"five years of tutelage under the auspicious guidance of Homer Kelley" macogradygolfschools
I am a fan of Mac O"Grady. Mac spent 5 years with Homer Kelly. I have been told that Homer Kelly's wife Sally, was once quoted as saying, Homer had to spoon feed the golfing machine to Mac. Whether or not true, any original student of Homer Kelly I believe not only should be remembered and recognized, they should also be heard. Below are some exerts from the Golf Digest archives that include Mac O'Grady. Enjoy.
The Martinez file
Name: Andrew James (Preacher) Martinez.
Age: 49.
Personal: Wife Stacey; daughter Alexis (1.
Career as tour caddie: 30 years.
Current job: Six-plus years with Tom Lehman.
Other employers: Grier Jones, 1968-'70; Johnny Miller,
1970-'82; Bobby Clampett, 1982-'83; Bob Gilder, 1983-'84 and
'89; Gary Hallberg, 1984-'86; also worked for other players in
1986, including Miller, Jodie Mudd, Mike Donald, Gibby Gilbert
and Mac O'Grady; Hal Sutton, 1987; took a year and a half off
and returned in 1989 with Gilder, Donald and Mudd; John Cook,
1989-'92.
Tour victories: 30.
Major championships: 1988 du Maurier, with Sally Little;
1996 British Open, with Lehman.
Sidelight: Martinez, a devout Christian, owns more than a
dozen Bibles, including one printed in 1871, given to him by
friends who found it in an antique store.
Andrew James (Preacher) Martinez
What was it like caddieing for Mac O'Grady?
Martinez: Mac is a fascinating personality. I remember the
Tucson Match Play in '85, which Jim Thorpe won. We lost to him
in the semifinals, but they made us play a third-place match.
They had a seniors match play running concurrently and sent us
out last against Bob Tway. We were 2 up going to the 15th hole and Mac hits it in there 51/2 feet. Tway has about a 40-footer.
Well, the senior match had ended on 15 and somebody did a
victory dance on green. There were big spike marks in our line.
So, if we make the putt we go 3 up and dormie. I complained
about excessive damage and advised Mac to call for a ruling. It
was at the height of his squabble with the tour. We tried to get
Tway to say something, but he wouldn't. They refused to give
Mac any relief, and he was fuming. He was so mad that he threeputted from 51/2 feet. Tway two-putted for par and we lost the match on 18.
Gary McCord
I never played in the Masters, of course. But I did get to play
Augusta National during a practice round in the mid-1980s. I was
with Mac O'Grady and Jodie Mudd, and when we came to the 16th
hole the flagstick was back-left in its traditional Sunday location.
Mac says, "Gary, let's not go for the hole; it's too easy. See that
little shelf on the back right? It's very difficult to make the ball stay
up there. It's probably the hardest shot on the course. Let's aim
there." I said sure, and of course my ball doesn't stay on the shelf.
It rolls sideways down the tier, all the way across the green and
dives in the hole. The gallery, of course, goes wild. All the way to
the green I'm bowing, waving and smiling, saying quietly, "Thank
you .... I wasn't aiming there. ... Thank you. ... It was a terrible
shot.... Thank you. ... I stink."
By Bill Fields
Golf World
Crenshaw knew all of this before Leonard putted, of course, but had
stayed away from Ouimet's old house all week, hoping for fate, yet
He may have been right. When the 1988 U.S. Open was played at
TCC, Mac O'Grady wandered over to the yard of the amateur
legend's former home and snipped off a twig to carry for luck. He
shot 75-72 and missed the cut by one shot.
E. Michael Johnson
Golf World July 28, 2006
Mac O'Grady went hi-tech, going with Ping's Rapture big stick
during the final playing of the upstate New York event.
Golf Digest
October 2005
Q Switch-hitters in baseball have two batting averages, one
for each side of the plate. Could a golfer who can play lefty
and righty maintain two handicaps, one for each side?
-- Larry Thee, Greensboro, N.C.
A No, you can't have a left-handed handicap and a right-handed
handicap. The best-ever ambidextrous golfer is Mac O'Grady, 54, a
brilliant eccentric who is nearly a scratch golfer as a lefty and won
twice on the PGA Tour playing righty. He once entered a two-man
team event where he would be both men, one left-handed and one
right-handed. The application, sadly, was turned down.
Tim Rosaforte
GolfWorld.com exclusive
"It would have been great publicity
for the tournament. I would have had
two bags and two caddies. I would even
have made sure I shot the same scores
so I could play in the same group on the
weekend." -- Mac O'Grady, in Southern
California Golf magazine, on why he
wanted to play in this year's B.C. Open
as both a right-handed and a lefthanded
golfer.
Tim Rosaforte
GolfDigest.com exclusive
"The side of my brain that controls
my left side is still young. It's not
beaten down with bad memories." --
Mac O'Grady, who won two PGA Tour
events as a right-hander, on why he
plans to enter this year's Senior PGA
Tour qualifying tournament as a lefthander.
Golf World
November 19, 1999
So Neher, yet so far. The shock and frustration on Jamie Neher's
face as he stood in front of the scoreboard last week at Bear Lakes
CC in West Palm Beach, Fla., told the entire story. Neher had just
birdied three of his final four holes in second stage PGA Tour
qualifying, only to miss this week's.
Neher was in some good company. Ryder Cupper Per-Ulrik
Johansson, former U.S. Amateur champion Chris Patton, former U.
S. Amateur runnerup Steve Scott, former tour players Ed Humenik
and Mac O'Grady and young Robert Floyd did not make it.
Q. Mac O'Grady maintains that you have stolen ideas from
him without citation and used them in your book, The Golf
Swing. Particularly the idea of the swing being made up
of links.
David Leadbetter-
A. Before I had ever heard of Mac O'Grady, whatever his name was
before that, I was working on positions in the swing. And this
can be backed up very easily by players I have worked with, in
the early, early ‘80s. It was a thing that Gary Wiren used to
promote. This was when video had first come out and you could
actually stop and look at the swing at a certain point. I just
figured out that these approximately 11 links were sort of stop
points that we could actually use.
And to be honest with you, the reason I wrote my first book was
I wanted to have a book to give people who came to the
academy that they could use when they went home. If they
were able to use this book and then compare that on video,
they'd have a checklist. That's the reason those links came up.
I did that ages ago. Let's face it. There is only so much stuff in
the golf swing. We are not reinventing the wheel here.
Q. Has Mac ever confronted you?
A. We had some words at one stage. But I don't let things like that
bother me.
I couldn't tell you where some of the stuff I have got comes
from. You get feedback from players and probably some of the
players have spoken to Mac. But to say I plagiarized his
methodology is absolute baloney.
Dan Jenkins
Golf Digest
Two actual, living, breathing touring pros of stature, Peter Jacobsen
and Mac O'Grady, took part. Peter wins the Colonial after “Kenny”
blows it, and Mac gives “Kenny” a lesson on a practice tee.
Before we shot the scene with O'Grady, Mac said, “Can I say to
Randy that you have to play this game on the cutting edge of
reality?”
Tim Rosaforte
Golf World
July 27, 2001
Ballesteros began falling behind because of instruction, first too
little, then too much. After years of rejecting help because he felt
no one could understand his feel-based game, Ballesteros went
through a series of teachers--Mac O'Grady, David Leadbetter,
brother Vicente Ballesteros and Butch Harmon--in search of some
semblance of his old self. He was better when he played like Javier,carefree, with only the basics in his head. After dinner one night
last week, Seve's oldest son took a driver and sent a golf ball
chasing across a grass promenade. Seve stepped it off at 175
meters. It was his proudest moment of the week.
"Play by instinct," he tells Javier. "That is the best way."
John Strege
Catching Up With … : Mac O'Grady retains his passion for golf,
evidenced by the fact he caddied at last week's Bob Hope Chrysler
Classic for real estate developer Lee Brandenburg. O'Grady, a
resident of Palm Springs, also attempted to Monday qualify at the
Sony Open and intended to do so again at the Buick Invitational,
despite the fact that, at 54, he is eligible for the Champions Tour.
O'Grady is not inclined to join his senior brethren, however. "The
guys on the senior tour, God bless them, they're looking for two or
three things," he said. "One, they're mad they're not playing the
regular tour. Two, they know they're going to have to go back to
the bosom of the earth forever. And three, they know they can't
take their money with them." He prefers playing with the kids,
"because their dreams are still real." O'Grady, meanwhile, said he
is completing a book entitled, "Seve, the Commissioner." The
book's narrator is Seve Ballesteros, who he said, "should be the
commissioner. Seve knows the game better than anybody." As for
his caddieing career, "It's just a master-slave relationship," he said. "There are four rules: show up, keep up, shut up and don't throw
up."
Jim McLean: With a huge talent like Seve, conscious thought can
short-circuit the intuitive gift. He got with Mac O'Grady, and they
had that ritual of burying Seve's old swing in the desert. I thought it
was a sad day for golf. I wrote a long letter to Seve after reading
that but never got a reply.
Mac knows a tremendous amount about the golf swing, and he's a
compelling teacher, but with Mac talking a lot of science and
demonstrating, it was a lot for Seve to absorb. Changing Seve was
taking an artist and making him a mechanic.
I too, Mark, am a fan of Mac's brain and his physical talent.
Thank you for this post.
Jim McLean: With a huge talent like Seve, conscious thought can
short-circuit the intuitive gift. He got with Mac O'Grady, and they
had that ritual of burying Seve's old swing in the desert. I thought it
was a sad day for golf. I wrote a long letter to Seve after reading
that but never got a reply.
Mac knows a tremendous amount about the golf swing, and he's a
compelling teacher, but with Mac talking a lot of science and
demonstrating, it was a lot for Seve to absorb. Changing Seve was
taking an artist and making him a mechanic.
If anyone is interested in going to a mac school pm me there is one coming up in the next few months here in california. Or if you have any questions let me know.
First off, welcome to the forum and thanks for jumping in! Look forward to hearing much more.
We welcome discussion about Mac and his teachings and there are many posts on this site attesting to that.
I have to draw the line on Advertising for another golf school unless it's affiliated with LBG. Judging by your post, it appears that you have some affiliation and if I'm wrong, please forgive me.
Perhaps sometime in the future if Mac and Lynn have an agreement up front...
Until then,
Thanks for understanding.
__________________
Bagger
1-H "Because of questions of all kinds, reams of additional detail must be made available - but separately, and probably endlessly." Homer Kelly
We welcome all who would participate. We ask only that members refrain from posts that (1) are deliberately hurtful or condescending to others or (2) are hopelessly over the top in personal promotion.
To that second end, we have edited your announcement to remove the 5 point super-sized Font and its blue text color. For the benefit of our membership, we have allowed the text itself to stand.
We do not fear dissenting opinion or alternative 'systems.' Nor do we tolerate mean-spirited behavior. I personally have taken down posts that I thought were malicious toward Mac O'Grady and his work. And I will do the same for those malicious toward Homer Kelley and his work...or toward fellow LBG contributors.
thats funny about the tee drill its a very good drill i use it on alot of people the interesting thing is there teaching seems to be 100 percent morad glad to here macs stuff is doing good on tour i hadnt heard about heron that was new to me
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