Contemporary MORAD - Modern Presence and Influenced Coaches

Contemporary MORAD – Modern Presence and Influenced Coaches

MORAD has influenced more high level golf than anything I’ve come across during my last decade deep dive into golf. In the 80s Mr O’Grady taught somewhere between 30-50 players while playing on tour (remarkable!) and once he turned more into “teacher first” the tour player collaborations continued.

His workings would be up there with the absolute greats. Hogan’s Five Lessons & Nicklaus Golf My Way springs to mind.

Modern Players with a Strong Case of the “Mac”

It bears mentioning again. No player is an entire system personified. There is always personal juice in the cocktail as well.

Tommy Fleetwood. To be honest I have no background history of why Mr Fleetwood swings as he does but I would be very surprised if he wasn’t subjected to loads of MORAD drills at some point growing up. His stock 7 iron IS basically a picture perfect representation of a 90s control protocol drill.

Another obvious one is Alex Norén – This is just a CP swing all over. He plays a cut on every shot since it works wonders for him. The strong lean to the right is a must since he plays a forward ball position to make the low left exit that’s needed for the most compressed golf ball on tour today? This is Mat Belsham’s finest work?

Tiger Woods definitely showcased some of these elements during 2010-2015 ish and we all know the issues that came for him. Again, there is always personal juice in your golf swing whatever system it is using and in Mr Woods case it wasn’t a good match. You can watch this video to see it. (My teachings in The Big Arc Swinger pattern are much more about the pre 2000s swing)

Zach Johnson has been under the spell of Mike Bender since forever. Mike Bender, having his own system, claims that it was “Mac” that made him realize how the swing works. It’s a safe bet that mr Johnson is influenced heavily by MORAD.

Max Homa had great success in 2023 after a swing remodeling together with Mark Blackburn where I believe the physical screening of his motion led to a better intentional swing protocol. In other words – a better person vs intention matching. Mark Blackburn comes from a MORAD background but brings a lot into his mix.

Aaron Baddeley – He actually joined the winners circle again after struggling on tour for a long time. This after adapting the Stack N Tilt method that is basically one of the MORAD patterns. Also Charlie Wi and Mike Weir had success with SNT.

Coaches influenced by MORAD

  • Mark Blackburn
  • Dana Dahlquist
  • Chris Como
  • Grant Waite (more known as player but now active coach)
  • Robert Rock (playing coach since many years)
  • Alex Moore
  • Matthew Belsham
  • Andreas Khali
  • Justin Tang
  • Myself – Petter Tärbe. I actually teach some of the 80s core elements myself in what I call the Trail Power Hitter pattern. FMM Swing Academy here.

The list could be a lot longer but these coaches are the ones I know more or less something about.

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Why MORAD is Coaching Heaven?

If you’ve read my other articles MORAD 80s Deep Dive and the MORAD 3 Swing Eras Article I kind of hint that this is the perfect growing ground for golf coaching. You have a system that is so complex and secretive and a legacy of a founder that outshines any teacher in history.

If you as a person are into mechanics and dominating the driving range the golfing machine in general and MORAD especially is your best friend. I kind of understand this. Training whilst striping the ball is one of my biggest passions. Sometimes it outshines playing because of the “feeling of greatness” (to quote Moe Norman) that sometimes becomes present. It’s just pure utter fun.

But somewhere in this realm danger lurks. I really think that a top player, using MORAD later principles, must compartmentalize at the highest level. Even Mr O’Grady kind of lost his own game using his own stuff whilst his adept and codeveloper Gary McCord could improve his golf game significantly. Here is a pretty awesome video with Mr McCord talking about MORAD.

For coaches the system creates a fundamental platform to understand the golf swing. It provides an answer.

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