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The level of Hogan worship that exists in golf circles has always intrigued me. I'm not talking about his swing, that was magnificent - although I personally prefer Nelson's, but rather Hogan the man.

I know his background and all of the hurdles he overcame. By all accounts, his childhood (specifically, watching his father kill himself) was horrific. As was the car accident later in life. But also by all accounts, Hogan was not a particularly nice man. He was known to be terse or even rude at times, somewhat narcissistic with a short man's complex, and resentful of others around him who succeeded - particularly when (in his mind) they did so with working as hard as he did.

I'll always remember an interview with Arnold Palmer where Arnie was recounting his first Masters where he heard Hogan make a comment about him, the the effect "how did that guy get invited here?" Arnie then said (paraphrased to the best of my recollection), "Hogan was a great man . . . I just said 'great man.' I didn't mean that. Hogan was a great player, but [something along the lines of 'he didn't treat people respectfully.']"

Hogan carefully cultivated his public image and mythology- even to the extent of making demands on the wardrobe and dialogue in the biopic about him. I don't blame him for that - I would do the same. I'm just baffled by the sheer numbers of people who are mesmerized - almost brainwashed - by the 'cult of Hogan.'

Having said that, the old Life magazine article is cool.

Is Tiger nice?Freddy also has been known to be a prick

What does that have to do with anything?

I was answering to the comment I put in bold in your comment. Yes, Hogan wasn't the nicest man to his peers.He wasn't there to be friends,they were his competitors and he wanted nothing more then to beat them.

Tiger and Freddy also are not known to be especially nice to others even their fans.
Regardless of their lousy attitude towards others,their are some great golfers with a ton of talent.
That's all I was meaning.

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A Champion's Last Hurrah
Forty years ago, in his final Masters, an aging Ben Hogan turned back the clock for nine historic holes that stirred echoes of glory past

All but retired by '67, Hogan still struck the ball with an authority that awed fellow pros.
By Bill Fields
Photo By Leonard Kamsler March 30, 2007

As was his custom, Ben Hogan arrived early for the 1967 Masters, more than a week before he would suffuse the emerald stage with uncommon drama. It had been years since Hogan was a favorite -- Jack Nicklaus would be shooting for his third straight green jacket -- but he was still Hogan, not quite a man in full but full of intrigue. He came with his flat linen caps and his cigarettes, his shoes with their extra spike, a suitcase full of gray and a golf bag clanking with the extra-stiff-shafted clubs he still commanded like a drill sergeant barking to a hapless private.

"It's hard to remember specifics of playing with Hogan because he always hit it perfectly," says Deane Beman, who was paired with him in the first round at Augusta National GC that week. "He hit almost every fairway, put it right where he wanted to. He played to the middle of the greens and always left himself uphill putts. He seldom hit a shot that short-sided himself. There wasn't anything remarkable about the way he played, except he played remarkably."

Hogan was a bit thicker through the middle than the Hawk of peak flight, the gritty bantam who ruled the sport in the late 1940s and early '50s, his slightly relaxed waistline befitting a 54-year-old man who spent as much time behind a desk as on a golf course. Having subsisted on oranges when he was a poor young golfer hooking his way to nowhere, the graying icon liked to lunch on fruit plates to try and drop a few pounds in preparation for Augusta's sharp hills, slopes that could wear out a younger man, much less someone north of 50 with suspect wheels.

He tuned up for the Masters, as he had forever, at Seminole GC in North Palm Beach, but this spring training wasn't as vigorous owing to a bothersome left shoulder, one of the residuals from the horrific 1949 car crash that nearly killed him. "An indication of the Hogan sharpness for the 1967 Masters is given by his suntan," reporter Jim Martin observed in a pre-tournament story for The Augusta Chronicle. "It isn't as deep as last year."

In fact Hogan's shoulder, plagued with bursitis, scar tissue and calcium deposits, had nearly kept him away from the major championship he had won in 1951 and 1953. "I developed some trouble last year, and it [hurt] all year," Hogan told reporters in Augusta. "So I decided it needed some work. But I got two shots of cortisone two consecutive mornings and have had 15 shots since then that helped it."

The injections?more of them than a doctor likely would allow today?lessened the inflammation and quieted the pain. Hogan knew another surgery would be necessary, but the scalpel could wait. He had competed in every Masters but two ('49 because of the crash and '63 after a shoulder operation) since his first appearance in 1938. Bobby Jones wanted him in Augusta, and Hogan wanted to be there. The Masters was golf, and Hogan was a golfer.

Hogan was the antithesis of tournament-tough when he got to Georgia, his last competition being the 1966 U.S. Open at Olympic Club where, playing on a special exemption from the USGA, he finished 12th. But inactivity didn't equal rust for Hogan. "He hits the irons so good, he's cheating," one of his protégés, Gardner Dickinson, told the Chronicle after a Sunday practice round. "He hits it three feet from the hole at No. 6 and the pin was right on top of Old Smokey [the right knoll]."

The distinctive sound of Hogan's crisp shotmaking had become part of golf lore, but Bruce Devlin judged him with another of his senses. "He had the best control of the elevation of the ball of anybody that I ever played with," says Devlin, who as a young pro in the 1960s traveled with fellow pro George Knudson to Fort Worth to watch Hogan hit balls and was Hogan's frequent practice-round partner in his last tour appearances. Standing behind the legend as he hit drivers, Devlin would hold up his fingers, like a Hollywood director envisioning a scene, and see ball after ball soar through the same frame. "He had fantastic control. They all looked the same when they went off the club?no real low ones, no real high ones."

A cadre of pros usually took advantage of a rare Hogan sighting on tour to watch him practice?the range was far from "Misery Hill," as World War II-era pros called it, to Hogan?but average golfers craved a look, too. On Tuesday morning at Augusta in '67, Clem Darracott, a 41-year-old freight-line salesman from Atlanta who had attended the Masters for several years, approached Hogan as he exited the clubhouse heading for the practice tee and asked if he could film his swing with an eight-millimeter home-movie camera.

Continued

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Some old videos

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This kid's swing is just freaking beautiful..

The sound of the ball tells it all

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How about a video of his retired years.Well after he stopped playing.Still amazing

Ben Hogan home video. Not sure where I got this from. From what I understand, it was shot in Florida '77. I think it's the full length.

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From the Armchair Golf Blogspot


I met Fred Hawkins this year at Grand Champions events on the Champions Tour. Fred played on the PGA Tour from the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s. He won twice and had 19 runner-up finishes, including a second-place tie in the 1958 Masters won by Arnold Palmer, the first of Arnold’s four green jackets.

Fred finished fourth on the 1956 money list (earning about $25,000) and played on the 1957 U.S. Ryder Cup team.

We covered a range of topics in an October telephone interview. Following are excerpts about Ben Hogan.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: Let’s talk a little bit about Hogan. You played a lot of golf with him, I imagine.

FRED HAWKINS: Yes, I played a number of practice rounds with him because I lived in El Paso at that time [1950s] when he wasn’t playing very often. And he’d always ask me to come down to Fort Worth a couple of days early so he’d get a little competition, practice that way. And we’d play a $5 Nassau, a normal game back in those days. It doesn’t sound like much now, but it was a pretty good game.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: I guess it doesn’t matter what you’re playing Ben Hogan for. It’s a good game, right?

FRED HAWKINS: It’s a good game. I beat him a lot of times. He liked to have some competition before the tournament. I don’t know how much you know about golf, but nobody gets their game going a certain way and says now I have it. I’m playing this way from now on. That doesn’t happen, if you really know anything about golf.

The top players are making continuous adjustments. They may get it for a few days or weeks, and hold on to it even a little longer than that, where everything is working nice. And all of a sudden, nothing is working out right. You’re still trying to do the same things, but you’re not.

That’s why some of these coaches are quite an advantage to the modern-day players. We never had them. But Hogan was always trying out something different. It sounds stupid to say that for a guy of his caliber, but that’s just the nature of the game. Everybody is making adjustments all the time.

As much change as there’s been with the equipment in golf -- the clubs and the ball -- there’s probably been just as huge an improvement in the condition of the courses. Outside of playing occasionally good courses for the National Open, but even their fairways weren’t like they are today at all.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: That’s what others have told me too, Fred. They said it was inconsistent. Sometimes you would have a fluffy flyer lie, and another place in the fairway you might have a bare lie. You really had to play the game with feel.

FRED HAWKINS: I was going to tell you a couple of anecdotes [about Hogan]. We used to play these Nassaus. As I said, he wasn’t really bearing down like he was in a tournament. He was trying hard, but he’s working on changes that we all make to see if it was going to work in the tournament for him. I probably beat him as much as he beat me in the practice rounds.

But he had a number of things that I thought were unusual. One would be he would come in and say, “How did we come out?” I’d say, “Don’t give me that stuff. You know damn well how we came out.” One of his favorite sayings was, “What did you shoot –- 50 what?” “50! I had 66.” “Anybody that makes that many putts ought to be in the 50s.” It burned him up.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: I found out you were in a playoff with Hogan at the 1959 Colonial, the last time he won on Tour.

FRED HAWKINS: That’s right. It was an 18-hole playoff the next day. And the wind blew about 40 miles per hour. He shot 69; I shot 73, which is a pretty good score. But he said it was the best round he ever played under those conditions.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: I know it played tough because I’ve read some about that tournament. I think that year you both shot five over for 72 holes. I figured it must have been playing pretty tough.

FRED HAWKINS: It was always very narrow. It wasn’t all that long. Of course, courses weren’t all that long. You had to stay straight. Some of the greens were protected by trees on each side and so on.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: Everything I read about Hogan -- even from the guys supposedly closest to him like Demaret -- they said Ben kept to himself and he worked on his game. What did you think he was like, just being around him?

FRED HAWKINS: Demaret probably knew him better than any of us, but I probably knew him as well as anybody outside of Demaret. But nobody ever knew him. I’ve always said he was the hardest man that I have ever known. If he told you he wasn’t going to cross the street, there was nothing in the world to make him cross the street.

At times he could be very gracious, he could speak well, and organize his thoughts. Other times, he’d go right by you. He was never really nasty to anybody that I know of. He wasn’t that way; he was just uncommunicative. He stayed in his own little world.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: How did Ben treat you?

FRED HAWKINS: He treated me fine.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: You got along well with him, it sounds like.

FRED HAWKINS: Yeah, but not all things good. I’ll tell you something he did to me. When I was getting ready to leave the regular Tour – I was in my early 40s – I applied for a job with a club in Los Angeles. It was a good job. They said who could I give for a recommendation, and I named Hogan and somebody else. Well, that would be wonderful if you could do that.

I called him [Ben] and asked if he’d send a letter of recommendation. He said that’s not the way to do it. They call me and I’ll give you a good recommendation, but I’m not going to write one and send it to them. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be done. I said OK. They didn’t call him or get the recommendation; I didn’t get the job, but I wasn’t broken up about it.

The next time I saw Ben he said, “How’s that job going?” I said, “What job?” “That job out there in California.” I said, “I didn’t get it.”

He just stopped and looked down at the ground. “You didn’t want that job anyhow,” he said.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: I don’t want to forget to ask you this: Did they used to call you the Hawk, too?

FRED HAWKINS: Some of the guys called me that, but the name really belonged to Hogan. Some of the others almost took exception that they were calling me that. He was like a hawk, you know. He was waiting for prey or something.

ARMCHAIR GOLF: He had several nicknames and I know The Hawk was probably one of the most popular.

FRED HAWKINS: He was The Hawk, with his talons always ready.

Fred Hawkins plays Grand Champions events on the Champions Tour. He lives in Sebring, Florida.

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How about some serious lag.Not even Sergio can compete with this

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FIVE US OPEN PLAYOFFS


Ben Hogan over Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio, 1950

1950 was a big year in golf. Jimmy Demaret won a third Masters, Sam Snead won eleven PGA Tour events, and Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open.

Every morning Hogan would begin his morning ritual. He soaked in a tub of hot water and Epsom salt, took some pain killers, and wrapped his legs to keep the swelling down. It was a year after the accident that nearly took his life and he wasn't in great shape.

Hogan's caddy retrieved his ball from the cup to alleviate the strain of bending down to get it. Hogan's three-stroke lead evaporated by the time he reached the long par-four final tee in the final round. He was physically spent. And yet somehow he pulled off that amazing one-iron (professional Jackson Bradley believes it was Hogan's strong two-iron) into the final green which set up Hogan's two-putt to get into the playoff.

In the playoff Hogan shot a 69, Mangrum a 73, and Fazio a 75. Mangrum famously marked his ball, picked it up to get an insect off, and was awarded a two-stroke penalty. Marking one's ball was against USGA's rules at the time. Hogan later said, "The 1950 Open was my biggest win. It proved I could still play."


http://thesandtrap.com/trap_five/us_open_playoffs

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No less than Ben Hogan wrote, in his book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, “THE HIPS INITIATE THE DOWNSWING. They are the pivotal element in the chain action. Starting them first and moving them correctly – this one action
practically makes the downswing.”

Unfortunately, most Golfer's have transition moves that can be described as less than correct.

Why is the transition important? It is critical because the quality of the transition move determines, in large part, the quality of the downswing path. The more a golfer tends to start the downswing with the upper body, the more outside-in, through impact, the clubhead path tends to be. The more correctly a golfer starts down, the more correct the swingpath will likely be.

It is important to note that other problems, such as casting and chicken-winging, are direct results of how well the transition move was made. If we had a student who is casting (or early-releasing), and we merely told them to retain the wrist angle longer on the downswing, this would be very poor advice, as it addresses the symptom, and not the cause, of the problem.

Theoretically, simply swinging with a outside-in path through impact swing inside-out wouldn’t work either, unless you have an adequate transition prior to this move. In the real world, though, getting yourself to swing inside-out often is accompanied by a more proper transition move, and it’s a move many Golfer's make naturally in order to swing out. Of course, it’s fairly easy to do this with no ball present, as most drills are.

Although technically the top of the backswing position is a position within the transition move, if a Golfer’s positioning is incorrect at the top, working on the transition move will likely prove fruitless. For example, if a you are reverse-pivoted at the top, or if you sways your lower body severely to the right, correcting the transition won’t produce results? Why? Because incorrect positioning at the top makes it almost impossible to make a correct transition move. The golfer who is reverse-pivoted will almost always come over the top to start the downswing. Working on your transition move without addressing the reverse pivot simply doesn’t produce results. Again, we cannot address symptoms of problems – we must address root causes.



This is one of my drills I use.If you have one that works for you please share.

Step drill for correct transition

The transition move between the backswing and forward swing is really what seperates the good players from the average amateur. Most amateurs start the forward swing with their upper bodies (shoulders) and therefore swing the club “over the top”, while the professionals initiate the forward swing with their lower bodies, therefore giving the club a chance to swing forward on plane. It is this difference in transition at the top of the swing that has a huge influence on the golfer’s ball flight.


What will follow is an exercise to help you get the feel for starting the forward swing with the lower body and not the upper body, in other words helping you to get the correct sequence of motion in your forward swing.

Step1

Put your feet with heels together as you can see on the photo, holding the club in your right hand only and placing your left hand on your chest.

Step 2

Swing to the top of your backswing, keeping your left hand on your chest.

Step 3 + 4
Start your forward swing by taking a step towards your target, then swinging the club forward with your right arm.

This simple little drill will give you a great sense of starting the forward swing with your lower body and not your upper body, therefore enabling you to swing the club forward on plane.

These were notes from a teaching seminar that were passed out to the students of the class