Hogan’s Secret
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5. June 2009
Dr Karl Morris
HOGAN’S SECRET…..maybe it wasn’t what we thought!!!
I recently read a fascinating piece about Ben Hogan and how his wife Valerie had discovered some books in his den/office after he had died. She was surprised to find that Hogan had obviously spent a lot of time reading about, working on and understanding the MIND.
He had numerous books dedicated to mind control and how to improve your mental game. We have all grown up with the concept of Hogan’s secret and his never ending search for technical excellence and the perfect swing.. Perhaps what has laid buried all these years is just how much importance Hogan gave to developing his mind as well as his swing.
I personally have found some absolute nuggets of mental game thoughts in Hogan’s book ‘Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals’ “My attitude suddenly changed from being a self doubter and uncertain of myself in a positive direction. I honestly began to feel that I could count on playing fairly well each time I went out. That there was no practical reason for me to feel I might suddenly ‘lose it all’. I guess what lay behind my new confidence was this; I had stopped trying to do a great many difficult things perfectly, because it had become clear in my mind that this ambitious, over thoroughness, my perfectionism was neither possible nor advisable or even necessary. All you needed to groove were the fundamental movements and there weren’t so many of them. I don’t know what came first the chicken or the egg, but at about the same time I began to feel that I had the stuff to play credible golf even when I was not at my best. My shot making started to take on a new and more stable consistency.”
This passage in Hogan’s book should be read by EVERY golfer who is looking to improve, reduce their handicap or just ENJOY the game more “I can tell you no one, no one loved golf more than Ben Hogan,” Valerie Hogan said.
However, playing in tournaments wasn’t what Ben Hogan enjoyed most. It was practicing on the range. “I think he felt the actual playing of golf was for something else,” she said. “Where he really enjoyed it was on the practice tee and then hoping he would play the way he would like to play.” Off the course, Valerie Hogan said her husband of six decades was a man of many interests who tried to do his best at everything. He also didn’t speak much off the course, for a reason. “He could discuss almost any subject with you because he was the best listener,” she said. “As he said: `People who talk all the time don’t learn anything because you have to listen, that’s how you learn,’ and believe you me, he listened.” That wasn’t true all the time, especially during his recovery from the head-on collision with a bus in 1949 that shattered his legs. After that, he always played in pain. In the first month after the accident, Hogan barely survived blood clots in his left leg. It took him almost a year to start swinging a club again, said his wife, who admits she was never sure whether he would play again. “After he got home, he surprised me one day,” she said. “He so wanted to walk sometimes, he would slip out of the house. … He would be out trying to walk and sometimes I’d have to go in the car and find him.”
Within 16 months, he would win the U.S. Open in a playoff with Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio, much to the surprise of his wife. He qualified for the playoff by playing a 36-hole final day at Merion. “I’d have to say that the night he came in, I didn’t feel he would have the strength the next morning because his eyes were in the back (of his head) and he was so very, very tired. I felt that he was not going to be able to play the next day.” But Hogan carried on with his quest he would not let go. Hogan would go on to win two more U.S. Opens — only Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones and Willie Anderson have won as many — and the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie. He won the Masters and U.S. Open that same year, when he won five of the six tournaments in which he competed.
What then was HOGAN’S SECRET? My take on it was that he was a man that fully understood the need to develop both mind and body, technical and physical. He came to realise that he could not afford to be a total perfectionist on the course, what he could aim to be perfect at was his preparation. He was also as Valerie said a ‘wonderful listener’ Something that we can ALL learn from and apply in our own game and our own life.
Posted on: Friday, June 5, 2009 at 11:38 am 
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