CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

THE HANDS

ADDRESSING THE BALL

THE BACKSWING

THE DOWNSWING

SUMMARY & CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

KEEP READING

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

PREFACE

Like many golfers, I have always enjoyed reading instructional books. As a youngster I found myself so fascinated with reading what Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, the big three, as they were known, had to say about the swing that I often slipped a golf book inside the cover of a Latin textbook during school. The game of golf really intrigued me—far more than the ancient Romans did. Eventually I turned professional at the age of eighteen. I continued to read and experiment at every opportunity while I played tournaments and also while I taught the game at the club where I was working. I was curious about how one author adhered to a particular idea while another would state what seemed to be the exact opposite—yet each writer put forward a solid case for his theories. For me, golf books and learning about the swing were endlessly fascinating; I was barely through a new idea before I would go out to try it. Sometimes I even did this after work, with my car’s headlights on. By now I’ve amassed a library of instructional books, and still enjoy referring to them and studying them. My office at home is full of instructional books wherever I look, and I often find myself reaching for one, almost absent-mindedly, because, I suppose, there’s always something to learn. It might be something that six-time British Open champion Harry Vardon wrote; or an idea from the work of Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Nicklaus, or Tom Watson. The compelling aspect of golf to me is that, as long as I’ve taught the game, I’m still learning about it.

Of all the books in my library, Hogan’s have absorbed me the most. I was always aware of his reputation as a consummate ball-striker, and so I turned to his writings with great interest. I wanted to find out what the master said, whether he was writing in magazines, in his first book Power Golf, or his classic Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf. I have reread Hogan’s writings many times, and have learned so much from them. I’ve analyzed his work endlessly, or so it seems to me. I continue to think about Hogan’s ideas and to learn from them. I have also adapted some of Hogan’s ideas while developing my own. I have examined from many angles what Hogan had to say.

In particular, I have had a deep and abiding interest in Five Lessons, which began as a series of lessons in the magazine Sports Illustrated. This book was the direct result of Hogan working on his own swing. Hogan was relentless in his pursuit of a correct, powerful, and repeating swing, and he eventually achieved that goal. He tested his swing in the ultimate crucible of competition at the highest levels—the major championships—and found that it stood up. Hogan won two Masters, four United States Opens, one British Open (the only one he entered), and two PGA Championships, all between 1946 and 1953. No wonder he felt he had something to contribute to the game through the written word.

After Hogan was satisfied that he’d built a swing he could depend on under pressure, he was ready to write Five Lessons. The book began as a series of five articles that Sports Illustrated published in 1957. In June 1956, the magazine had sent its golf writer Herbert Warren Wind, along with the illustrator Anthony Ravielli, to meet Hogan in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. Hogan at first had only one instructional article in mind on, as Wind later wrote, “the basic elements of the correct golf swing.” But Wind and Ravielli asked Hogan if he would consider a series of articles on the steps he would suggest to a golfer willing to work steadily on his swing so that he could improve. Hogan liked the idea, and the threesome worked on the project at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. A second meeting took place in early January 1957, and the first of five articles was published in Sports Illustrated in its March 11, 1957 issue. The five installments in the magazine became Five Lessons, which was published later that same year.

Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf differed in both content and presentation from Hogan’s first book, Power Golf, published in 1948. Five Lessons has been a golfing bible for many players of all levels. Every tour player with whom I’m acquainted has read the book. Mark O’Meara, the 1998 Masters and British Open champion, first met Hogan in 1980. O’Meara had won the 1979 United States Amateur using Hogan clubs. He signed with the Hogan equipment company to play its clubs after he turned professional, at which time Hogan told him during their first meeting that he had learned the swing piece by piece, having thought about it night after night, and then trying out his ideas the next day on the practice tee. Hogan kept what worked and discarded what proved inadequate to his plan of building a reliable swing. O’Meara never forgot their conversation, and built his own swing segment by segment.

We can also think in this context of Larry Nelson, one of the most consistent players of the modern era. Nelson did not take up golf until he was twenty-one years old, having read Five Lessons closely. He used the book as a manual to help develop his technique and went on to win the 1983 U.S. Open and the 1981 and 1987 PGA Championships. Five Lessons has influenced golfers since the day it was published; the book still sells forty years after its original publication.

In my case, Five Lessons was one of the first instruction books I owned and read while growing up. The design of the book, quite apart from the elegantly expressed text, demonstrates all the organizational qualities and attention to detail that epitomized Hogan’s character. The book was certainly a classic and in my opinion was way ahead of its time. It became the benchmark for future instruction. It is also a deeply personal book in that it reflects Hogan’s attempts to deal with his own questions and provides the answers that he found. Many instruction books that professional golfers write are personal in similar ways.

I have for some years wanted to evaluate Five Lessons and some of Hogan’s other writings from the perspective of what we have learned about the golf swing since Hogan’s analyses. It seemed fortuitous, then, when I received a call in 1998 inviting me to do just that. The publisher of this book had located and secured the rights to previously unpublished photographs that Ravielli took as source material for Five Lessons. He wondered if I might be interested in examining these photographs and Hogan’s writings. I looked at the photographs and was struck by the fact that here we had Hogan posing for the pictures. He was obviously well aware of the details of his swing because he was posing in dozens of different positions. In some cases the poses represented what he did at speed and in other cases they represented what he thought he did during the swing. I was immediately reminded of a phenomenon I have so often seen in my teaching and that is applicable to all golfers: the difference between “feel and real.”

The discovery of these photographs led directly to this book. I felt a rush of excitement when the opportunity to write it presented itself, and although I had all but mapped out my entire year, I knew instantly that I wanted to begin work on this book. It was an opportunity not to be missed, To have located Ravielli’s photographs is in golfing terms an unprecedented archaeological find. I also feel fortunate to have worked with illustrator Keith Witmer on this book. Keith has a deep appreciation for the nuances of Ravielli’s work and also of Hogan’s technique.

Herbert Warren Wind, Ben Hogan, and Anthony Ravielli.

It was a great stroke of luck to find Ravielli’s photographs. Any Hogan artifact is a priceless commodity, as there is not an abundance of pictures or film of him compared to the wealth of material available on today’s top players. I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to study Ravielli’s photographs and to spend so much time with Hogan’s book again. This book, The Fundamentals of Hogan, is the result of that process.

The original film Ravielli used to capture Hogan’s swing.

INTRODUCTION

Hogan was constantly thinking about his technique.

If you were to ask today’s tour players to vote on the best ball-striker of all time, the vast majority would pick Ben Hogan. They would place him at the top of the list even though many of them never saw him hit a shot. But so mighty is the reputation of the man that his name remains synonymous with pure ball-striking. The English writer and course architect Donald Steel observed that Hogan “was an extreme perfectionist and a ruthless competitor. His control was absolute, his dedication immense. He was the finest stroke player the game has known, a legend in his lifetime.” Indeed, he is a legend beyond his lifetime; since Hogan died in 1997, his legend has only grown. Today, when a golfer controls the flight of the ball and moves it around the course at will, we say “You’re hitting it like Hogan.” There is no higher compliment. Ben Hogan remains the standard of excellence.

Hogan’s reputation as the game’s preeminent ball-striker could well last as long as the game is played. At the same time he could be called the father of modern golf instruction—in which the basic idea is that the player is to use the big muscles of the body, rather than the hands, as the controlling influences in the swing. Nobody has influenced modern-day teaching more than Hogan. His years of observation, his unceasing trial-and-error experimentation that he put to the test in championships, his love for hitting practice balls, and his unwavering desire for perfection, led him to become the most precise golfer in the annals of the game. Hogan was the consummate practicer and tinkerer, and enjoyed working on his technique at every opportunity. He would use any location in his pursuit of swing perfection: driving ranges and fields en route to a tournament, hotel rooms, locker rooms—any place where he could swing a club.

The locker room practice session!

Hogan is truly a legend—one of the game’s most esteemed players. Yet many observers did not consider Hogan to be a natural player in the same vein, for instance, as his archrival Sam Snead. He worked extremely hard to achieve his results precisely because he wasn’t a natural player, making several dramatic changes to his swing over the years. Hogan’s own efforts and results proved to him that it was indeed possible to improve by working on fundamentals. In Hogan’s case, his hard work culminated in his finding, by 1946, his so-called “secret,” a formula to eliminate the persistent hooking problem that early on threatened to ruin his development as a tournament player. This gave him complete mastery over the golf ball and allowed him to play the commanding golf for which he became famous. It was during the next seven years that he won his nine major championships.

Hogan’s ability to change his swing was impressive. Every golfer who has tried to modify his swing knows how formidable a task it can be; one’s instincts and habits always seem ready to show up again under pressure no matter how hard one works. Every golfer is different and every swing has its own look, which is why one can readily identify a player from a distance as he swings.

Hogan, too, had his personal look, and during his ruthless self-examination he learned that he was prone to a loss of control for specific reasons. His great flexibility caused him to swing the club back a long way and gave the impression that he had a fairly wristy swing, which, when combined with his fiery leg action, led to his early tendency to lose control of the clubface through impact and to hook the ball. But finally one could candidly state that for a period of time Hogan mastered the game and overcame his few bad tendencies—by finding and incorporating the small number of fundamentals which allowed him to develop a repeating, effective swing. This mastery enabled him to manage his game so that he could plot his way around a course like a chess player; no fairway was too narrow and no pin was inaccessible. His course management and attention to detail were second to none, and his scores showed it. One might point to his play while winning the Masters, United States Open, and British Open in 1953 as proof of the soundness of his swing theories; he dismantled an extremely difficult Carnoustie in Scotland that year while winning the British Open with descending scores of 73-71-70-68. Hogan learned a little more every day about how to play the course. He had the tools—the refined, simplified technique—to dissect the challenging links. The Daily Telegraph newspaper asked after his victory: “And who shall say he’s not the best of all time?”

When Hogan spoke, everyone listened.

As serious a student of the game as Hogan was, he did not have the luxury of using highspeed sophisticated video cameras or computers to analyze other swings or his own. He remarked in his later years that had he had such equipment he would have understood the swing ten years sooner. He also did not shave a full-time coach as most players do today, although Hogan did on occasion confer with the renowned professional Henry Picard. But his uncanny sensory system, his powers of observation, and his tremendous kinesthetic awareness of how his body and the golf club functioned during the motion of a swing provided the underpinnings of his education. His greatest success occurred when he developed total belief in his technique so that he could play without worrying about bad shots. His relentless pursuit and eventual achievement of building a correct, powerful, and repeating swing that he could depend on under pressure led him to write Five Lessons. Hogan’s book was published four years after he won those three majors in 1953. It is, as I have noted, a deeply personal book. It is a book about Hogan’s search for a better swing for himself, and in it—having written Power Golf and in a variety of other publications—he offers his conclusions about what all golfers can learn from his own quest. His teachings have so much to offer golfers, but it has always been important that readers interpret his ideas correctly and clarify them properly. I hope to help with this.

Working with Herbert Warren Wind on Five Lessons.

Hogan was a superior athlete, gifted with remarkable flexibility and range of motion, as well as an imaginative mind. According to many people, his intellect bordered on genius. Gardner Dickinson, a professional golfer who won three tournaments on the U.S. tour from 1968-1970 and played on two Ryder Cup teams, worked as an assistant to Hogan when he was briefly the head professional at the Tamarisk Country Club in Palm Springs, California during the early 1950s. Dickinson held a degree in clinical psychology and was qualified to administer psychological tests. He could not prevail upon Hogan to take a standard intelligence test, but did slip in some questions during their conversations. He estimated that Hogan’s I.Q. was in the high genius category.

Combine Hogan’s inherent qualities with his intense concentration and steely focus, and it is apparent he always had the foundation to become one of the game’s finest players. Hogan had the strength, speed, and agility that are ideal for taking up the demands of golf. He had fairly long arms relative to his height (he stood 5 feet 8V½ inches), with a powerful, compact body; at the height of his career he weighed in the region of 140 pounds, and every pound seemed there for one purpose—to strike the golf ball efficiently. He also had big hands and very strong forearms, which helped him hold on to the club with control and power from start to finish. I also believe that his powerful lower body, in particular the strong gluteus maximus muscles (buttocks) and thighs aided his superb stability—a major factor in enabling him to go at the ball hard while retaining perfect balance.

Having been fortunate enough to be involved in the teaching side of golf for years and having taught some of the world’s great modern players, I regard the writing of this book as a labor of love and joy. It is an honor for me, but moreover it is a tribute to a man that I, along with millions of others, have long admired and respected. Many younger golfers have heard of Hogan but perhaps do not realize he was the ultimate technician of the swing, and that he had more control of the ball than anyone who has played the game. Many good players like to draw the golf ball, but some of the greats prefer to fade it; that was true of Hogan, and it is also true of Jack Nicklaus. In Hogan’s day, players had such immense respect for him that they would stop their own practice sessions and gather to watch the master at work. Though Hogan was basically a quiet man, even taciturn, when he talked about the golf swing players listened intently. Tommy Bolt once said that he remembers Jack Nicklaus watching Hogan practice, but that he never saw Hogan watching Nicklaus. Bolt meant this not as a slight to Nicklaus, but as a statement about Hogan’s reputation and exalted place in the game.

My goals in this book are threefold: (1) to examine what Hogan believed about the swing; (2) to offer my interpretations and, in some cases, examine his thinking as expressed primarily in Five Lessons, but also from other sources, so that I might provide a complete picture. Hogan wrote the aforementioned Power Golf, and also in such publications as Life and Esquire, and of course he wrote for and was often quoted in golf magazines. In regard to his many writings I will attempt to clear up some misconceptions that have arisen over the years. Speaking from experience, I am aware that misconceptions can easily arise when dealing with the complexities of the golf swing; and (3) to offer advice that could help golfers of all ability levels who dream of shooting 80 or lower; not so that golfers can recreate Hogan’s swing—that would be impossible—but so that they can learn from him and incorporate certain elements into their games and so become more consistent. Hogan believed that the golfer who studied and understood the basics of the swing and who then applied these principles in practice could develop a consistent swing and break 80. I also believe this.

On the subject of breaking 80, I think it is important to realize that this is indeed a dream for many golfers—a dream they hope to turn into reality. An improved golf swing will go a long way toward achieving this goal. At the same time, we should never forget how important it is to work on your short game and develop it in tandem with your long game. Hogan did not address the short game in Five Lessons nor will I do so here. But an improved short game is vital to any golfer’s plan to reach his potential. Ideally this book will help you improve your swing so that you do not have to tinker with it every time you practice. You will, I hope, be able to use your practice sessions to maintain your newfound, reliable swing and to devote more time to your short game. When I visit golf courses I see people beating golf balls hour after hour in hopes of improving their swings, although frequently they are working without a plan or concept—and they rarely work on their short games. This is understandable because they hit the ball poorly and are motivated to find something, anything, on the range.

I hope to give you that “something” in these pages, and in doing so free you to spend more time on your short game. This should help you become a consistent 80-breaker; or if you are already at that stage, a par-breaker.

I might add that I think along lines similar to Hogan in many important ways and consider myself something of a traditionalist when it comes to teaching the swing. I have always believed that no golfer can make headway in the game without understanding the fundamentals; the idea is then to stick with and work at these fundamentals. If in tandem you can develop a good short game, then you may well turn that dream of breaking 80 or breaking par into reality. This is one reason I am excited by the prospect of helping to bring Hogan again to the forefront of golfers’ minds, and ensure that he remains there. I consider this book a conversation with Hogan about his theory of the swing, and a blending of what we have learned about it and what we can hope to achieve in further study. It’s a blending, in other words, of the past and present with an eye to the future.

Stability and balance were major factors in Hogan’s swing.

As much as this book is an opportunity for me to engage with Hogan’s thinking, I am at the same time reminded that I never saw the man strike a ball. This is my one big regret in golf. On one occasion my friend and student David Frost, who was on good terms with Hogan and represented the Hogan company, set up a time for me to watch him hit balls at Shady Oaks, his club in Fort Worth. Regrettably, Hogan became ill and my visit was canceled. Still, in the course of writing this book I do feel that in a way I encountered Hogan. My research led me to speak with many people who knew him and his game, and to examine every bit of information available about Hogan, including books, films, and letters. I feel I have come to know him—not only his swing but to some extent what made him tick—and I can only say I have more admiration for the man now than ever before.

It is interesting to note that while Hogan said years after writing the book that he put everything he knew about the swing into it, still he felt that there was more to learn. Hogan, in fact, encouraged further study and interpretation by declaring in Five Lessons: “I hope that these lessons will serve as a body of knowledge that will lead to further advances in our understanding of the golf swing. Every year we learn a little more about golf. Each new chunk of valid knowledge paves the way to greater knowledge. Golf is like medicine and the other fields of science in this respect.” Nick Price, with whom I have had the good fortune to work for years, feels that he could compress twenty-five years of learning into just a couple with the information available today. The pace of learning is accelerated and compressed today; all golfers including those who have played for decades can benefit from the advances in teaching.

I might also point to Nick Faldo, with whom I started working in 1985. Faldo wanted to rebuild his swing so that he could rely on it under the pressure of major championships. It took him two years to incorporate the changes, and in 1987 he won the British Open after making eighteen straight pars during the final round—proof that his swing could stand up under extreme pressure. He has since gone on to win two more British Opens and three Masters. I learned while working with Faldo that it really is possible for a golfer to revamp his swing, as Hogan suggests it is. Clearly, not all golfers want to put in the time that Faldo did, because he is, of course, a touring professional, cast in the Hogan mold of dedication. Still, as Hogan points out, any golfer who is committed to change can improve as long as he works on the fundamentals. Faldo, like Hogan and now Tiger Woods, has been driven by the search for perfection. Your own search might be so that you can work toward winning a club event, or simply to reach a new personal best in terms of ball-striking and scoring. Hogan believed it and I believe it: you can improve. Just as I was amazed to see the changes in Faldo over time I have been equally amazed to see the changes in amateurs with whom I have worked, though not at all surprised to observe how much they have enjoyed their golf as a result.

Hogan’s ideas provide an extraordinarily valuable resource for our continued studies. Five Lessons especially is a constant and consistent companion to many golfers, teachers, and players. Nick Price has read and reread and marked up the book with comments and observations; there are places he agrees with Hogan and occasions where his opinions differ. I plan to do something similar here. I will, in a sense, mark up Five Lessons and examine it from our turn-of-the-century perspective. I hope I can accomplish this act of interpretation judiciously and with the respect it requires. I would also encourage you to read or reread Five Lessons—Hogan’s swing theory becomes that much clearer.

The idea, of course, is to help you work toward developing a reliable swing. The more reliable your swing, the more you can trust it, and the greater your confidence. The chances of your building this confidence will be enhanced when you feel secure with what you are doing; this security will come when you incorporate the correct fundamentals so that you can produce a reliably effective swing and control the distance, direction, and trajectory of the ball. The mental side of the game, including course strategy, becomes that much easier. The idea is to know where the ball will and won’t go. The golfer has to realize that every shot won’t be perfect: the key is learning to hit “better bad shots,” keeping the ball in play through sound mechanics—basically, believing in your technique, making it subconscious and instinctive through practice so that you can go out on the course to simply play the game.

When you reach this point you have achieved the ultimate—you can think about quality practice sessions in terms of just maintaining and refining your technique and then hitting different types of shots for pure enjoyment—for example, draws and fades, high and low shots. You will then have plenty of time left to practice that all-important short game. You certainly don’t have to be like Ben Hogan in your practice habits; however, making good use of your time and practicing with a purpose will go a long way toward your shooting lower scores.

I base some of the key building blocks in my teaching upon Hogan’s fundamentals: grip, setup, plane, the lower body motion, the basic use of the big muscles, the understanding of the action of the hands and arms, the use of physics to strike the ball, the application of drills and mirror practice to learn technique. His influence is plain to see in my teaching. I based my first book, The Golf Swing, on the style and layout of Five Lessons. Hogan’s book is, I feel, the first systematic approach to teaching the full swing, a step-by-step guide to help a golfer understand the components of the swing and then to put them all together.

Even though he wrote his book in the 1950s, much of what Hogan said, when examined closely, holds true today, so it is no surprise that Five Lessons is a focal point of every serious golfer’s library. It has played a major role in the evolution of teaching the game. Like Hogan, I believe that many golfers are simply spinning their wheels and not improving. Hogan himself once spun his own wheels. In an article in Esquire in 1942 called “When Golf Is No Fun,” Hogan wrote that he had taken the same sort of punishment that struggling amateurs know all too well.

“Before I really found my game,” Hogan wrote, “I might be hot one round and cold the next for no reason I could figure out. After rounds when I wasn’t scoring well I would practice for hours trying to get to hitting the ball, and finally go home disgusted.”

But Hogan wouldn’t tolerate that feeling, so he studied the golf swing carefully with an eye to eliminating his sources of error and making it efficient and reliable. He was able to do this, and came to believe that with the proper understanding and application of the fundamentals and with patience, everyone has it within his or her grasp to play good golf. Hogan is right when he says, “Doing things the right way takes a lot less effort than the wrong way does.” I agree, and invite you to examine the following pages with a view to learning to build a reliable and efficient swing. I am confident you will be on the way to reaching your potential when you understand Hogan’s principles along with some alternative approaches that we have learned about the golf swing in the last few decades. That is why I have written this book.

THE HANDS

Ben Hogan said, “good golf begins with a good grip.” He believed and taught that a fundamentally correct grip allows the hands to work as a unit on the club—so important for consistent shotmaking. Hogan felt that golfers downplayed the value of a sound grip in terms of its contribution to speed, consistency and control of the clubhead through impact.

Left Hand Hogan favored a palm grip for the left hand, feeling that this offered the player a better chance for maintaining control of the club than if it were placed in the fingers. He said that the club should lie across the left hand so that it runs diagonally from the heel pad to the first joint of the index finger. Hogan also felt that pressure points in the grip were important for maintaining control. The main pressure I points in the left hand were up from the last three fingers and down from the fleshy palm-pad under the thumb. These pressure points helped prevent the club from coming loose during the swing, and helped keep the club solid at impact. When Hogan looked down at this completed left-hand grip, he saw that the V between his thumb and forefinger pointed toward his right eye.

Hogan placed the club well into the palm of the left hand.

Hogan felt that the club should not be placed down in the fingers of the left hand.

Grip pressure comes up from the last three fingers and down from the palm pad.

The V between thumb and forefinger of his left hand pointed to the right eye.

To maintain grip pressure is to maintain control.

When grip pressure is lost, hands become loose and control is lost.

Hogan placed the club in the fingers of the right hand across the top joints.

Right Hand As opposed to the left hand, palm-oriented grip, Hogan believed that the club should be placed in the fingers of the right hand; specifically, the club should be placed across the top joints of the fingers—just below the palm. His thoughts about the right hand grip in general were that it should work equally with the left hand, but that it should not play an overpowering role in the swing.

Right hand folds on top of the left thumb.

To ensure that his hands worked as a unit, Hogan placed the little finger of his right hand in the groove between the index and second finger of his left hand. He then positioned the cavity in his formed right hand on top of his left thumb. Pressure in the right hand came from the middle two fingers and from the knuckle above the right index finger. When Hogan looked down at his completed right-hand grip, he saw that the V between his thumb and forefinger pointed to his chin (as opposed to the V in his left-hand grip pointing to his right eye). As a practice aid to neutralize the stronger right hand and also to feel how the hands should work together, Hogan practiced swinging the club (but not hitting a ball) with his right thumb and forefinger off the shaft.

Hogan wanted his grip to be secure, comfortable and alive, and tension free. A good grip allows the player to maintain control of the club and to hit the variety of shots—high and low shots, draws and fades—that are necessary if one is to become a complete player. Hogan advised golfers to work constantly on their grip to ensure it was perfect in every detail.

Left thumb fits in cavity of right hand.

The little finger of the right hand fits in the groove between the first and second fingers of the left hand.

The middle fingers supply the pressure.

Hogan suggests a drill in which you swing the club with the thumb and finger off the shaft.

Hogan had unusually flexible wrists and thumbs.

Hogan liked the V between thumb and forefinger of the right hand to point to the chin. The knuckle above the index finger helped provide pressure.

Checking grip pressure in the last three fingers of the left hand and middle two of the right.

My View Hogan’s grip looked immaculate. It was as if his hands were molded to the golf club. He wanted, as he indicated, a secure, alive, and comfortable grip—a grip that would offer the most effective means for him to control the ball. He never wanted his hands to come apart or separate from the club, so he worked long and hard at perfecting his grip, making a few changes to it over the years. The grip changes were an integral part of the much-discussed Hogan “secret.” In his early years he had a severe problem with a wild hook, so naturally he built his swing around incorporating an anti-hook move. He was quoted as saying, “I hate a hook. It nauseates me. I could vomit when I see one.” It’s not surprising, then, that Hogan’s “secret” was based on his finally being able to eliminate the hook from his game. I will discuss his “secret” in due course.

In my opinion most golfers run into big problems when they employ an ultra-palmy left-hand grip in the Hogan mode. You can see in the photograph of him taken down the line that the club sits extremely high in his palm. The problems are magnified when the palmy left-hand grip is combined with placing the club purely in the fingers of the right hand. Such a grip will, for most golfers, accentuate or even produce a slice; they will be unable to generate any real clubhead speed or to square the clubface in the impact area. Hogan, however, was able to master this method of gripping the club; in my opinion, not many players are able to handle it.

Club sits high in palm of Hogan’s left hand.

You see, Hogan was an exceptional athlete who had superb dynamics in his swing, meaning that he transferred collected energy to his clubhead in an astonishing, powerful fashion. He had strong, fast hands and his action was very much like cracking a bullwhip. His swing tempo was upbeat and he had tremendous overall flexibility, especially in the wrist/thumb area; the result was that he could swing the club back beyond parallel—far beyond parallel—at the top. Look at the curvature in his thumbs (see page 16); the way they bowed backward was extraordinary, and along with the flexibility in his wrists was a major part of the reason that he had so much wrist cock and clubhead lag in his swing. I first became aware of the flexibility in his thumb and wrist area after looking at still pictures of Hogan on his downswing when I was a kid, and I then tried to recreate the angles and the lag that he had coming down into the ball. That was considered a power position and I wanted to get into it. But I, along with just about every golfer I have encountered, had no chance of doing that. We don’t have that flexibility in our wrist/thumb area.

So much flexibility and lag can also cause problems. A clubface even slightly closed when combined with tremendous lag and hand speed can lead to problems at impact, as it did at times for Hogan. With the longer clubs, especially the driver and fairway woods, and under the pressure of tournament play early in his career, a severe hook would show up. Hogan had to find a way to stop this shot and to pacify his hands so that he could gain more control. Distance was never a problem, but control and timing were. Hogan thought that by changing his grip he would solve his directional problems—his strategy certainly went some way toward doing so.

Hogan made a couple of changes to his grip to cure his hook, and although he regarded these changes as minor, I feel they were major. He made the first change in 1945, when he shifted his left thumb up the shaft into what is considered a “short thumb” position. The “long thumb” (that is, where the thumb is stretched down the shaft as much as possible) encourages wrist cock, and so when Hogan shortened it he was able to firm up and restrict his wrist cock. This, in turn, had the effect of making his swing considerably shorter and keeping his club more under control at the top. By firming up his wrist cock he was also able to reduce the excessive amount of lag coming down. This greater control helped him improve his timing.

Having shortened the thumb up, Hogan’s next step in his grip change was to move his left hand around in a counterclockwise direction (more to the left on the shaft), showing just one knuckle when he looked down on it; this placed his “short” left thumb over to the center as opposed to the right of the shaft. In conjunction with moving his left hand to the left he placed his right-hand grip more in his fingers and on top of the shaft, so that, I assume, each hand would match the other.

Long thumb

Short thumb–short swing.

Short thumb

Long thumb–long swing.

David Duval’s strong left–hand grip.

Consequently, his grip was now “weakened,” to use a popular golfing term (though this does not mean it was weakened in strength). He felt the changes helped get the clubface more open; he could now hit hard with his right hand, without as much fear of the face closing and producing a hook. At the point of impact he could keep his left hand or lead hand firm and under control, and in turn have more control over the face. He had nearly achieved his goal of eliminating his hook. One more little key would solve the puzzle and eliminate the disastrous hooks that plagued him. That was his secret, which, as I have said, I will examine later.

Hogan felt that the changes he made were simply modifications to a sound grip and were particularly beneficial for him. It was no surprise, however, that many players copied Hogan’s grip exactly, whether or not they had problems with hooking the ball. Many were unsuccessful in adopting his grip. Most golfers today, even tour players, can profitably adopt a slightly stronger grip with the hands (especially the left hand—showing two to three knuckles when you look down at it) turned in a more clockwise fashion to the right on the club; and they can do this without having to fear severe hooks. This is a more natural and advisable route to follow; it is more natural because your hands are in this position when they hang down by your side. Two players who employ ultra-strong grips—Paul Azinger and David Duval—are most assuredly controlled faders of the ball. There is more to curing a hook or promoting a fade than just weakening the grip.

Those of you who are thinking of shortening your left thumb to gain more control should bear in mind an important factor: namely, that Hogan’s flexibility in his wrists and the curvature in his left thumb made it possible for him to shorten it on the club while still keeping the entire thumb flat on the grip. Most players by shortening the thumb would create a noticeable gap under the thumb, as it bunches up. This would lead to reduced rather than increased control of the clubhead because less of the thumb would be on the club. Generally, I prefer golfers to have a “longish” left thumb to aid cocking and leverage.

Hogan’s grip looked great, no question. And it worked beautifully for him. The grip helped cure Hogan’s hook. But most players don’t hook the ball and in fact tend to slice the ball. Not only would the Hogan-like grip not cure their slice, it would make them hit some awfully big banana balls. A weak grip wouldn’t be a cure. It would be a curse.

To Become an 80-Breaker - or Better I have tried to explain why Hogan gripped the club as he did. He obviously gave a lot of thought to the question of how to best come up with an anti-hook grip; so critical an element was this grip in his discussion of the fundamentals of golf that he devoted an entire chapter to it in Five Lessons. Gardner Dickinson, in fact, wrote that he thought the book “was, more than anything, a system of defense against a low, ducking hook, a problem that afflicts very few golfers.” Hogan achieved the grip he wanted through trial and error, and his final version went a long way toward helping him develop tremendous control over his swing and the golf ball. At the same time there are alternatives to the manner in which he gripped the club. It is important to realize that Hogan’s grip was a personal creation that helped him neutralize his tendencies. Art Wall, Jr., the 1959 Masters winner who played frequently with Hogan, confirmed to me that Hogan, being such a fast swinger, used extremely heavy and stiff-shafted clubs—yet another obvious component of his anti-hook plan. (Hogan also used clubs with flat lies, another anti-hook measure.) His ability to control these clubs demonstrated how strong he was physically, and also how much clubhead speed he was able to create. Many players who tried to hit his clubs found that doing so was an exercise in futility. They simply could not handle such heavy, stiff clubs.

Hogan advocated a grip that positions the club in the palm of the left hand and purely in the fingers of the right hand. I share these ideas to a point, but I would advise some subtle changes especially for people who (1) do not have real suppleness in the wrists and thumbs, and (2) would like to hit a consistent draw—probably a large percentage of the world’s golfers!

If the club sits too high in the palm, it’s easy to wear a hole in the glove.

Let’s first consider the left hand. In my experience, one of the most serious problems that golfers have is that they hold the club so much in the palm of the left hand that they tighten and freeze the wrist action. This makes it difficult for a golfer to cock the wrists correctly and to create any significant leverage. The club sits too high in the hand, to the extent that many golfers wear a hole in their gloves at the top of the palm. This is all brought about because the golfer feels a lack of power and tries to force some motion into the swing. The forced movement occurs mainly at the start of the swing, at the top of the backswing, and in the impact area. All this effort causes movement and friction between the hand and the grip of the club—the hole in the glove results. But a solution is available, a simple modification that for most people feels very good very quickly. It is quite amazing to see how easily the club works and the leverage that one creates when positioning the left hand properly; after all, the left hand acts as a hinge between the arm and the club, and promotes a fluid motion. The golfer feels that the club is in balance and that little, if any, effort is required to produce power and “snap” in the swing. (I’ll explain the solution in a moment.)

Positioning the club correctly in the left hand.

Hogan, because of his flexibility, had considerable natural leverage. His wrist action—the way he set the club going back and created so much snap with it through impact—helped him generate tremendous power. In an effort to create leverage and power, golfers need to correctly cock and uncock the wrists. If the golfer grips the club too much in the palm of his left hand then it is all too easy to lose leverage. A variety of common faults also arise, such as picking the club up from the start, rolling or fanning the clubface, the left arm breaking down, and the right elbow moving into a faulty position. The golfer compensates for, and reacts to, a bad grip by trying to force the club through, usually with the upper body, to try to generate some power. The wrist action of hitting a golf ball is rather like cracking a whip; try to crack it with stiff, wooden wrists and see how the rest of the body incorrectly gets into the act to try to help. The problem of gripping the club too much in the palm of the left hand is so widespread that placing it correctly has frequently changed golfers overnight from being sheers into players who draw the ball, while turning short hitters into solid ball-strikers who now get some distance. That distance comes because the golfer is now able to cock his wrists correctly, create more snap and leverage, and really accelerate the club through the ball.

Closing the left hand around the club.

Neutral left hand grip: curve at base of wrist; two knuckles showing; V between thumb and finger points up toward your right ear.

Left Hand Here’s the way I’d like you to place your left hand on the club. Hold the club up in front of you in your right hand, angled at forty-five degrees to your body. Now bring your left hand from the target at ninety degrees to the shaft and place it on the club so that it fits diagonally across the palm (A) just under the base of the little finger running up through the crook of the forefinger (the midsection hinge where the forefinger bends). Now simply close your hand around the club (B). Let the thumb sit naturally as flush as possible straight down the shaft, neither overextending it nor shortening it, and place it close to the index finger. You should be able to see about two knuckles on your left hand (C) as you hold the club up in front of you; this is a “neutral” grip. (I’m sure Hogan, given his weak grip, would have seen only one knuckle if he held his hand up.) If you are a severe sheer try to see three knuckles—a “strong” grip. At the base of the wrist (the top of the glove) you should see a slight cup or curve. The V between the thumb and forefinger should point toward your right ear. This image will help you achieve a stronger grip. The left-hand grip is basically a palm grip, but the club is low down in the palm toward the fingers, which encourages movement and cocking in the wrist.

The right-hand grip is primarily a finger grip.

The right index finger and thumb form a “trigger” position

It is essential that you get this left-hand placement correct. Be precise with how you place your left hand on the club. Placing the club in your left hand in this manner should make you far more aware of the weight of the club without any tension in the hand. The wrist will now be in a favorable position to cock naturally and supply that all-important leverage. The final point regarding the left-hand grip is more of a preference than a fundamental, in that Hogan preferred to hold the club at the very end of the grip. I advise most players to hold the club so that about one-half to one inch is showing at the end beyond the little finger. Hogan felt that holding the club at the end allowed him to reduce some tension, and swing a touch slower. As I say, this is a matter of preference. Experiment to find what works best for you.

Right Hand Now let’s examine the right hand. Hogan liked the club to fit directly in the fingers, along the top joint line underneath the pad of the palm. My contention is that if you held the club up with your right hand only, you would see that it would fit diagonally across your hand and in fact come into contact with the palm just below the little finger. I agree with Hogan’s belief that the right-hand grip is basically a finger grip. But I feel that gripping the club diagonally across the right hand matches the diagonal look of the left hand. Most players, I believe, look more secure with this grip. Once again, hold the club up in front of you, this time with your left hand, at an angle of forty-five degrees. Place the club diagonally across the fingers of the right hand (D). Slide your hand down the club and link the baby finger between the first two knuckles of the left hand (E), a la Hogan. Now fold the right hand over the left thumb, so that the left thumb slots into the hollow underneath the thumb pad that the right hand provides in this position (F). It’s important to neutralize the potentially destructive pincer action of the right index finger and thumb. Position the right index finger and thumb on the club in a trigger-like fashion while allowing a slight gap to form between the first two fingers (G). Without a trigger position, the tendency is for the right hand to grab the club like a hammer, which, apart from the extra tension, places the right arm and shoulder in too dominant a position at address.

Hogan’s preference was to hold the club at the top of the grip-I prefer players to have one-half to an inch showing.

The key to getting a good grip every time (certainly while learning it) is to position the hands on the club while pointing it up in the air at forty-five degrees and looking at it at eye level. Most golfers have a poor grip because they attach their hands to the club while it is angled down to the ball, often grabbing it initially too high in the palm of the left hand and sloppily with the right hand. Trying to adjust your grip from this position is a losing battle. Why not get the grip right from the start? Be disciplined with the grip routine I’ve suggested and your grip will soon feel comfortable and natural.

The end result of a disciplined approach-a correct and comfortable grip.

Because modern-day shafts taper to a large degree and many grips are very skinny at the lower end, I advise my students to add a couple of extra layers of tape under where the right hand fits. This thicker grip encourages a more diagonal look and facilitates a trigger feeling rather than the hammer feeling. The V formed between the thumb and the forefinger on the right hand should point somewhere toward the right shoulder rather than toward the chin as Hogan suggested. However, if you are a good player who has problems hooking, I certainly would explore the idea of getting your right-hand grip a little more in the fingers and on top of the shaft, as Hogan did in order to promote a situation where you get the face more open at impact. It’s one of those trial-and-error situations, and the weaker right hand might help. The general idea, then, is to encourage a grip where the hands are parallel to and match one another so that they sit uniformly on the club.

When looking down at your grip, your hands should generally be parallel to one another–with the V of the right hand pointed approximately toward the right shoulder.

Hogan’s modification to the Vardon grip.

It is vital, as Hogan believed, that the hands work as a unit and not come apart. I’ve always liked Hogan’s slight modification to the Vardon grip—the idea of the baby finger of the right hand fitting between the index and second fingers rather than just riding piggyback as Vardon’s did. Hogan’s grip in my opinion joins the hands more solidly together and is the linking process I recommend. Although some great players with smaller hands do use an interlocking grip—Jack Nicklaus, Tom Kite, and Tiger Woods, to cite three—the overlapping or Vardon-type grip in my opinion puts less stress on the joints of the fingers and works better for players with medium-to-large size hands.

A few closing thoughts on the hands: in assuming your grip, do maintain pressure in the last three fingers of the left hand. Also place and maintain some pressure from the lifeline of the right hand onto the left thumb. This pressure will help keep the hands together and working in synch during the motion of the swing. The golfer who adopts the correct grip, where he feels the balance and weight of the swinging club without undue tension and is able to cock the wrists fully and freely, will usually feel comfortable with it immediately. Many people are wary of changing their grips because they are concerned that it will take them months to feel better with it. But I have found that the player willing to make the change will soon feel as if he has always held the club this way—in my view, the natural way. This grip works very well for all levels and ages of players—men and women, juniors and seniors, even tour players.

The original Vardon grip.

Interlocking grip.

The grip I encourage my students to develop is still primarily a palm grip in the left hand and a finger grip in the right hand, but with some minor alterations that could make a world of difference to your game.

Finally, remember that a grip is not always as it appears. From the outside it may look quite good, but you can only assess a grip once you open it up and see how the club lies in the hands. Check your grip regularly because it’s easy to revert to old habits. If you are going to transfer power through your hands into the clubhead, then you need to position your hands on the club perfectly every time. A good grip sends a strong message that you mean to play your best golf.

ADDRESSING THE BALL

Ben Hogan felt that the address position was the next significant step after the grip. The “setup,” as it is commonly called, consists of a golfer aligning himself properly to the target and then positioning his body in such a way that he can move freely during the swing while in balance. Setting up correctly, Hogan believed, would help accomplish the goal of creating power with the big muscles and then transferring it to the clubhead.

When Hogan moved into his setup, he aimed the clubface toward the target and then aligned his body to the clubface. His stance was fairly wide, giving a firm foundation for good balance. In Hogan’s view, a golfer hitting a five-iron should place his feet about shoulder-width apart. The stance should be wider for longer clubs, and narrower for shorter ones. A stance that is too wide or too narrow will compromise balance and freedom of motion.

Right foot at ninety degrees, left foot turned out a quarter of a turn.

Hogan proposed that the golfer place his right foot at ninety degrees to the target line and then place his left foot into position about a quarter of a turn toward the target—approximately twenty degrees. A golfer who sets his left foot in this manner would not over-rotate his hips as he swung the club back. However, Hogan felt that splaying out the right foot in the same manner and not ninety degrees to the target would promote swaying, dipping or collapsing the left arm because of the excessive freedom which the turned-out right foot provides. These faults lead to a weak, uncoiled position at the top of the backswing. Pointing the right foot out can also force the arms and club to move out and around the right hip as they make their way down to the ball.

Hogan believed a splayed-out right foot can lead to swing problems.

No less esteemed an observer of the swing than two-time U.S. Open champion and Masters winner, Cary Middlecoff, believed that Hogan’s advice to turn the left foot outward had long been standard procedure. “That goes at least back to (Harry) Vardon,” Middlecoff wrote, “and it has always been generally agreed that this positioning of the left foot facilitates the downswing movement of the hips and makes it easier for the player to move freely through the ball.”

In thinking about the arms at address, Hogan agreed with the long-held principle that the player should strive to achieve a maximum arc. Horace Hutchinson, the 1886 and 1887 British Amateur champion, and a respected author, wrote in 1895 that, “In leaving the ball, the clubhead should swing back as far as possible,” and that the arms should be allowed “to go to their full length as the clubhead swings away from the ball, or as nearly to their full length as is possible without further stretching.” Nearly half a century later, Bobby Jones wrote that the arc of the swing should be “made very broad so that space and time for adding speed to the clubhead coming down will be as great as possible.” Hogan was certainly following accepted theory in advocating a maximum arc. Hogan worked on the premise that at least one arm needs to be straight or fully extended throughout the swing—a key to achieving a maximum arc, power and consistency.

Inner elbows pointing to the sky: Hogan’s image of a rope binding the arms.

At address, Hogan wrote that the upper parts of the arms pressed against the chest and the elbows were close together and pointing toward their corresponding hipbone. He pointed out that the pocket of each elbow—the small depression on the inside of the joint—should face the sky and not its opposite. His image at address was of a rope binding the elbows and arms together. He wanted the golfer to maintain that elbows/arms relationship throughout the swing. And while he spoke about the left arm hanging straight at address, he advised that the right arm should have a slight bend at the elbow. This allows the right elbow to fold close to the body as the club is swung back and to point to the ground (the ideal position in his opinion) at the top of the backswing.

Elbows should not face each other.

Hogan’s final point regarding the address position concerned posture—the way a golfer positions his trunk and knees. His mental image was of a golfer starting with an erect position at address, and then sitting down a couple of inches as if sitting on a seat stick (see page 33). This semi-sitting position would give the player a sense of heaviness in the buttocks and promote liveliness in the lower legs, and, in Hogan’s view, put the weight back towards the heels. There must be no slouching of the shoulders, stiffness in the legs, or collapsing of the knees, as seen in many golfers. Tommy Armour, the superb teacher and player who won the 1927 U.S. Open, the 1930 PGA Championship and the 1931 British Open, recommended a similar position. As he wrote, “You will stand as upright as you can to the ball; not stiff, but comfortably upright with the knees flexed a little bit.” Hogan also advocated a flexed knee position and in addition liked the knees to be pinched slightly inward (the right knee a fraction more than the left). By placing himself in this very athletic position, Hogan felt he was completely stabilized and balanced at address, ready to make the proper swing.

Left arm hanging straight.

Left arm hangs straight, right arm kinked in.

Hogan exaggerating excessive knee flex.

Hogan mimicking poor posture.

My View

Still pictures cannot possibly capture the athleticism of Hogan’s setup. His setup was powerful, alive, ready for action, and very purposeful. His tall posture with very little forward upper-body bend or knee flex was determined by his build—just under 5 feet 9 inches tall with long arms and strong gluteus maximus muscles; his rear end, to put it delicately, was sizable and strong. This encouraged him to stand erect and—in his case—facilitated his shoulders turning on a flat horizontal plane, which produced the flattish, characteristically Hoganesque swing plane. Hogan said he liked to feel his weight back on his heels. But I sense that his balance was more forward, toward the arches and the balls of his feet, as is the case with most athletes—for example, in basketball, where the shooter sets himself for a free throw. Photographs of Hogan suggest that even though he stood tall, his weight was not back on his heels as much as he thought.

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