William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997 ) was an American golfer, and is generally considered one of he greatest golfers in the history of the game. Born within six months of two of the other acknowledged golf greats of the twentieth century, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson, Hogan is notable for his profound influence on Golf swing theory and his legendary ball-striking ability, for which he remains renowned among players and aficionados.
� �Early life and character
Born in Stephenville, Texas and raised ten miles away in Dublin,Texas he began caddying at the age of eleven, at Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, along with Byron Nelson, later a tour rival.
Hogan started as a professional golfer in 1931. His Early years as a pro were very difficult, and he went broke more than once. He did not win his first pro tournament until 1940, nine years after turning pro. Hogan's wife Valerie believed in him, and this helped see him through the tough years, when he battled a hook, which he later cured.
Hogan was, by most accounts, the greatest golfer of his time, and still stands as one of the greatest of all time. "The Hawk" possessed fierce determination and an iron will, which, when combined with his unquestionable golf skills, formed an aura which itself could intimidate opponents into submission. Hogan's legend also records that he was known as "The Wee Ice Man", or, in some versions, the "Wee Ice Mon". This phrase is thought to have been coined in Scotland during his famous British Open victory at Carnoustie in 1953, and is a reference to his steely and, by that time, seemingly nerveless demeanor, itself a product of a Golf swing he had built that was designed to perform better the more pressure he put it under. Hogan rarely spoke while in competition, and few opponents could avoid wilting under his icy glare.
�The "Hogan Slam" season
The win at Carnoustie was but a part of Hogan's watershed 1953 season, in which he won five of the six tournaments he entered and the first three major championships of the year (a feat known as the "Hogan Slam").
It still stands among the greatest single seasons in the history of professional golf. Hogan was unable to enter — and possibly win — the 1953 PGA Championship (to complete the Grand Slam) because its play (July 1-7) overlapped the play of the British Open at Carnoustie (July 6-10), which he won. It was the only time a golfer won three major championships in a year until Tiger Woods matched the feat in 2000.
Hogan often declined to play in the PGA Championship, skipping it more and more often as his career wore on. There were two reasons for this: firstly, the PGA Championship was, until 1958, a match play event, and Hogan's particular skill was "shooting a number" --meticulously planning and executing a strategy to achieve a score for a round on a particular course (even to the point of leaving out the 6-iron in the U.S. Open at Merion, saying "there are no 6-iron shots at Merion"). The second reason was that the PGA required several days of 36 holes per day competition, and after his 1949 auto accident, Hogan was barely able to manage 18 holes on his bandaged legs.
His nine career professional major championships tie him (with Gary Player) for fourth all-time, trailing only Jack Nicklaus (18), Tiger Woods (12) and Walter Hagen (11).
Career-threatening accident
Between the years of 1938 through 1959, Hogan won 63 professional golf tournaments despite his career's being interrupted in its prime by World War II and a near-fatal car accident. Hogan and his wife, Valerie, survived a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus on a fog-shrouded bridge east of Van Horn, Texas on February 1, 1949.
This accident left Hogan with a double-fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone, a left ankle fracture, a chipped rib, and near-fatal blood clots, he would suffer lifelong circulation problems and other physical limitations. His doctors said he might never walk again, let alone play golf competitively. He left the hospital on April 1st, 59 days after the accident
�Hogan's golf swing
Ben Hogan is widely acknowledged to have been the greatest ball striker ever to have played golf. Although he had a formidable record as a tournament winner, it is this aspect of Hogan which mostly underpins his modern reputation.
Hogan was known to practice more than any other golfer of his contemporaries and is said to have "invented practice". He was also one of the first players to match particular clubs to yardages, or references points around the course such as bunkers or trees, in order to improve his distance control.
Hogan thought that an individual's golf swing was "in the dirt" and that mastering it required plenty of practice and repetition. He is also known to have spent years contemplating the golf swing, trying a range of theories and methods before arriving at the finished method which brought him his greatest period of success.
The young Hogan was badly afflicted by hooking the golf ball. Although slight of build at only 5'7" and 140 pounds (64 kg), attributes that earned him the nickname "Bantam", which he thoroughly disliked, he was very long off the tee Early in his career, and even competed in Long drive contests.
It has been alleged that Hogan used a "strong" grip, with hands more the right of the club grip in tournament play prior to his accident in 1949, despite often practicing with a "weak" grip, with the back of the left wrist facing the target, and that this limited his success, or, at least, his reliability, up to that date (source: John Jacobs in his book 'Fifty Greatest golf Lessons of the century').
Jacobs alleges that Byron Nelson told him this information, and furthermore that Hogan developed and used the "strong" grip as a boy in order to be able to hit the ball as far as bigger, stronger contemporaries. This strong grip is what resulted in Hogan hitting the odd disastrous snap hook. Nelson and Hogan both grew up in Fort Worth, and they are known to have played against each other as teenagers.
Hogan's late swing produced the famed "Hogan Fade" ball flight, lower than usual for a great player and from left to right. This Ball flight was the result of his using a "draw" type swing in conjunction with a "weak" grip, a combination which all but negated the chance of hitting a hook.
It greatly improved Hogan's accuracy but may have cost him some length. Certainly during his period of greatness Hogan was among the short to mid-length hitting professionals.
�Hogan's secret
Hogan is thought to have developed a "secret" which made his swing nearly automatic. His "secret", a special wrist movement known as "cupping under", was revealed in a 1955 Life magazine article,. However, many believed Hogan did not reveal all that he knew at the time. It has since been alleged in Golf Digest magazine that the second element of Hogan's "secret" was the way in which he used his right knee to initiate the swing and that this right knee movement was critical to the correct operation of the wrist.
Hogan revealed later in life that the "secret" involved cupping the left wrist at the top of the back swing and using a weaker left hand grip (thumb more on top of the grip as opposed to on the right side).
Hogan did this to prevent himself from ever hooking the ball off the tee. By positioning his hands in this manner, he ensured that the club face would be slightly Open upon impact, creating a fade (left to right Ball flight) as opposed to a draw or hook (right to left ball flight).
This is not something that would benefit all golfers, however, since the average right-handed golfer already slices or fades the ball. The draw is more appealing to amateurs due to its greater carry. However, although he played right-handed as an adult, Hogan was left-handed. His Early play with right-handed equipment was using a cross-handed (right hand at the end of the club, left hand below it) grip. In "The Search for the Perfect Golf Swing", researchers Cochran and Stobbs held the opinion that a left-handed person playing right handed would be prone to hook the Ball.
Even a decade after his death, amateurs and professionals continue to study the techniques of this consummate player, as evidenced by such books as Ben Hogan, The Man Behind the Mystique (Martin, 2002) and the more recent The Secret of Hogan's Swing (Bertrand and Bowler, 2006).
�"Five Fundamentals" and golf instruction
Hogan believed that a solid, repeatable golf swing involved only a few essential elements, which, when performed correctly and in sequence, were the essence of the swing. His book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of golf is perhaps the most widely-read golf tutorial ever written, although Harvey Penicks "Little Red Book" would also have a claim to that title, and the principles therein are often parroted by modern "swing gurus".
Ben Hogan's Modern Fundamentals: The Five Lessons of golf was initially released as a five part series beginning in the March 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated magazine, and was printed in book form later in that same year. It is currently in its 64th printing. Even today it continues to maintain a place at or near the top of the Amazon.com Golf book sales rankings. The book was co-authored by Herbert Warren Wind, and illustrated by artist Anthony Ravielli.
Hogan� acknowledged to have been the best ball striker ever.
Hogan's ball striking has been described as being of near miraculous caliber by very knowledgeable observers such as Jack Nicklaus, who only saw him play some years after his prime. Nicklaus once responded to the question, "Is Tiger Woods the best Ball striker you have ever seen?" with, "No, no - Ben Hogan, easily" (Golf Digest, April 2004).
Further testimony to Hogan's (and Norman's) status among top golfers is provided by Tiger Woods, who recently said that he wished to "own his (golf) swing" in the same way as Moe Norman and Hogan had. Woods claimed that this pair were the only players ever to have "owned their swings", in that they had total control of it and, as a result, of the ball's flight (Golf Digest, January 2005).
Although his ball striking was perhaps the greatest ever, Hogan is also known to have at times been a very poor putter by professional standards, particularly on slow greens. The majority of his putting problems developed after his car accident in 1949. Towards the end of his career, he would stand over the Ball, in some cases for minutes, before drawing the putter back. It was written in the Hogan Biography, Ben Hogan: An American Life, that Hogan had damaged one of his eyes and that poor vision added to his putting problems.
While he suffered from the "yips" in his later years, Hogan was known as an effective putter from mid to short range on quick, US Open style surfaces at times during his career.
In 1948 alone, Ben Hogan won 10 tournaments, including the U.S. Open at Riviera Country Club, a course known as "Hogan's Alley" because of his success there. Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, a modern PGA tournament venue, is also known as "Hogan's Alley" and may have the better claim to the nickname. Hogan's Alley is also the name of an FBI training complex, and the term has its origins in the late 19th century in the form of a cartoon strip, only later being matched with courses at which Hogan excelled. The sixth hole at Carnoustie, a par five from the tee of which Hogan took a famously difficult line off during each of his rounds in the 1953 open Championship, has also recently been renamed Hogan's Alley.
Prior to the 1949 accident, Hogan never truly captured the hearts of his galleries, despite being one of the better golfers of his time. Perhaps this was due to his cold and aloof on-course persona. But when Ben Hogan shocked and amazed the golf world by returning to tournament golf only 11 months after his accident, and, amazingly, took second place in the 1950 Los Angeles Open after a playoff loss to Sam Snead, he was cheered on by ecstatic fans. "His legs simply were not stong enough to carry his heart any longer", famed sportswriter Grantland Rice said of Hogan's near-miss. However, he proved to is critics (and to himself, especially) that he could still win by completing his famous comeback five months later, defeating Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio in an 18-hole playoff at Merion Golf Club to win his second U.S. open Championship. Hogan went on to achieve what is perhaps the greatest sporting accomplishment in history, limping to 12 more PGA Tour wins (including 6 majors) before retiring. In 1951, Hogan entered just five events, but won three of them - the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the World Championship of Golf, and finished second and fourth in his other two starts. He would finish fourth on that season's money list, barely $6,000 behind the season's official money list leader Lloyd Mangrum, who played over 20 events. That year also saw the release of a biopic starring Glenn Ford as Hogan, called Follow the Sun: The Ben Hogan Story. He even received a ticker-tape parade in New York City upon his return from winning the 1953 British Open Championship, the only time he played the event.
Hogan played on two U.S. Ryder Cup teams, 1947 and 1951, and captained the team three times, 197, 1949, and 1967, famously claiming on the latter occasion to have brought the "twelve best golfers in the World" to play in the competition. This line was used by subsquent Ryder Cup captain Raymond Floyd in 1989, although on that occasion the United States was beaten by Team Europe at The Belfry.
Hogan won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average three times: 1940, 1941, and 1948. In 1953, Hogan won the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of the year in the United States.
Ben Hogan later went on to found a Golf Club manufacturing company (now owned by the Callaway Golf Company), and his clubs, or at least ones that carry his name, are still played today. Unlike the great players of the 1960s and 1970s, Ben Hogan never competed on the senior golf tour, as that circuit did not exist until he was in his late sixties.
He was inducted into the World golf Hall of Fame in 1974. In 1976, Ben Hogan was voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in Golf. He died in Fort Worth, Texas.
�PGA Tour wins (64)
- 1938 (1) Hershey Four-ball (with Vic Ghezhi)
- 1940 (4) North and South Open, Greater Greensboro open, Asheville Land of the Sky Open, Goodall Palm Beach Round Robin
- 1941 (5) Asheville Open, Chicago open, Hershey Open, Miami Biltmore International Four-ball (with Gene Sarazen), Inverness Four-Ball (with Jimmy Demaret)
- 1942 (6) Los Angeles Open, San Francisco open, North and South Open, Asheville Land of the Sky Open, Hale America Open, Rochester Open
- 1945 (5) Nashville Invitational, Portland Open Invitational, Richmond Invitational, Montgomery Invitational, Orlando open
- 1946 (13) Phoenix Open, San Antonio Texas open, St. Petersburg Open, Miami International Four-ball (with Jimmy Demaret), Colonial National Invitation, Western Open, Goodall Round Robin, Inverness FourBall (with Jimmy Demaret), Winnipeg Open, PGA Championship, Golden State Open, Dallas Invitational, North and South open
- 1947 (7) Los Angeles Open, Phoenix open, Colonial National Invitation, Chicago victory Open,World Championship of golf, Inverness Round Robin Four-ball (with Jimmy Demaret)
- 1948 (10) Los Angeles Open, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, Inverness Round Robin Four-ball (with Jimmy Demaret), Motor City Open, Reading open, Western Open, Denver Open, Reno Open, Glendale Open
- 1949 (2) Bing Crosby Pro-Am, Long Beach Open
- 1950 (1) U.S. Open
- 1951 (3) the Masters, U.S. Open, World Championship of golf
- 1952 (1) Colonial National Invitation
- 1953 (5) the Masters, Pan American Open, Colonial National Invitation, U.S. Open, The Open Championship (designated as a PGA Tour win in 2002)
- 1959 (1) Colonial National Invitation
Major championships are shown in bold.
�Major Championships
�Wins (9)
Note: The PGA Championship was match play until 1958
1 Defeated Mangrum and Fazio in 18-hole playoff: Hogan (69), Mangrum (73), Fazio (75)
[edit] Results timeline
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10
�Trivia
- At age 9, Hogan's father Chester committed suicide. By some accounts Chester committed suicide in front of him, which some (including Hogan biographer James Dodson) have cited as the cause of his introverted personality in later years.
- Though many accounts hold that Hogan was Born left-handed, he wrote right-handed, and specifically denied this Story in a 1987 interview: "No, that's one of those things that's always been written, but it's an absolute myth."
- Note: In his book Five Lessions The Modern Fundamentals of golf (published 1957) he writes in the chapter 1 The Grip, that he was Born left-handed and that was the normal way to things for him, but he switched over doing things right-handed as a boy. He also writes that he started Golf left-handed, because the first Club he got hold of was a lefty 5-iron. So it is questionable if the comment in the 1987 interview has been interpreted correctly.
- On the HBO television series Curb Your Enthusiasm (Episode 50: the end), Larry David meets Hogan during his brief visit in Heaven.
; "Ben Hogan")
button beside categories below to add/edit content
