Ben Hogan

I had talked a few days back about Jim Dodson's new book "American Triumvirate" about the golf careers of Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, and Ben Hogan.  While reading this book, I had found that the most interesting of the these three giants of American golf was Ben Hogan.  If you are not a golfer, you don't know about Hogan and could probably care less, which is too bad because his was a most interesting life.  If you are a golfer, you have probably heard of Hogan, and even then, if you are under 60 years old, you may not know a lot about him, and you have never watched golf when Hogan was a relevant player on the PGA Tour.  His last victory on the PGA Tour was in 1959, and his last relevant appearance contending for a Championship was in the 1960 US Open (more on that event later).

Here are the cold statistics about Hogan: 64 career PGA Tour wins, 9 major championships, that include 4 US Opens, 2 Masters, 2 PGA Championships, and 1 British Open (in the only year he entered), and two years where he won at least ten times.

Hogan was born in 1912 in Texas and lived a hard scrabble life growing up.  When he was 9 years old, he witnessed his father commit suicide, an event that understandably scarred him and affected him the rest of his life.  He learned to play golf while working as a caddy at the Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth (where Byron Nelson, also born in 1912, worked in the same caddy yard).  In 1930, Hogan declared himself a professional and thus commenced a period of eight years without winning, almost running out of money several times and being forced to give it all up.  In 1938, he won his first tournament, didn't win again until 1940, a year in which he won four times, after which he was off and running.  Now, I left out a lot of details here, but, trust me, the details that describe this period are fascinating.  

From 1940 through 1942, he won 15 times on tour, before service in WW II called him away from the professional tour.  He picked up where he left off in 1945 with five wins, followed by 13 wins, including the PGA Championship, in 1946. Seven more wins in 1947, and ten wins in 1948, including the PGA and his first US Open.

But then the story really gets interesting. While driving home to Texas from a tournament in Arizona in February 1949, Hogan's car (no private jets on the Tour in those days) collided with a Greyhound bus and he was nearly killed.  For sure, it was thought, he would never play golf at a high level, if at all, again.  But come back he did, winning twice in 1949, and in 1950, fourteen months after the accident, he won the US Open at Merion in Philadelphia (during which the famous picture at the top of this post was taken).  

At this point in his career, Hogan could not, due to the injuries suffered in the accident, play a full season on the Tour, so he was restricted in the number of events he entered.  After that '51 Open win, he would win 11 more times including two more Opens, two Masters, and the British Open.  In 1953 he had, arguably the greatest season a pro golfer has ever had. He entered six tournaments, and won five of them, including the Masters, US Open, and British Open.

His last big appearance on the pro golf stage was in the 1960 US Open at Cherry Hills in Denver.  Arnold Palmer won that Open, but Hogan led the tournament after 70 holes when a shot to the green spun back off the green and into a water hazard.  It was the last time that Hogan would be a factor in a major championship.  Paired with Hogan in that final round was the reigning US Amateur champ, Jack Nicklaus, who also held the lead at one point during that final round.  It has been said that the 1960 Open was a pivotal one in golf history, because it showcased golf's past (Hogan), present (Palmer), and future (Nicklaus) on golf's biggest stage.  For his own part, Hogan never forgot his too-perfect shot at 17 that spun off the green and ended his chance to win a record fifth Open, but he had this to say about his partner that day, "I played 36 holes today with a kid who should have won this thing by ten strokes."  

Hogan would go on to found the Ben Hogan Golf Company, and even when he stopped competing, he never stopped practicing.  Almost to the very end, Hogan would spend a couple of hours on the practice range at Shady Oaks CC in Fort Worth, still trying to find golf perfection by "digging in the dirt." He died on 1997 at the age of 84.

Some great quotes by and about Hogan from Jim Dodson's "American Triumvirate".

• "For Ben Hogan, golf wasn't merely a source of livelihood and fame; it was his sole source of survival. Fun never entered the equation".
• "...winners are different. They're a different breed of cat.....they have a an inner drive and are willing to give of themselves whatever it takes to win.  It's a discipline that a lot of people are not willing to impose on themselves".  (This was Nelson speaking about the mentality among Snead, Hogan and himself.)
• Herbert Warren Wind on Hogan: "I often think, to this day, Ben Hogan's real secret was the difficulty of his long life.... He thought through every detail every second he was out there.  His mind never drifted. That was his real secret. Life made him, in time, fearless, and almost invincible, and down the road, though he never saw it coming, a golf immortal".
• Sam Snead talking here:  "It takes a lot out of a fella to reach the top of the heap the way Ben and Byron and I did.  Nobody gets to stay there long. But as Ben and I both proved, it's a helluva lot harder to climb back up there once you've tumbled off because you know what it takes out of you to get back".  (Words to ponder as we watch the ongoing drama of Tiger Woods?)
• Hogan on his equipment company:  "When a curious reporter asked how his company tested clubs, he answered, 'We have a testing machine here - me.'"

I know I've rambled on a long time here, but as I said, I find Ben Hogan to be a fascinating guy.  Both Curt Sampson and Jim Dodson have written excellent biographies of him, and, of course, there is Dodson's new book, "American Triumvirate".  For more on that 1960 US Open, I would also recommend Sampson's 1992 book, "The Eternal Summer".  All of them are good reads.