When regular club golfers are asked to name the best ball-strikers in history, they will all usually respond with the expected names of Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Rory McIlroy. Few, if any, would actually name the player generally regarded by other professionals as the best ball-striker to ever play the game. That player was Moe Norman. Moe was born in Canada in 1929 and, despite an impoverished childhood, he became obsessed with golf at a young age, much to the chagrin of his parents who believed that golf was a game for the elite classes. Moe developed a swing style all his own and turned professional in 1957 and mainly competed on the Canadian Tour, winning over 55 times throughout his career.

Moe Norman was a quirky character and displayed a lot of the signs that would place him firmly on the autism spectrum in the modern world. He struggled to make eye contact with other people, didn’t like to be touched, had absolutely no interest outside of golf and had no desire to form any sort of relationship with other people. He spoke extremely quickly, with a very high-pitched tone and would often repeat sentences over and over again. He would also wear mismatched clothes with trousers that were always a few inches too short in the leg. When addressing the golf ball, it would be impossible to look any less like a legendary ball-striker than Moe did. He had a very wide stance, stood a long way away from the ball with his arms outstretched and placed the club over a foot away from the ball. 

Moe Norman Putting On A Clinc In Front Of Couples, Crenshaw, Price & Faldo

In 1959 Moe played his one and only season on the PGA tour. He struggled to adapt to the constant travelling and often didn’t have enough money for a caddie, meaning he would have to carry his own bag at tour events. He had to hitchhike from tournament to tournament and often slept in the back of cars before the event started. There were many stories of how he was bullied by other players for being so different, and these far wealthier and better dressed tour players made Moe feel inadequate. At one event Moe was cornered in the locker room by several of the leading players who told him to change his appearance and get his teeth fixed. They also told him to stop using such a big tee when hitting driver, telling him that it looked stupid. For a man that was already socially awkward and shy it was all too much for him and he returned home to his native Canada and vowed never to play the PGA tour again.

As stories of Moe Norman’s amazing ball-striking became more known, he was asked to provide clinics and exhibitions in front of stunned audiences. He would hit shot after shot that would land within a inches of each other, teeing the next ball up well before the previous shot had landed. His shots would fly arrow straight and the only ones that would curve would be after he had called the curve before hitting. At one exhibition, Moe was playing a course he didn’t know and pulled his driver out on the tee of a tight par 4. Someone in the gallery explained to him that it was a lay-up hole as his driver would reach the stream to which Moe replied that he was aiming for the bridge. A few seconds later the crowd were left staggered as his ball rolled across the bridge onto the other side of the fairway.  

It is said that throughout his entire golfing life, Moe Norman only ever hit the ball out of bounds on one occasion. He once hit the flagstick four times with his approach shots in a single round. He would tee the ball up incredibly high when hitting driver and would clip the ball straight off the top leaving the tee undisturbed. He once hit 131 consecutive drives at a clinic without having to replace or adjust the tee peg. On one hole his drive received a terrible bounce and rolled a foot off the fairway. This really upset him as it had been seven years since he had last missed a fairway. 

 Complete Footage Of A Moe Norman Clinic

The stories of Moe’s feats with a golf ball almost sound too far-fetched to be true and would perhaps have been dismissed as folklore should they not have been witnessed by large crowds of people. It is often said that only two people in the history of golf have ever owned their swing completely, one was Ben Hogan, and the other was Moe Norman. Had Moe’s unique talent and unusual personality arrived in the more accepting world of today, he may well have achieved far more than he did.