Tuesday, April 21, 2009

A Look Into the Poll Question: Mac O'Grady

The next answer in the poll question 'If You Could Hit It Like One Historic Golfer In Their Prime With Modern Equipment, Who Would It Be?' is Mac O'Grady.

Mac O'Grady has become one of the game's most eccentric and curious personalities. He turned pro in 1972 and attempted to qualify through the PGA Tour Q-School 17 times before receiving his PGA Tour card.

O'Grady's swing concepts derive from Homer Kelley's book 'The Golfing Machine.' Even more amazing O'Grady is able to play scratch golf both right handed and left handed. He's a better player right handed, although is left handed swing is downright superb. There was a period of his career where he swung right handed and putted left handed.



In this sequence, it appears that O'Grady goes from the hands plane to the turned shoulder plane and then returns to around the elbow plane on the downswing.

I particularly mention the phrase *this sequence* because according to rumors, O'Grady actually has a bunch of different swing patterns that he can utilize. For instance, he supposedly has a different sequence for clubs based on desired ball trajectory. For instance, he supposedly has a pattern for a low driver shot, medium driver shot, and a high driver shot. And the same goes for the long irons, mid irons and even the short irons/wedges. It's also been rumored that his low trajectory wedge swing pattern is actually the Stack and Tilt swing pattern as Stack and Tilt creators Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett are both former students of O'Grady's MORAD swing philosophy. O'Grady has also been rumored to be a master 'swing impersonator' being able to do spitting images of golfing greats like Nicklaus, Hogan, Snead (whose swing is a model for MORAD *allegedly*)

Some of O'Grady's former students include Jodie Mudd, Gary McCord, Steve Elkington, Chip Beck, Vijay Singh and Seve Ballesteros.

As a ballstriker, Mac was considered one of the very best if not the best by many of his peers on Tour. He was not only known for his ability to work the ball with accuracy, but he was very long off the tee and was routinely in the top 10 in driving distance. There's also talk of him still being able to twist a hybrid around and purposedly hit the ball with the top of the hybrid clubhead, straight as an arrow about 250 yards.




3JACK

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