Remembering Moe Norman and Golf in Canada

As a 13 year old, I played 4 or 5 holes with Moe Norman.

Moe used to play at my home course every morning and Id see him go by as a few of the finishing holes went by the practice range where Id be working on my game. My Dad knew Mr Norman from his early assistant golf days when working at Don Valley Golf Course in the early 50s.

The OGA (Ontario Golf Association) revoked Moe's Amatuer status early in his playing career when they found out he was selling his prizes for cash to live on. This began a long career of what Id refer to as the "Typical Canadian Syndrome". Basically Canada has a strange way of treating their own.

My dad said that when Moe played in the Masters he withdrew after playing poorly in the first round. He said he wasnt playing to the level the tournament deserved. This is a pretty amazing statement when you think of it.

Mac Frost ran Spring Lakes (my home course for a while) and was one of the few people involved in Canadian Golf and the OGA/CPGA/RCGA (Royal Canadian Golf Association) that knew what a treasure Moe was to the game of golf in Canada. This was in the early 80s when people still regarded Moe generally as an introvert, rather than the genius ball striker that he was. Thankfully Moe finally received the recognition he deserved at the end of his life.

Since my Dad knew Moe, he encourgaged me to go up and ask Moe if i could join him one morning. Moe said ok.

While I dont remember much from those holes i do remember this: Moe played 5 balls and they were all within 5-10 yards of each other.

This was the days before long tees so Moe used to sometimes tee it up on a pencil. As juniors we'd do the same thing on longer holes and call it our "Moe Norman Shot" (id usually sky the crap out of it tho ahah).

Then he'd hit the same 5 balls in around 10 feet, putt one and pick the rest up. He did this for all of the holes we played. He didnt say much but basically let me tag along. I think he said something quick like "Nice swing, nice swing" to me ..hed always talk really fast in short sentances and sometimes repeat things.

Later I swung for George Knudson (who finished 2nd in the 1969 Masters, losing in playoff to George Archer and who still holds the most wins on the PGA tour for a Canadian at 8) when trying out for Ben Kerns Junior Progran at the National (that Knuston had a hand in running and developing). Dave Morland and Brennan Little (Mike Weirs Caddy and fantastic junior golfer) were playing in the program at the time.

It was a pretty amazing experience. He has us all swing with a short wieghted club he had developed and this was during his "start/finish" stage of approaching the golf swing.

Basically he was stressing balance. He said that he really didnt care what happened during the swing as long as you started with a good balanced setup and finished with your wieight on your left foot and body pointing towards to the hole.

His thinking was that if you attained these 2 ideal postions, itd be hard to go too far off track between them. Simple and to the point. (I must has done these 2 ok since he admitted me to the program)

I guess Im pretty luck to have had a chance to interact personally with these 2 players. They are generally regarded as the finest ball strikers after Hogan in someways. It always was a hinderance in someways as a junior, because I didnt concentrate enough on my scoring and focus on the course, which is what i really needed to compete in a Top 10-20 level nationally, due to my small size and lack of distance as Junior.

But being older and coming back to the game, I feel Ive been able to get into that and take it on. So we'll see how things go this year.

But its nice to have these experiences. Canada is a strange place sometimes.