The Feeling of Greatness

As recently as 10 years ago, Moe's Norman's very existence was considered apocryphal. A few American golf pros, Paul Azinger and Lee Trevino come to mind, told stories about an eccentric Canadian with a strange swing so accurate he could stand on a driving range and hit the 250 yard sign repeatedly with his driver. Or they told of the time he hit three balls off the tee that were later found huddled together like mushrooms in the middle of the fairway. Then there's the time that, upon hearing someone in the gallery say he was a poor putter, he proceeded to hit a hole-in-one, boasting "I guess I won't be putting today." They said he was so good that if a hole called for a 3-wood and an 8- iron, he'd play it 8-iron/3-wood just to keep it interesting. The stories always held the not-so- subtle claim that if Norman had played the US tour, no one would have ever heard of Jack Nicklaus.
But nobody had seen him recently. He was a ghost. Finally, in 1995, Golf Digest ran a cover story that brought Moe and his strange swing back to life. By that time he had become the poster boy for a new golf movement called Natural Golf, and the leaders of that company were splashing Moe's image around as much as they could. This biography soon followed.
Fortunately, readers of "The Feeling of Greatness" will discover not an advertising piece, but a balanced look at a complicated man. Because of a childhood head injury, or perhaps just because genetics occasionally breeds the strange and unusual, Moe Norman represents obsessive-compulsion applied to golf. He is described as golf's "Rain Man", a savant-like creature of habit who found solace in striking golf balls -- hundreds a day for thousands of days -- but who was so shy, he wouldn't appear at awards ceremonies. He muttered a continuous stream-of-consciousness monologue and played so quickly that he often struck his shot before his partner had pulled his tee out of the ground. He never paused over putts, but rather hit them in full stride. He was not your typical golf pro.

The Feeling of Greatness tells the story of the life of Moe Norman, one of golf's unknown greats.