Where Are They Now: Ed Moses

Swimnetwork.com - Calais, ME, USA - While almost everyone has at least something small to complain about in their daily lives, 2000 Olympic gold and silver medalist Ed Moses is mingling at celebrity-filled parties, the Super Bowl, top-dollar golf tournaments or, when it’s really time to relax, kicking back at home in Florida, pool side, with the air conditioning on. But don’t paint this picture the wrong way, because the pool is purely for décor; Ed isn’t swimming.

The aquatic sport that brought him a great deal of notoriety certainly still holds a special place in his heart, these days Moses is hitting the links with aspirations of reaching the top in another sport: golf. Currently playing the Hooters mini-tour, Moses is the amateur that all others wish they could be.

With most golfers practicing between one and three hours daily, Moses is playing catching and hoping to get ahead by putting in overtime training on various courses looking to improve his swing. This work ethic, he says, is credited to his years churning out laps as he rose to become one of the top breaststroke swimmers in the world.

“The most common similarity [between golf and swimming] is how easy it is to get out and practice four, five, six hours a day,” Moses said. “I see guys on tour who practice an hour or two today, but it’s not problem for me to go out and grind it.”

And with his mind made up on succeeding on the greens, Moses is quick to accept the work that lies in front of him. “I’m a little behind,” he said. “So there’s no reason I shouldn’t be committing to everything I can do to improve. In this sport it just takes so much time, and I’m not scared to commit to that.”

The work ethic may have transferred with him from sport to sport, but the dynamics of improvement have been a very different medium. “It’s amazing in that as fast as things happened in swimming,” Moses said, “it made it a little more difficult now as that I feel anything can happen to me quickly.” And even though he hasn’t hit the pro tour yet, Moses says, “I can see it in three to four years. I’m happy with my progress, everything is unfolding right.”