Some of my favorite things ever said about the game came out of Mr. Hogan’s mouth.
“Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club don’t you?”
“The most important shot in golf is the next one.”
“Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.”
“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.”
And Mr. Sam Snead, the most winningest man to ever play the game, said about his closest rival the best thing that could ever be said about any competitor, and sums up most of what there is to know about Ben Hogan. “The three things I fear most in golf are lightning, a downhill putt, and Ben Hogan.”
It is a thing in golf more so than in any other sport, to talk about champions of the past and how they might stack up against players from the present. The only thing I can think of that even remotely compares is the Jordan, Kobe, Lebron conversation that filters in and out of professional commentary and sports bars alike. But in golf, we do it constantly, about everyone. From one hundred years ago to today. From Bobby Jones to Tiger. From short game admiration, Seve Ballesteros or Phil Mickelson? To long ball hitters, Jack Nicklaus or John Daly? It seems that some people and some talents just never fade in our game.
Maybe because the game itself is ancient. Or because technology and course design have changed enough that we’re looking at different eras of champions through different lenses, and so, the comparisons are just dissimilar enough to be unanswerable. But I’m beginning to feel more and more that every question doesn’t need an answer in order to be capable of appreciation.
At any rate, this particular man gave us too much, I believe, to ever forget him.
In 1957 he finished assembling his Five Lessons, a compilation of notes and articles he’d written in the years before that clearly communicate his thoughts on what he believed were the four most important fundamentals if you wanted to play the game well, and a fifth section for review, which might be the most important lesson of all. I’ve read the book time and time again. Things I disagreed with or didn’t understand the first time are absolute truths I found later out in a field somewhere and now I hold on to them as my dearest swing thoughts. I’m still not sure that 100% of the information in the book applies to 100% of golfers in the world today. Owed to the fact that Jack Nicklaus describes and prescribes a few differing ideas in his writings. But there we go again comparing legends from different decades. And all that to say, the book is invaluable as a resource and should be on the shelf of every golfer who ever hoped to play the game well.
The first green jacket was awarded in 1949. The third one was given to Mr. Hogan. And the following year, in 1952, for the first time, he held an honorary dinner. It was to celebrate a tradition unlike any other and the champions who managed to battle their way to the highest peak of golfing excellence. That champions dinner survives today, every year, on an evening before The Masters, and has been the most elite party a golfer could ever hope to attend since.
The year after that, in 1953, he came as close as anyone since Bobby Jones has come to winning all four of golf’s majors in a single year. My search for actual dates at which point The Masters and the PGA became major championships came up dry. Some claim it wasn’t until 1960 when Arnold Palmer was quoted after winning The Masters and the US Open that year that he was halfway to a grand slam. But you get what I’m saying. As the story goes, in 1953 Mr. Hogan won The Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship, and could very well have won them all, had not the PGA been played the following weekend and Mr. Hogan, in the 50s and before the availability of modern travel options, been able to get there in time to play. That’s always a story that boggles my mind. That tour commissioner, if they had one, should have been fired on the spot.
But it was his work ethic and sheer feats of will, in the end, that to me are his most powerful legacies. Stories of him staying long hours on the range after shooting a 68, just to work out that last problem and find the next level of magic. His hours and hours of metal working, forcing the club to feel right in his hands. The dedication to practice. The feeling of loss if he were ever to miss a day. And his proclamation that, “The secret is in the dirt,” drive home the believability in the impossible. That you could, too, strike the ball with true wizardry if you were only willing to put in the time. His triumph after debilitating injury…
And here we are. Almost sixty years after his last professional win. Talking about the greatness of the man. His swing. His knowledge. His work. And though I don’t know what you have to do to become a truly immortal figure in the game, to be counted in the same company as Old and Young Tom Morris, I am absolutely certain that I will always consider Ben Hogan a legend.
I’ll leave you with this. It’s my favorite article, written the year he died in The New York Times. I’ve read it twenty times. I’m sure you will too.
“Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club don’t you?”
“The most important shot in golf is the next one.”
“Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.”
“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.”
And Mr. Sam Snead, the most winningest man to ever play the game, said about his closest rival the best thing that could ever be said about any competitor, and sums up most of what there is to know about Ben Hogan. “The three things I fear most in golf are lightning, a downhill putt, and Ben Hogan.”
It is a thing in golf more so than in any other sport, to talk about champions of the past and how they might stack up against players from the present. The only thing I can think of that even remotely compares is the Jordan, Kobe, Lebron conversation that filters in and out of professional commentary and sports bars alike. But in golf, we do it constantly, about everyone. From one hundred years ago to today. From Bobby Jones to Tiger. From short game admiration, Seve Ballesteros or Phil Mickelson? To long ball hitters, Jack Nicklaus or John Daly? It seems that some people and some talents just never fade in our game.
Maybe because the game itself is ancient. Or because technology and course design have changed enough that we’re looking at different eras of champions through different lenses, and so, the comparisons are just dissimilar enough to be unanswerable. But I’m beginning to feel more and more that every question doesn’t need an answer in order to be capable of appreciation.
At any rate, this particular man gave us too much, I believe, to ever forget him.
In 1957 he finished assembling his Five Lessons, a compilation of notes and articles he’d written in the years before that clearly communicate his thoughts on what he believed were the four most important fundamentals if you wanted to play the game well, and a fifth section for review, which might be the most important lesson of all. I’ve read the book time and time again. Things I disagreed with or didn’t understand the first time are absolute truths I found later out in a field somewhere and now I hold on to them as my dearest swing thoughts. I’m still not sure that 100% of the information in the book applies to 100% of golfers in the world today. Owed to the fact that Jack Nicklaus describes and prescribes a few differing ideas in his writings. But there we go again comparing legends from different decades. And all that to say, the book is invaluable as a resource and should be on the shelf of every golfer who ever hoped to play the game well.
The first green jacket was awarded in 1949. The third one was given to Mr. Hogan. And the following year, in 1952, for the first time, he held an honorary dinner. It was to celebrate a tradition unlike any other and the champions who managed to battle their way to the highest peak of golfing excellence. That champions dinner survives today, every year, on an evening before The Masters, and has been the most elite party a golfer could ever hope to attend since.
The year after that, in 1953, he came as close as anyone since Bobby Jones has come to winning all four of golf’s majors in a single year. My search for actual dates at which point The Masters and the PGA became major championships came up dry. Some claim it wasn’t until 1960 when Arnold Palmer was quoted after winning The Masters and the US Open that year that he was halfway to a grand slam. But you get what I’m saying. As the story goes, in 1953 Mr. Hogan won The Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship, and could very well have won them all, had not the PGA been played the following weekend and Mr. Hogan, in the 50s and before the availability of modern travel options, been able to get there in time to play. That’s always a story that boggles my mind. That tour commissioner, if they had one, should have been fired on the spot.
But it was his work ethic and sheer feats of will, in the end, that to me are his most powerful legacies. Stories of him staying long hours on the range after shooting a 68, just to work out that last problem and find the next level of magic. His hours and hours of metal working, forcing the club to feel right in his hands. The dedication to practice. The feeling of loss if he were ever to miss a day. And his proclamation that, “The secret is in the dirt,” drive home the believability in the impossible. That you could, too, strike the ball with true wizardry if you were only willing to put in the time. His triumph after debilitating injury…
And here we are. Almost sixty years after his last professional win. Talking about the greatness of the man. His swing. His knowledge. His work. And though I don’t know what you have to do to become a truly immortal figure in the game, to be counted in the same company as Old and Young Tom Morris, I am absolutely certain that I will always consider Ben Hogan a legend.
I’ll leave you with this. It’s my favorite article, written the year he died in The New York Times. I’ve read it twenty times. I’m sure you will too.
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