2. Dear Readers,
For those of you who may not be aware of the back story of Secret In The Dirt it basically goes
like this. Back in 2008 I filmed a number of backyard golf videos and threw them up onto YouTube. It
was just me hitting golf balls into a lake and talking golf with a guy who became know as Cameraman. I’d
just hit balls while his dog Casey ran around and chased after them and he would ask me a bunch of
questions. Cameraman didn’t know much about golf, but that turned out to be good because the
conversations could start with basic information and then go wherever I wanted to take them from
there. Pretty soon I was talking about golfing greats Moe Norman, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, George
Knudson and a whole bunch of other great players who I’d studied years ago when I’d learned to play
golf.
Since people seemed to be interested we kept making videos and as they came out people
started talking about them both at YouTube and also at golf forums all over the web. After making more
than 30 videos (which have now been viewed more than a million times) and answering more than 1000
questions from golfers all over the world I decided to combine both the videos and the most valuable
information that came to light in answering all of those question into an ebook that would help people
get better at hitting golf balls. That book Secret In The Dirt came out in December of 2008. By mid 2009
The Secret In The Dirt phenomenon was helping thousands of golfers. Even Tour Pro’s were watching
the videos and buying the ebook. In spite of the homegrown nature of what I had put together, better
players, teachers and even top pro’s were taking it seriously. One of those pros was Steve Elkington.
Next thing you know it I’m on the phone with him and then on a plane and before you know it I’m in
New York City hitting golf balls with Elk and telling him first hand what I had learned about hitting golf
balls all those years ago.
Steve liked the information that I was putting forward and also liked the spirit of what I was
doing in trying to get good, credible golf information to people without a lot of fanfare and at a
reasonable cost. I told him that I was going to be adding some chapters to the book and he said that he
would love not only be a part of those chapters, but he also wanted to help to expand the whole idea of
what “Secret In The Dirt” could be and what it could do for golfers. We both agreed that the goal was to
get the best information possible together and to present it to golfers in an affordable way. “Free” we
thought was about as affordable as we could make the main information and so with the help of Jackie
Burke and a few other great people the new free instruction and golf social network secretinthedirt.com
was born. So I guess you could say that that all came from this little book.

3. What follows in this free primer is a few chapters from the original book as well as the table of
contents to give you an idea of what the balance of the book contains.
Before you start reading the primer I just wanted to let you know that this book isn’t exactly like
any other e-book on the web. In addition to my stories and thoughts about golf, there are also videos
just like this one called “The Move”. It caused a real storm in the golf world when it first came out and is
still a key part of the whole book.
To see these videos, you need to have Acrobat Reader 9 installed onto your computer. So, if
you can’t see the video just click the download button below and get your FREE copy of Acrobat Reader
9. Other than that, I sincerely hope you enjoy the book! If you like the Primer the Original ebook is
available in the Secret In The Dirt Store, or at secretinthedirtebook.com
Click to Download
Acrobat Reader 9 FREE
Hit ‘Em Straight,
Mike Maves aka “Sevam1”

4. Table of Contents
Preface.......................................................................................................................................5
Introduction...............................................................................................................................6
Learning to Swing.....................................................................................................................9
A Primer for Newbies – Grip, Stance, and Posture..................................................................11
The Requisite Strength.............................................................................................................16
TAKING THE CLUB BACK: Pronation, Supination and Plane............................................19
Playing with Moe.....................................................................................................................22
Moe’s Grip...............................................................................................................................27
Learning to Learn……………………………………………………………………….……29
Hoganalysis……………………………………………………………………………….….35
The Secret In the Dirt...............................................................................................................38
The Most Abundant Woe - The Reverse Pivot........................................................................40
George Knudson.......................................................................................................................42
HITTING IT FAR!!..................................................................................................................44
Ringing The Bell......................................................................................................................46
Mike Austin and the Centers....................................................................................................49
Moe Norman and the Move......................................................................................................53
The Hogan Pivot.......................................................................................................................55
What You Need To Know About Plane – Hogan’s Sheets of Glass........................................58
Lag and the Grand Illusion……………………………………………………………….......60
Thoughts on Equipment...........................................................................................................63
Footwork..................................................................................................................................65
Finding “The Move”…............................................................................................................66
REPEATING THE MOVE – THE PRETORQUE..................................................................69
Landing Left………….............................................................................................................70
The Sixth Lesson - Understanding Five Lessons and Hogan’s Secret.....................................78
Some More Thoughts on Moe………………………………………......................................87
Sneaky Long- Finding the Most Powerful Position.................................................................90
Finger Pressures……………….……………………………………......................................92
Visualization and Final Thoughts………………………………..…......................................97
Video Index……………………..………………………………..…......................................99
Copyright © 2010 Secret In The Dirt LLC 0

5. Learning to Swing
Learning To Swing
I was asked recently about the process of learning the golf swing and I said
that in learning the golf swing what you do is you add, you add, and you add
little things here, little things there. Then, to get better, you basically just
have to start to strip things away. When there is nothing left to take away
you will probably be pretty close to your most efficient motion and the best
that you are going to get as far as the swinging part goes.
You almost always start with a slice. Then you practice your butt off until
you learn to get it to go straight. Once you’ve done that you will inevitably
develop a hook. The hard part then is to get the damned thing to go straight
again. This process generally takes a few years of hard work and diligent
practice. But, once you get through it you’ve pretty much worked the whole
thing all the way through. You are in pretty good shape to fix your own
problems as they arise from there on out. If you don’t teach yourself and
learn via trial and error, you might not develop this ability to the same extent
as the self taught, but nonetheless, once you run the full gamut of
predominant shots you’re in pretty good shape. There’s always something to
work on, of course, but as far as swinging the club goes, in the final analysis,
you will find that like many things the “less is more” approach will give you
your best results. So it is the subtraction that truly is the final step in creating
a great golf swing.
The earlier in life you can start playing golf the better. A child has a great
advantage in learning because of something that actually begins as a
significant obstacle for them. His or her equipment is generally far too heavy
and much too long. Confronted with this unwieldy equipment and the task at
hand, the child will find a way to get that club head moving. When shown
the basics of a grip, with the hands generally together in some fashion, the
child will learn to “swing” the club. The reason the child learns to swing is
that they are not strong enough to move the club with any great effect in any
other way. Adult beginner golfers, because they generally have the requisite
minimum strength, especially with today’s lighter than light equipment, are
at a considerable disadvantage in this regard. Many will actually never learn
Copyright © 2010 Secret In The Dirt LLC 9

6. Learning to Swing
what it feels like to truly “swing” a golf club. They will think they swing,
but they do not. We will go into what constitutes “a swing” later.
I was fortunate that my father, who was not much more than a social golfer
at the time did me the great service of encouraging and enabling me to play
golf while I was still quite young. I was lucky enough also to learn golf
while it was still in the era of forged blades and persimmon woods. I was a
ten-year-old kid in sneakers, with a matching set of Spalding Starflite irons
and woods in a plaid pencil bag, booking it around the Oak Hall par-three
course in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I was a bit of a naïve kid who was actually
thrilled that the Starflite balls in the cheap bin at the Oak Hall Pro shop
actually matched my clubs. Who needs a Titleist when my ball matches my
clubs? On the golf club front, I couldn’t wait to graduate to a full set of
Wilson Crests Very shiny.
Anyway, I bring this up not just because I like to talk about myself but
because, more to the point of our little story, this is also the way that young
Bennie Hogan started. The difference, of course, is where I was a somewhat
privileged little twerp; Bennie was an undersized, dirt-poor 12-year-old
caddie, taking odd cuts at a ball he would find with whatever golf clubs he
could get his hands on. That was when he wasn’t carrying, cleaning or fixing
some club member’s clubs. So I am certain that his learning began with
attempts to swing clubs that were too big and too heavy for him just like
most of the rest of us did. The thing of this though, and why I bring it up, is
that a kid will find a way to whip that club around and hit that ball. And,
once he learns to hit it at all the next thing he’ll want to do is blast that thing
straight into next week. That’s when you get into gripping it really strong
and start learning to hit those running hooks. Young Bennie Hogan had, no
doubt, mastered what is generally called “the Caddie Swing” and the art of
the rope hook before he was 15. It is almost certain that these formative
strokes colored his golf swing to one degree or another for the rest of his life.
In fact, it was “The Caddie Swing” motion with a modification (The Secret –
a cupping of the left wrist as revealed in Life Magazine published August 8,
1955) that he turned to later in life when it was time to cure the hook that
plagued his game as a professional. One thing is certain though, Hogan had
learned to make a true swing at a reasonably young age. Today, I am not
sure if many people really know what a true “swing” is. Hopefully by the
end of this book you will.
Copyright © 2010 Secret In The Dirt LLC 10

7. Click Here to Purchase Secret in the Dirt