For those of you who haven’t seen the Hogan biopic Follow the Sun, here’s a fun scene from the movie. It’s his first time out on the range after the accident. Mike Maves remarked upon this bit on his ebook. Clearly Hogan had a say in the scripting of this, don’t you think?
Reading Haney’s “The Big Miss” and came across this passage regarding Hogan I thought was interesting:
{So Haney’s opinion on Hogan solved the problem (Hogan’s “secret”) was less across the line and less flat on downswing? Any evidence of this?}
Also:
I guess that happens when you are hitting long irons into greens instead of wedges. Of course when you hit the shots that are required for the greens at the time, why should you think about future greens that are half a century away to hit towards?
Hogan was a Texas golfer = wind player. Keeping it low was how to keep it in play down there. It’s also not a bad way to play even without wind. Hard to have a 40 yard slice when the ball lands at 20 and has to roll another 20. Easy to slice a 60 yarder when it carries all of those 40 + wind adds another 20 before it even lands.
Thanks for posting this Interesting stuff about that book.
Early in the match wasn’t it interrupted by rain and lightning? When the match resumed and Ben stepped up to hit his approach 4-wood, there was a substantial pond of standing water starting several feet behind Ben and extending some distance into the fairway. It appears that a lot of water had fallen, at least on that part of the course. It seems likely at least some of the greens were softened or slowed by the rain and the players had been ready to play harder greens if it had not rained. I wonder if there is no credit to extend for adapting to the changed green conditions when the round resumed?
It is not difficult for me to imagine Tiger was not in awe of Ben Hogan, and I have a hunch Ben Hogan would have relished playing against and beating Tiger, awe be damned in any case, just as Ben accepted the challenge to beat another renowned champion, Sam Snead. But I have trouble seeing Tiger’s alleged reason having much to do with whether or not Ben Hogan could hold hard or soft greens. As Tiger copes with trying to build his legacy after his knee injury, he may already be finding plenty of reason to respect Ben’s ability to achieve greatness after near death injuries.
Indeed. Well thought out and well stated!
Captain Chaos
Good point Teebox, hadn’t made that connection in the noggin about the respective injuries. 
Wasn’t Hogan also a bit older at the time of his accident than Tiger was when he blew out his knee?
Hogan was 36 when the accident left him with a double-fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone, a left ankle fracture, a chipped rib, and near-fatal blood clots.
Water will reduce spin rate of your ball by a huge amount. Its possible to can get 90% less spin off a wet golf ball.
If you watch Hogan’s video on youtube where he seems to be playing a few holes at Augusta for the TV on his own, he spins the ball 20 feet backwards on many occasion.
As the day wore on after the rain stopped, the heat eventually dried fairways and greens at least to some degree I suppose and that required both Ben and Sam to make gradual corrections from the rain reduced balata spin and heat gradually reviving higher spin. Attaining good scores had to be extra tricky through all that. It would be interesting what the balata veterans know about handling balata where conditions change from dry… to wet… to dry… in one round.
Yep. And the fact that Hogan hit every fairway and green in regulation that day on an almost 7000 yard course wasn’t bad either. Gene Sarazen did say, “That’s the finest round of golf I have seen in my lifetime.” at the end of the match. Not much more of an endorsement to how good you are than that.
Tiger may not be in awe but he did admire Hogan, but I guess to be on top you have to think there is no one else better than yourself…
You make strong points there.
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newbie mistake to not read the entire thread BUT here goes;
why did hogan say putting was an unnecessary part of the game ?
was snead better than hogan ? (snead beat hogan in head-to-head competitions and says if paired in the final group would have beat hogan for at least one u s open)
frankD
PS no i don’t mind to be RE-directed if this was arlready discussed here somewhere else
Did Hogan say putting was unnecessary?
Where did that quote come from?
Maybe he did… but I recall him just being a bit more dismissive about putting, and I remember reading an article about Hogan suggesting that putting should count for 1/2 a shot once on the green… so that a player who hit a green and two putted would make a 3 and a player missing a green and getting up and down would be 3 1/2.
Snead won the most tournaments and had great longevity so there is a great argument there. I think what has slightly tainted his legacy was his failure to not win the US Open.
Gary Player has won the most events world wide of anyone.
Another factor is that the modern majors were not always majors in the way they are now. The PGA Championship was a match play event for many years, and Hogan often didn’t play the event. Most of the American’s back in the 50’s and before didn’t play the British Open either. The World Golf Championship and the Western Open were considered majors in the 30’s and 40’s and some would argue The North South Open was also a major then.
I personally think the Australian Open should be a major. Certainly the historic list of champions there is credible for such a acknowledgment.
Welcome to the forum!
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RE hogan on putting
lagpressure,
the discussion i remember reading was along the lines of dropping a ball randomly onto a green and have at it would allow even a duffer to get “lucky” and hole it - when the real skill was getting there in the first place
i’ll look for it and repost back
frankD
Since many moons I try to figure out what Mr. Hogan shows here…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OQVaTMuZ_o[/youtube]
Lag you have some thoughts???
Chris
I’d be curious to see what Lag has to say also but let me take a shot too:
I believe this is a demonstration of the anti- one piece takeaway. Hogan is making the club move essentially 180 degrees from straight down to straight up in the air while his hands and forearm only make it back to 9:00 on the clock so to speak. I’m guessing that the left shoulder is nowhere near as far back as the ball (although we can’t see it well). Only at this point does the whole shoulders/arms/hands assembly move as “one -piece” where it looks like the whole upper half is moved as a rigid body to the top of the swing.
I imagine him saying at the end that if you move off the ball too far as one piece then you’ll never get to the proper positions as Hogan sees them because you haven’t started hinging the wrist yet. I know somewhere in the literature Hogan warned against using of the once piece take away. I don’t remember where.
JUST MY OPINION.
How about him rotating that clubface open … looks skyward even at a bad angle.
Without hearing what he was saying… it will always be some degree of speculation…
However, I would guess he is showing proper use of forearm rotation, and when he puts his hands out and apart, I would suppose he is saying the the clubface only has to be relatively square to the initial flight path for a couple of feet through and just beyond impact.
Since we are making guesses. I’d say he was talking to his range colleague about the opening of the club face and keeping the feeling like he’s keeping it open through impact. The indication of “how big the fish he caught” was probably showing how long he felt through the down swing and past impact he kept the face open so he couldn’t hook the ball.
BTW Chris, nice catch on that bit of video. If only we had the audio, there might be a golden nugget Hogan just gave out.