Photo is courtesy of YouTube.com

 

Earlier this month, the 15th anniversary of Murray (Moe) Norman's death came and went on Sept. 4. A bunch of us, in the sports' reporting business, were in the press box at the Canada-Russia game at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey in Toronto. About the time Kris Draper scored to make it 2-0 for Canada in the second period of a 3-1 victory word filtered down that Norman had passed away at age 75.

Pipeline Moe suffered a heart attack a few years earlier and underwent heart bypass surgery. But he was troubled by related difficulties for the remaining years of his life.

 

His heart attack occurred when he was driving home from a golf clinic he performed in Sarnia. 

 

He was treated at the University of Western Ontario Hospital in London.

 

When he came to the doctor asked Moe if he knew where he was. Moe answered, "the third green." The doctor remarked to the attending nurse that Norman was out of it. But then the nurse informed the doctor the hospital was built where the original London Hunt layout once was located. 

 

Norman was a family friend. My late father worked in the pro shop at Rockway about the same time Moe won his back-to-back Canadian Amateur titles in 1955 and 1956. I was fortunate enough to later caddy for him several times.

 

It was something to watch an instant replay every time he took his driver out of the bag. He would take his stance, stretch his legs wide apart. With his large, sturdy, calloused hands wrapped around the grip, he extended and stiffened his arms. He placed the clubhead about eight inches behind the ball.

 

He took the club back low and straight. He coiled his body and unleashed a powerful, smooth action down the line with a follow-through pointing his club at the target. The result always was the same: a fairway splitting shot with the hint of a draw. 

 

The most appropriate praise I've heard about Moe was from his teacher Murray Tucker at a Norman tribute dinner on Oct. 3, 1986.

 

"If you've seen Fred Astaire, you've seen the best dancer. If you've seen Peggy Fleming, you've seen the best skater. And when you've seen Moe Norman hit a golf ball, you know you've seen the best that ever hit a golf ball," Tucker said.

 

Tucker was biased, of course. But he was not alone. Tiger Woods and others often have talked about Moe in glowing terms. The likes of Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Paul Azinger gathered around Moe to watch him hit balls on the practise tee early in the week when the Canadian Open was at Glen Abbey.

 

He was an eccentric. He was a mystery to many. He led a vagabond life, and there were hundreds of stories about his exploits. Even before Moe's death, there were whispers that a movie about his life was in the works. I would kid him that I was going to play him in the film.

"Too fat, too fat," he would joke. But the possibility of a Moe movie still exists 15 years after his death.

 

Newfoundlander David Carver, one of Canada's most prominent concert promoters, has the film's rights. He announced last month that he has partnered with Matthew Stillman, Liev Schreiber and Kate Driver to produce The Place I Belong – The Moe Norman Story.

 

But what does this mean?

"Kate, Liev and Matthew's passion for this story matches my own, and that is saying something," Carver wrote in an e-mail. "Their involvement provides insight and access on numerous levels including creatively, excellent vision into the story we want to tell and advice and direction on how to tell it. From a producorial perspective, it's limitless, including their own experience in making films, access to setting up projects with financiers, studios, distributors and others. I am fortunate as a first time producer to be partners with these respected, talented Hollywood insiders. They obviously have immediate access to the industry that would take me turning up my persistence dial to 10 to achieve."

 

Carver is passionate about this project. But how far along is he with this project?

 

"Script is done save the screenwriter adage 'writing is rewriting,'" he said. "We are always tweaking things, rethinking the approach on scenes and dialogue and that will continue right up until and during the production or filming of the movie. There's been some soft dialogue with actors and directors, and we are moving closer to the point where we can begin serious conversations in those areas as well as studio and distributor conversations.

 

"We are finalizing our plan and assets to reach out to the industry to take the project to the next level. That next level could be attaching actors or a director, partnering with a studio, financing, a distributor etc. It will be a reactionary process, reacting to the interest and passion of the aforementioned people or entities. Those reactions will determine the next steps in the process."

 

I once played golf in Ireland with a friend at Ballybunion. The local postmaster joined us. Once he found out we were Canadian, he asked about the golfer Norman. We thought he was asking about Greg Norman because he had just won the Canadian Open for the second time. 

 

But our new friend Des wanted to find out about Moe Norman. I was amazed Moe was famous in Ireland.

 

Carver has been curious about Norman, too. He is passionate to tell Moe's story.

 

"There are several reasons to the reason why," he said. "I think of myself as a pretty good storyteller. I have taken some pretty incredible lives and condensed them into an incredible, humorous, profound, 20 minutes, so I figured 2 hours to tell the Moe story in a movie? Piece of cake.

 

"There were so many great directions we could have gone with it. There's a sequel for sure. I suspect the passion also has to do with my own journey, both in life and my career and a connection I feel that my journey in part was similar to Moe's life and journey.

 

"From an entrepreneurial perspective, I have always ran towards brick walls full speed, trying to crash through and making the impossible possible, perhaps doing what others didn't or couldn't do, or being the first to do them. Crashing through the wall is pretty good for the ego. Not crashing through, not so much but then I just write it off as 'hey it was a brick wall, what were you thinking?'"