker | A Short Golf Documentary

when we think of the greats of the game like tiger Vijay Trevino we think of the impact they've had not only on our game but ourselves as well lurking in the shadows of the golphin world hides a man considered the greatest ball striker of all time someone you've probably never heard of but after watching this we'll never forget only two players have ever truly owned their swings Mo Norman and Ben Hogan Tiger Woods Mo Norman was the best golfer I've ever seen he was incredible in God's gift to golf Vijay Singh I don't know of any player ever who could strike a ball like Mo Norman he's a legend with the professionals and a genius when it comes to playing the game of golf Lee Trevino born in 1929 Kitchener Ontario Murray Irwin Norman grew up in a small house in a working-class neighborhood growing up in an industrial city where the sky was often black the air smelled of burning rubber and money was very tight dreams rarely ever came true from an early age it was quite apparent that Murray was quite different from his other siblings and struggled to fit in his mannerisms and his odd personality made him slip into the background and not want to join in from what we know now Murray was born with Autism and was quite high on the Spectrum but back then autism had only been discovered 10 years before in Germany and diagnosis wasn't really a thing so although being a little different Murray never let anything get in his way all was normal till around age five when Mori was involved in a horrific accident he and her little friend were both on a sled heading down a snowy hill the speed got the better of them and they couldn't stop skidding into the path of traffic Mori found himself trapped under a car and was dragged some distance the police came to investigate and Norman had a bruised cheek and his parents like many families at the height of the depression were in no position to take Hospital Capital visits lightly it was not obvious immediately but something serious had happened to Norman that day the side of his face shifted bones were moved and from that point on his mother said his personality was different shortly thereafter schoolmates and teachers noticed that he was talking in a different voice and he began to repeat himself a lot at school he began struggling in every subject barwon math at which it was a prodigy and had a phenomenal memory after his accident his face was never the same and the bullying began Murray began finding solace in sports and specifically enjoyed golf as he could be alone at the age of 11 the lonely strange little boy got himself a gig caddying at the kitchen as West Mount golf club one of Maury Norman's first clients at the golf course started greeting him with Mo the Shmoe the Pinnacle Pro it was a goofy handle but it stuck Mo Norman was named on the golf course carrying clubs all day really gave him the bug to practice as soon as he got off work at home he began practicing in the garden with a bent Branch for a club and seriously tried to get good at the game two years he practiced with that bent lump of wood until eventually upgrading to a hockey stick thankfully a member at the golf course found out about Moe's practice habits and sold them an old five iron which he paid in 10 cent weekly installments Mo was left-handed but the club he had bought was right-handed so he had no choice but to switch Moe loved that job and it probably could have kept it for many years but was sacked when he was in his teens one of the clients gave Mo a crappy tip at the end of a round and he was so insulted that he took the guy's clubs up into a tree now on his own again Norman looked towards his family for support but they all just made fun of him his father told him to play a real sport and that he couldn't bring his clubs inside the house whereas his siblings would tease him calling golf a Sport and only with a five iron Mo began hitting hundreds upon hundreds of golf balls each day he would practice in his family's tiny backyard by hitting balls against the neighbors garage and quickly developed a local reputation as a golf terrorist when he would break a neighbor's window as he did 11 times in two years usually because he was aimed at one when he wasn't irritating the neighbors Mo would practice in a nearby Field maybe 200 yards long the grass was that tall he had to use an iron to cut the grass down to Fairway height into a little square and hit balls from that fear of losing his old cherished battered balls increased his desire to hit straight shots he would hit balls until his hands bled and when his grits became slippery wiped them away on his towel and trousers when he got home he looked as though he had been working in a slaughterhouse Mo's swing was entirely self-taught and his progression was not a medium he didn't break 100 until he was 16 but by 19 his swing was that grooved he could hit the ball wherever he wanted he would wrap lead tape on his driver to bulk up its way and took less time than almost any pro to size up his shots never taken a practice swing equipped with quite the game Norman began playing in competitions around Canada his first major step in his competitive Journey came in 1949 at the Saint Thomas Golf and Country Club a one-day amateur event Norman had not been invited to the tournament but showed up on the day wearing sneakers carrying seven clubs in a Tatty old bag but luckily was given an empty slot playing against a field that included several of Ontario's amateur Stars he shot 67 and won by Two Strokes too shy to attend the awards dinner he slipped away after finishing his round a friend had to collect Norman's prize and apologize on his behalf Norman kept on grinding and those prizes kept on coming but a person can only use so many color TVs and wear so many watches Mo became so confident in his abilities that it would size up the prize list find out what his friends wanted to buy from him and then finishes around accordingly if second prize was a kitchen set that a friend had agreed to buy Norman would drop however many strokes he needed to finish second no one could call it cheating but organizers were still freaked out by it Norman wasn't like the other golfers in the tournaments he played for one thing he played fast he would sometimes lie down and pretend to sleep in the Fairway waiting for the slower players to hit at the Masters his cheeky personality saw him hitting the ball whilst announcers were introducing his name and once he putted the ball between the foot and outstretched arm of a playing partner who was marking his ball becoming more and more comfortable with tournament golf Mo was really starting to come out of his shell in 1955 he walked away with the Canadian amateur title which no Canadian had managed to do for a few years previous Norman's background also set him apart unlike most of the other top amateurs he didn't belong to a country club he often hitchhikes to and from tournaments and he had to juggle his competitive schedule with a succession of doll factory jobs after that win people were calling it a fluke they said his attitude wasn't what it should be it wasn't serious enough his clothes always clashed his teeth were afraid he buttoned his shirts up too high Mo just didn't fit in and people didn't want him there winning their prestigious events Norman dealt with the haters in the best possible way he came back the following year to win a game the growth of Norman was out of the Royal Canadian and golf association's hands but they were doing everything in their power to strip him of his titles his clowning on the golf course and his desire for selling his prizes had long infuriated the rcga taking money under the table was a common practice among amateurs but no player was as open about it as Norman was the rcga threatened to strip him with his amateur status so to protect his two years of Winans Norman had to make the not so easy decision to turn pro the only problem being in those days it wasn't as easy as just turning pro and then playing on a tour you needed to be a paid golfer to qualify as a professional and nobody was about to hire Mo Norman after all that backlash however there were a handful of people who saw through Norman's peculiarities and appreciated The Talented decent guy behind the quirks one of them stepped up in 1958 in higher Norman as an assistant at a driving range with that gig Norman could qualify get his Pro card and sign up for his first professional golf tournament his first tournament as a card carrying Pro was the three-day Ontario open he shot 68 69-74 and one by three on the road though Moe's habits began getting weirder he started to store all of his clothes in the back seat of his car even though he lived in motels he never kept a permanent home and never had a date in life and would even slip back onto the golf courses at night to sleep in bunkers in 1959 and after a third place finish in a Canadian qualifying event Norman won partial exemption onto the PGA Tour his debut was at the LA open straight away the feeling of unwantedness was breathing down his neck the honor of playing with grades such as Sam Snead Ben Hogan and other Heroes of the day was all a little bit too much for Mel he could hear the sly comments and remarks from not only the fans but the professionals as well Norman's driving and irons were phenomenal though his potting was weak Mo knew if he just laid around the middle of the pack he wouldn't attract much attention and as long as he wasn't on the leaderboard they mostly ignored him he continued to play indifferently with occasional flashes of Brilliance until the tour reached New Orleans there he shot four solid rounds played in the final group on Sunday LED briefly and tied for fourth after that performance the PGA tour players sensed to win so they took matters into their own hands some big name players who have never been named Carnage Moe in the locker room and gave him a humiliating scolding chewing him up and spitting him right back out the message was to stop Clowning Around fix your teeth stop talking so weirdly and dress better it was a harrowing experience for someone who was already painfully shy and suffered with extreme social anxiety it went on and on and broken from the inside Mo got in his car and drove away and never played on the PGA tour again from that point on Norman played and stayed close to his home in Ontario which is not to say he lost any of his killer game Norman strung together an incredible 55 Canadian toll wins he was the Canadian PGA champion in 1966 and 1974. he won the Canadian seniors PGA Championship every year but won between 1979 and 1987. he set course records by the bag full he hit all times lowest scores on 33 different Golf Course he notched 17 holes in one that we know about and was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame in 1995. Norman was at home and relatively at ease playing Canadian tournament the crowds were friendlier and as he aged he became more at ease around other people but more importantly Mo was allowed to have fun again approaching a tea box and told it's a driver 99 Just for Laughs he hit 99 driver and put it to about six foot he'd also aim for narrow bridges over creeks rather than laying up all of this was just the Daily Show of watching Moe Norman by the 1990s Norman's single plane swing unusual though it was it caught the attention of the natural golf company whose owner befriended and paid a modest sum to Norman to put on demonstrations for fans and help explain how his approach could help golfers find their own version of Happiness on the course Norman bounced along neither getting rich norgo and flat broke until he finally caught a break from the Titleist Corporation Wally Uline the president met with Norman and his long-trusted friend Gus Mar as a 1995 PGA Merchandise Show eulene shook Norman's hand and often them five thousand US dollars a month for Life Norman wanted to know what he had to do for the money title is said by playing their balls his whole career he'd already earned it the monthly Titleist checks took a load of worry off of an arm he could do as he pleased from that point in time which meant living in the same Motel keeping all of his stuff in the back of a newer caddy and slowly driving himself along the back roads to wherever golf took him in September 2004 congestive heart failure ended Norman's life in a Kitchener Hospital a life of such a kind loving man had come to an end all his life Murray had done things his way and even when pressured to fit in didn't bow down and listen who knows what Mo could have been on I guess we'll never know but to get all the greats worried like he did they must have saw something in him Moe touched the hearts of many people whilst he was alive and didn't get the recognition he deserved but since his passing his Legend lives on and we can all learn something from Mao just be kind

Channel: Mitchell Blades

Views: 276,444

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Id: JEM7ta4gMDQ

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 15 2023