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Ben Hogan

Most of the actual swing instructions in this book are based on the teachings in the book Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons. Why? Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, unlike Hogan, had a teaching pro(s) instructing them on the fundamentals and nuances of the game. Hogan did not have the luxury of using high-speed cameras, 3D motion-analysis, launch monitors, putting apps, force plates, ShotLink data and a myriad of coaches. Even though he wrote his book in 1957, much of what Hogan said, when examined closely, holds true today. So it is no surprise that Five Lessons is a focal point of every serious golfer’s library. Larry Nelson, winner of 3 major championships—1981 & 1987 PGA Championships and the 1983 U.S. Open—and inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in October of 2006, had this to say, “This book, Ben Hogan’s Modern Fundamentals of Golf, taught me the swing. Although I don’t swing like Hogan, what I learned from his book helped me to progress more quickly than anyone would have guessed. The lessons could be done one at a time and the illustrations allowed me to work on the fundamentals myself. I would practice one lesson until I had it down, and then go onto the next. I still refer to the book when my swing gets off.” Hogan could be called the father of modern instruction—in which the big muscles of the body, rather than hands, as the controlling influences in the swing. Bennie Hogan would become the champion of figuring things out for himself. Bennie Hogan could stay on the practice tee like nobody else. Bennie Hogan’s diligence was amazing, because he had no model for it, and because he got no almost no immediate rewards from it.

“No teacher, the story goes, ever gave him a lesson. Everything he managed to learn about the golf swing—which apparently was twice as much as anybody ever had before him—he dug out of the dirt by practicing until his hands bled. When the skin of his palms blistered and cracked open, he soaked his hands in pickle brine to toughen them for the long haul.”

Early in his career, Hogan studied almost every movement Walter Hagen made on a golf course, quickly coming to the conclusion that the Haig possessed the finest natural rhythm and playing tempo any champion ever displayed—which he attempted to copy. In a remarkable handwritten, fourteen page letter to a friend in the late 1960s using a “stick figure” he drew to illustrate his point, Hogan explained the grip, and fundamentals of “a sound driver swing” that he claimed to have developed directly from conversations with the aging Hagen. It detailed principles of a proper grip, finger pressure, alignment of shoulders and feet, flex of knees, position of the body and head through the swing, position of the left hand during the backswing, transfer of weight, and a high finish that encouraged the hips and shoulders to full turn into the shot. Hogan advised: “Keep on file and refer to when in doubt. If used correctly, you can belt the ball a country mile,” then concluded his remarkable tutorial by offering a detailed if somewhat unorthodox way of verifying the correctness of one’s backswing: “At the top of the backswing the groin muscle on the inside of your right leg near your right nut will tighten. This subtle feeling of tightness there tells you that you have made the correct move back from the ball.“

“In the 1930’s, sitting with Valerie in her father’s empty darkened movie theater, an unknown Ben Hogan had studied Movietone footage of Jones, Hagen and Sarazen in their prime to learn proper hip turn technique and balance. During his embryonic days on tour, he’d studied MacDonald Smith’s beautiful swing and spoke with “Wild Bill” Mehlhorn about his cerebral analytical approach to the game. Later, he blended elements picked up from Kyle Laffoon, Lefty Stackhouse, and Jack Burke Sr; Paul Runyon’s short game wizardry, Picard’s unruffled ease, Denny Shute’s mastery with a two iron, and Johnny Revolta’s pre-shot waggle also played an invaluable role in Ben’s self tutorials in the field. It was his driven experimentation to create a swing that wouldn’t wilt under pressure.”

“Bill Mehlhorn, another top player of the twenties who always seemed to wind up in second place through nobody’s fault but his own, was also saying good-bye to pro golf. Like Walter Hagen, Mehlhorn was a fabulous ball-striker who came to golf from baseball, and he had no shortage of intricate theories about the golf swing and what made it either flop or work. Among other things, Mehlhorn believed a free and natural swing was the only way to hit a ball to the target. But even more important, after playing with Harry Vardon in 1921, Mehlhorn worked for thirteen months to replace his natural hook with a consistent left to right motion—a la Vardon—he came to believe was essential for reliable shot making, a controlled fade. One of the no name hopefuls of the new decade who watched Mehlhorn and attempted to copy his powerful sideways swing, before he vanished from the tour for good, was young Ben Hogan. He was a voracious learner who not only took note of Wild Bill’s careful playing action, but paid particular attention to the highly analytical manner in which Mehlhorn considered the golf swing. He then broke it down, and attempted to figure it out in minute detail. Hogan later said that Mehlhorn was the first ’theorist’ who got him thinking in depth about the physics of the golf swing.”

Question from a 1991 ESPN interview with Ken Venturi: “The Ben Hogan work ethic. . .who instilled that in you?” Hogan: “Hennie Bogan”

Hogan often referred unashamedly to the little man on his shoulder he called Hennie Bogan.

Hogan carried his practice balls in his golf bag. He would dump them on the ground, then hit them to the kid he had hired to stand out in a field to act as a target and shag balls. His fantasy companion, Hennie Bogan, would watch. Hennie was an insatiable practicer, and greater golfer than the great Bobby Jones. Hennie told Ben to hit more balls.

“Bennie and Byron would put in hour after hour on the practice tee, something unheard of. The old timers in golf rarely practiced. They’d take a few swings and then go out and play in a tournament.” Jimmy Damaret

“Asked some years later which great player he would select if he needed one shot to win a major tournament, Bobby Jones unhesitatingly replied, “that’s not hard for me to answer—Hogan.” He thought a moment and added, “He had the intangible assets—the spiritual.”

“I was mostly known for the way I hit my driver.” Sam Snead said. “But the truth was, beginning in early ’49, I begun concentratin’ more on my iron play and puttin’ than I ever had before. Most folks didn’t realize that’s what won all them tournaments for me, and why I had the lowest scorin’ average in 1950. In some ways I owed that to Ben. He showed what a fella could do if he put his mind to it. If we hadn’t been such competitors then, why, we might have become very good friends. But even when he was out of it I always knew he was out there watchin’, counting the days until he could get back.”

“Watching Hogan was like watching the great teachers of the East.” says Michael Murphy. “In India, in Sanskrit, they have a word that applied perfectly to Hogan—diksha.

Literally translated, it means ‘initiation’ or even ‘transmission.’ Anyone who ever watched Ben practice or play felt this diksha, a field of extraordinary psychic energy, a powerful presence that explains why top players and ordinary fans alike found him so irresistible—they would just stand for hours without saying a word, almost as if they were in a church. If you ask anyone who did this, who experienced Hogan’s diksha, they’ll tell you the silence surrounding him at these times was profound, holy. We in America don’t produce mystics. But Hogan was close.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Ben Hogan played a key role in transforming professional golf into something different than it had been, a much bigger game with all kinds of new commercial possibilities. Love him or hate him, most of us were frankly in awe of the man for what he‘d done—even before we realized the huge debt of gratitude we owed him.” Arnold Palmer

“If you ever heard Hogan hit a ball.” says Ben Crenshaw flatly, “it was like no other sound in golf.”