I've seen a 66-year old Moe Norman hit a golf ball. I've seen Jim Furyk in his 20's and early 30's hit golf shots in person. Jim simply doesn't compare. And I'm a big fan of Furyk's game and swing. I think Furyk is probably the most underrated ballstriker of all time, but he doesn't have Moe's ballstriking ability. Even Trevino has said Moe was the best ballstriker he ever saw.
This argument sort of comes across like a novice saying that Tiger is longer off the tee than Jamie Sadlowski because Tiger is the greatest player in the world and Sadlowski has never even won a mini-tour event. And of course Sadlowski can't really hit it 400 yards long because he would shoot 60 every time out. We all know that scenario to be false because if anything, there's a ton more to the game than driving distance and just because somebody can hit it unearthly long off the tee, doesn't mean they can play a lick.
Hey, I believe one can learn a lot from Furyk's swing and clubhead and clubface dimensions thru impact as well. But if we are talking all time greatest ballstriker, I believe it's Moe or at least Hogan or Trevino.
3JACK
I understand the difference between ballstriking and winning tournaments. Based on all the eyewitness testimony, you'd certainly think that Norman could light up Trackman and had great clubface and path control and an understanding of ball flight and the ability to hit a lot of different shots.
Sadlowski is more powerful than PGA golfers and longer, but not a better golfer. I realize that.
But I'd guess that you might be surprised how well Trevino, Miller, Watson, or Furyk, Woods or many, many other golfers might fare against Moe on a Trackman-off contest.
I appreciate the admiration of Moe. But you do understand that the "I saw it with eyes, trust me others don't compare" doesn't do it for me as a standard even though I think you and cmartin are both likely very good judges of golf and shot making. I'm not trying to diss you guys. cmartin in particular has pointed me in a helpful direction several times with things I've been working on through some of his posts here. I'm just not willing to concede -- on eyewitness evidence -- that Trackman would say Moe Norman was in a different league than hall-of-fame golfers who could also light up Trackman.
For me, the ultimate question that is more relevant is whether any of the things people study in Moe's swing will actually help them have similar shotmaking abilities to him or whether the time would be much better spent renting Trackman time. I think people often attribute shotmaking ability to the rhetorical flourishes of players rather than the boring ability to control clubface, path, and low point -- the question is how do you learn those skills? I think Tom Bartlett once said learning that clubface control skill was something like learning how to walk on a high wire. And I think people spend a lot of time focusing on the costume of the high-wire guy rather than the actual skills involved.
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