November 11th,2013
Today I wrote a message to a friend of mine in Bucharest, Stuart Leary a great golfer in his playing days and he still is; I said to Stuart;”I shot 5 over Saturday mate, and my head is off” he replied;”The secret is in the dirt mate!”I got inspired by this not only to go to the driving range and hit a few golf balls but to write my weekly story , which brings me to Mr. Ben Hogan. The closest Ben Hogan ever come to disclosing the SECRET of his golf swing was to say, what my friend just said to me; “The secret son is in the dirt”, meaning the dirt of the practice range and when William Benjamin Hogan died Friday 25th July 1997 at age 84, his ''secret'' died with him.
That is probably the way he wanted it because it fits his real secret: his dual mystique, his eyes peering from below a flat white linen cap as a golfer, his protective aura around the golf clubs he put his name on as a businessman.
To the golf pros, old and young, and for me he always was “Mr. Hogan”, for how he played and for the quality of the clubs he designed. I am a teacher of golf, but I am a master club maker as well, I wished I could design the golf clubs he did. He was a master. Sam Snead often said that Ben Hogan the only thing he ever said on the golf course was on the 1st. tee, “good luck and you’re away”. What we professionals call “tournament golf”, as opposed to any other golf tournament as my members play on Saturday at Lighthouse Golf Course.In “tournament golf” Mr.Hogan was always wrapped in a cocoon of concentration and he never liked the “small talk”. At 1.74 cm and 70kg he was known as “Bantam Ben”, he was the giant of the game. He created the “power fade” which I like to play and he analyzed how to hit a golf ball as if he were a nuclear scientist. When Gary Player once asked Mr. Hogan about the proper position of the hands at the top of the backswing, nobody else would have growled at the South African pro, but Mr. Hogan did, asking, “What clubs are you using now?”
“Dunlop,” Gary Player said.
“Then call Mr. Dunlop.”
AS truly dominating as Jack Nicklaus and Bobby Jones were in their eras, many of Hogan’s contemporaries stand by him as the best ever, and for me he will always be the greatest. I have seen Jack Nicklaus watch Mr. Hogan practice, but I have never seen Mr. Hogan to watch Jack Nicklaus practice.
A friend of mine when he had the pleasure to meet him, told me that after Mr. Hogan shook his hand(I knew Mr. Hogan’s body language) asked him what he does for a living and my friend replied “I am a golf professional” Mr. Hogan looked in his eyes and said “show me your hands;”my friend opened his hands and showed him, Mr. Hogan said; “where are your calluses from your hands?? I don’t see any; you are not golf professional”, actually my friend was not the one to practice too much, and hit the required 800 balls per day.
Mr. Hogan is the only golfer to have won the Masters, US Open and British Open in the same year, 1953.He won 63 Pga Tournaments, including 9 Majors and at the top of his game in the 40’s, he never had the opportunity to play in another 20 majors because of his Army Air Force duty during World War II.In 1950 he wins the US Open at Merion for the fourth time.”Merion meant the most”, he said years later, „because I proved I could still win.”He demanded perfection in everything these are the attributes of a great club maker and designer we always look for perfection in golf equipment. Before one of the US Open tournament he receives several dozen balls, he inspected each one of them with a magnifying glass.
“Some of these balls”, he explained, „have a little too much paint in the dimples”.
When the senior PGA Tour began, he was still playing occasionally and hitting balls, but he never entered a senior tournament. He would say “I am the sole judge of my standards”. If Mr. Hogan couldn’t compete at his best, he wouldn’t compete at all.
The Standards that created the mystique that defined him. For me he will always be the greatest golfer of all times.
Comments