No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 217: The life and career of Ben Hogan

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

From his humble Texas upbringing to a ticker tape parade in New York City, in this special edition episode, we dive deep into the life and career of Ben Hogan. We're joined by Robert Stennett and Chip Graham of the Ben Hogan Foundation for stories on the man they call "Mr. Hogan." We also hear from former PGA Tour player Lindy Miller, who used to shag balls for Mr. Hogan, and has some legendary stories to tell about it. Thanks to everyone involved for helping us tell this story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to a special edition of the No-Lang Up Podcast. As part of our partnership with Charles Schwab, we are covering the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial this year. Admittedly, we didn't know much about the history of the event, and while we've often

heard Colonial referred to as Hogan's Alley, I never truly understood why. Check in with our YouTube and social channels this week as we detail some of the history of this member-organized event and what it's like to have a tournament in the same location for 73 years as well as how they almost lost the event until Schwab saved it. For the purposes of this podcast episode, we're going to do a deep dive into the life and career of Ben Hogan. For myself personally as a 32 year old my quote unquote memories of Ben Hogan are almost nonexistent. I never watch and play golf but of course I have heard the stories. I've always had trouble placing him in the annals of the game though. Jack Nicholas and Gary Player

are still very much involved in the game of golf and Arnold Palmer lived well into the 21st century. Their legacies are vivid because of that and partially because they helped usher in the TV era of golf. That's not the case with Ben Hogan. I thoroughly enjoyed this deep dive into his life and career and was thrilled to hear that the golf channel will be premiering a documentary on Hogan shortly after the US Open, which will be presented by Charles Schwab. Books have been written about Ben Hogan, so I'm not going to try to play the role of author or historian. I just attempted to go straight to a few

sources who had personal relationships with the man. It was fortunate enough to sit down with two gentlemen from the Ben Hogan Foundation at Colonial Country Club a few months back to hear some stories about their time with Mr. Hogan. My name is Robert Stenet. I'm the Chief Executive Officer of the Ben Hogan Foundation. My name is Chip Graham. I'm the Executive Director for the Ben Hogan Foundation. Both Robert and Chip knew Ben Hogan from Shady Oaks Country Club.

And I started them off with an easy one. While I always knew that Hogan had ties to Fort Worth and Colonial, I never truly understood exactly why Colonial was called Hogan's Alley. The reason why this is Hogan's Alley and his relationship with colonial is his hometown and the five wins he has here. It also became his home course after his retirement and he was an active member of colonial for many years. Both Chip and Robert's reverence for Mr. Hogan was evident in their persistence in referring

to him as such. Mr. Hogan. We often make light of the golf world's insistence on referring to the legends of the game with the Mr. Tag. But coming from these two gentlemen that spent a significant amount of time with the man that oozed a certain southern charm and felt a lot more genuine than hearing people refer to someone they don't know as Mr. In whatever I first started at Shady Oaks, it was Mr. Hogan.

You wanted to call him Mr. Hogan because when you spoke with him and you saw, you listened to him speak out of respect. He always addressed people, Mr. and Mrs. and very friendly, but he was such a gentleman that you wanted to call him Mr. Hogan. And it was, and everyone did. My father instructed me on the appropriate way to address Mr. Hogan. And his close friends, Mr. Hogan had a good circle of friends. And he was a great friend.

He was a great friend to be a friend of. You know, they would call him Ben and stuff like that. But if Chipipper, I would hear somebody that wasn't in his circular friends, call them Ben or something like that, not only would it be just a little bit offensive, we'd kind of say, well, they don't get it. We, you know, you kind of put them in a different category, you know, just because we all know, you know, if you, if you understood Mr. Hogan, you understood that he was Mr. Hogan and not Ben. Fair warning, you are going to hear that phrase every time they mentioned his name.

Both Robert and Chip knew Ben Hogan both as young kids and as adults, and I could have listened to them tell stories about the man for days. My first memory of Ben Hogan was as a 14 or 15 year old boy, seeing him at Shady Oaks Country Club and having the opportunity to see him practice. And perhaps the most memorable aspect of watching him practice. I remember as a young person was listening to the sound that came off the golf club. It was just a different sound than you'd ever heard, ever come off of any golf club, of anybody you'd ever seen strike a golf ball before. So that was by early memory. What did it sound like? Sound like a rifle shot. You know, he just hit it so sweet.

It just had a different sound. And it literally oftentimes sound like somebody shooting a gun. Ben Hogan was certainly not born into the country club life and to say he had a modest upbringing would be quite the understatement. He was born in Stephenville, Texas and at the age of nine tragedy struck. Mr. Hogan came from a very, very poor background. Well, first of all, even before that, his father committed suicide and question or not as to whether he was actually in the room, walked in the room when his father killed himself. And he loved his father.

His father was a blacksmith, kind of the wrong time for being a blacksmith. But as a result, they were very, very poor and very, very humble means. So Mr. Hogan at a pretty early time in his life. He had to go to work. He had to sell newspapers and have loops at Dling Garden and stuff. That wasn't for his spending money. That was to take money home to give to his mother so they could put food on the table. So he came from very, very humble, a very challenging childhood, but later interviews in life, you know, he also said that's what made him so strong. That's what gave him so much tenacity and so much perseverance was he realized at a very, very early age,

you know, he could overcome some pretty tough challenges for a young person. So you would say that he came from a very, very challenging childhood, but that also made him a much stronger person. At the age of 11, Ben Hogan began cadding at Glen Garden Country Club. And one of his fellow caddies there would also later become another icon in the game of golf. At Glen Garden, Mr. Hogan did Cady with Byron Nelson. They were, in fact, pretty unique that, that's need Hogan and Nelson were all born in 1912, you know, the American Triumph for it, you know,

and everything. And then, and then Hogan and Nelson were both in the same Glen Garden Cady yard, same age boys. Nelson, the stories are, you know, he was certainly more of a darling, you know, by stories are, you know, he was certainly more of a darling, you know, by the members, you know, great golfer. And one of the early stories was, you know, they had the annual caddy challenge, you know, the tournament. And I guess it was a nine-hole challenge. And Mr. Hogan beat them. And they ended up extending it to 18 holes or something where

Barnelson ended up beating him on the backside and won the overall and that really I think that really chap mr Kind of wasn't a fair deal there, but they were friends Through their life they traveled a lot together and there was there was a there was a natural friendship there between Barnelson and Ben Hogan. Even at this young age, Hogan was fiercely competitive. And one of the first things he competed for was the best loops at Glenn Garden and was willing to go to great lengths to make that happen. As he went to Caddy at Glenn Garden, of course, that he had slept in the bunker and the stories of him on his paper route, taking a newspaper with him from the route. And they would ask him, why are you taking this newspaper? And he would

line the bunker at Glen Garden. So he wouldn't get sand in his clothes. And he would spend the night there to be the first one. So at first light, when the sun came up, he got the best loop or the best caddy job, which it stories tell us that's where he met Marvin Leonard and Marvin Leonard took a like into him and that's where that relationship began and that's where he started playing golf and hitting balls and being the first one there was usually the, you know, getting to meet the best golfers that would turn into a great relationship. I think a lot of people would tell you that Marvin Leonard kind of filled the father role for Mr. Hogan.

I think most everyone knows that he gave him some of his seed money to kind of get started on tour, but I think more important than that, he kind of filled that father role when Mr. Hogan lost his father at seven. He kind of filled in with some of that. So Marvin Leonard founded both colonial country club and Shady Oaks country club in Fort Worth later selling both to their memberships after he got them operating. Hogan dropped out of high school during his senior year and turned professional at the age of 17 at the Texas open in San Antonio in 1930. His early years as a pro were tough and on more than one occasion,

he went broke. That's where Marvin Leonard's support was so instrumental. It would be 10 years until Hogan won his first tournament. This was obviously a very different time in professional golf, and despite his incredible ability, it was nearly impossible to make a living as a touring professional. So Hogan took on other employment. Despite finishing 13th on the money list in 1938, he took an assistant pro job at Century Country Club in New York. He worked at Century as an assistant and then as the head pro until 1941, when he took the head pro job at Hershey Country Club in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

I mean, all of them all pros at that time, you know, generally head clubs, which pros at that time, you know, generally had clubs which they were affiliated with, you know, because the prizes you had, you know, you didn't make enough playing, you know, so you had to do that. Looking back at some of the documents that we have there at the Ben Hogan Foundation, you know, Mr. Hogan, a lot of years early on, he would make a lot more money in exhibitions and long driving contests than he'd make in tournaments, you know. That's just that was just kind of a sign of the times back in the early, early days of

golf. Hogan is often regarded as one of, if not the greatest ball strikers to ever live. Not only was he known for his lengthy practice sessions, he's often credited with inventing practice and golf. He wouldn't just bang balls for hours. He was meticulous about his routine. As you hear these stories, you're gonna hear that Mr. Hogan had a purpose in every single thing that he did. Whether it be the extra spike on his shoe, whether it be the clothing that he wore, whether it be the cap that he put on his head, whether it be the clothing that he wore, whether it be the cap that he put on his head, whether it be how he had his club sitting on a car.

Every single thing had a purpose. I asked Robert and Chip to expand on some of those examples he gave. The clubs that we sit on the golf car, of course, he was always on a golf car by himself. And the golf bag was laid at an angle. So the butt of the golf club was always in the well of the passenger side and the golf clubs would lay at an angle with the belly of the club down so that as he was hitting balls, he could look at the clubs and they would all be facing

the same direction, but at an angle where you couldn't get anything but one golf bag on that cart. Mr. Hogan had shoes made with an extra spike in it for the purpose of, you know, he had tremendous club head speed and he wanted to make sure that there was no slippage, you know, that he was firmly grounded and through a matter of digging it out of the dirt, you know, he learned that he needed to have these shoes made

with an extra spike to give him better footing so he could approach the golf shot better. You don't become one of the greatest ball strikers ever without a tremendous amount of repetition. The amount of time that Hogan dedicated to his game was irregular in his day and age and it's stunned people that were fortunate enough to witness it. You know, golf didn't come that naturally to Mr. Hogan when people say he invented the practice because it didn't come easy. You know, and I think Mr. Hogan would be one of the first ones to tell you that he had

to gain on a lot of people like Sam Sneed that came out with a very pure natural golf swing, you know, and his thing, dig it out of the dirt, you know, was one of the things that he knew that he could do was he could out practice everybody, you know. So whenever they would finish the round, generally he would tell you that he would play around the golf, he would play every single shot on the practice range that he was going to play on the golf course. Then he would go play his round of golf.

And then whenever they also would go to have a high ball, you know, after their golf, he would head to the range and he would sit there and beat golf balls and work on a swing as long as he had light, you know. So I think a whole whole, it just did not come easy to him. So a big part of what he was doing was just to to outwork, you know, just to outwork his competitor. I've heard conversations with others that have asked him questions on how to get better. And Mr. Hogan has asked, how many hours a day do you practice?

And they said, I'll practice eight hours a day. And I've heard and I've seen him look the gentleman in the eye and say, you need to double that. So it's not just eight hours a day. It's son up to sundown and hit more golf balls and and you don't take a day off. To me, the most noteworthy part of these stories about Hogan's practice sessions was not the volume. It was the precision. And Lundy Miller who played on the PGA tour for quite a few years, shagged for Mr. Hogan for several years, and I asked Lindy, I said, you know how often did Mr. Hogan just fan it?

How often did he just hit a big block or a big hook? You know, he shagged for him for two years. He said, never. I said, yeah, right. You know, how often did he just miss one? He said, never. He said, I didn't see him in two years. He said, I didn't see him miss a shot.

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The result is an iron that looks, feels and performs like nothing else on the market. So visit CallawayGolf.com or your local golf shop today and experience apex for yourself from Calaway, the number one irons and golf. Let's get back to our podcast on Ben Hogan. My name is Lindy Miller and I used to check golf balls for Ben Hogan. Lindy is being a bit modest and as Robert mentioned, he enjoyed a lengthy career on the PGA tour. So he's seen a ton of golf at the highest level. This frame of reference is important to note as he details just how accurate Hogan was in his range sessions.

Lindy Shag Balls from Mr. Hogan about twice a week. I would always put the bag about two steps in front of me, and this is the most amazing thing ever, but each ball would hit right by the bag, one bounce up to me. I would wipe it off. I would put it in the bag. And then when he was done hitting that particular club, say a wet when he started out, he would just go back to his golf bag. And I knew he was going to get his nine iron because he worked all the way through the

bag. So when he went back to his bag, I knew he was going to get his nine iron because he worked all the way through the back. So when he went back to his bag, I knew he was going to get his nine iron. I moved about 10 yards farther back, put the bag down again, stepped about two steps behind it. And each ball was hit right by the bag and would take that one bounce. You wipe it off. You put it in did the same thing throughout his bag, 987654, all the way through the two iron, his three wood, his four wood, hit four woods back then, four woods, three wood in the driver, in every shot was just right at the bag, but that routine lasted about 45

minutes to an hour. Mr. Hogan's accuracy during his practice sessions are almost indescribable because it was so good. I tell people, young people, middle age people, how good he hit the ball and it's almost unbelievable. I probably shagged for him 40 times times 30 or 40 times Growing up there shady oaks and I never moved and this is from a wedge to a driver. I never moved 15 yards one way or another off the bag on a shot So and that was probably with the driver But you're only talking you know a 30 yard wide fairway and that happened so rarely that he would miss one you know 15 yards off the line of the bag with the driver. Every shot was hitting right by the bag and then it would just bounce

up to you and some of them would still be you could still feel them spinning on the short irons after it hit on the fairway and bounced up to you. But it just never missed a bag by more than, you know, a yard or so. Surely that can't be true. There had to be one quick hook, a block, one slightly thin, slightly fat, right? I never saw him miss hit a shot. There was no shots. There were 10 yards short of the bag. Every shot was within, I mean, it's just incredible.

Hit within a yard or two of the bag. And not even two yards. I mean, just like a yard, maybe a little long, a yard long, maybe a yard short, but nothing, you know, five yards short or five yards long. His distance control was just incredible. And the way he could control the ball.

At this point, things are starting to come together for me. And there's only one guy I can think of in golf history that hit the ball like this. And I wasn't surprised that Lindy came to a similar conclusion. Playing professionally and everything, I played around a lot of great players and people ask me about who's the greatest ball hitter and things like that. And when I think about, I've heard about Mo Norman. I never played with him but kind of hearing the stories, I would really compare Mr. Hogan to Mo Norman, the other person that I did play with when I was playing the tour is Lietr Veno

and I think he had a lot of control over his golf ball and the flight of it and I could see comparison between Mr. Hogan and Latavino as well, but I kind of think of the moanormon and I didn't ever see him hit any, but you know, obviously I heard the stories and I would see Mr. Hogan and him be, you know, very comparable in how they could control the ball and the flight of it in the distance control as well. Hogan's ball flight was so tight that they even named it after him. The hook was Mr. Hogan's nemesis, and that's what he fought, and that's when every ran out of money in his early attempts, that was what was costing him the ability to bring home a check. So, Mr. Hogan developed, you know, the Hogan fade, you know, where he would kind of hold

that shot. And again, back to what we were saying earlier, Mr. Hogan also built a golf club that you couldn't hook, you know. So again, that was kind of one of the early examples of building a golf club around your swing. And whenever he developed a golf club and a swing, or he could kind of hit a soft fade, then he had tremendous success. But it was supposedly it was the hook early on. And the reason he probably hit a hook early on, because he was a little bit of a guy and the hook gave him the run and he needed the distance.

So that was probably, and he won a lot of long-drive contests, being the little 5 foot, 755 pound guy or whatever out there, he would out-hit all those guys. But that hook was supposedly his nemesis and that's what he learned to hit the high fade. And when you say fade on his fade, the ball would fall left or right one to two yards. Tiger Woods is famous for saying that the only two people in golf history to ever truly own their swing were Mo Norman and Ben Hogan. I tried to dig deeper into what that quote meant. There probably hasn't been as much said about how much of a scientist Mr. Hogan was. You know, Mr. Hogan was one of the early golfers that built a club around his swing.

Now everybody has custom fitted perfect clubs for them. You know, he built a club that you couldn't hook because he had a swing that tended to put a hook on the ball. You know, he was an innovator in golf. We have at the Ben Hogan Foundation, we have a lot of Mr. Hogan's golf clubs, a lot of his experimental clubs, and it would shock you with the alloys and the metals

and the groove patterns and the things that he was trying. But he was a scientist. He applied a tremendous amount of study and discipline to the golf swing, which he illustrated so beautifully in his book, The Five Lessons, which by far the largest selling golf book in the history of golf. But you can kind of see how much of a student is he was at the golf swing. And even today, casual terms, when you hear him talk about swing playing and things like that, well, that was all Mr. Hogan. That was all the glass pain and the book and stuff. Well, nobody talked about things like that swing playing stuff.

He was the one that kind of brought some of those things to light. And what about comparisons to Tiger himself? that kind of brought some of those things to light. And what about comparisons to Tiger himself? You know, between Tiger and Hogan, it would be a pretty difficult comparison, you know, because first of all, the equipment is so dramatically different. The golf ball is so dramatically different. They both obviously had a wonderful work ethic.

They both had passion about the game. They both had a mental ability that a lot of other golfers didn't have. They shared some similar attributes, but if you just, if you try to compare swings, that'd be pretty challenging just because the swings need to be different because the golf equipment and the golf ball is so different. I think you would, where you would compare would be and the course management, which I was again, that was a term Mr. Hogan started using early on. Nobody used that term, just like they didn't use swing plane.

Tiger Woods's approach to the golf course and his course manage phenomenal, his mental focus and concentration is phenomenal. The other day, I trained him on early on, you know, those are kind of some shared traits that they both have. In May of 1967, the editor of Kerry Middlecoff's 1974 book, The Golf Swing, watched every shot that the 54 year old Hogan hit

in the colonial national invetational in Fort Worth. And quote, Hogan shot 281 for a third place tie with George Archer. Of the 281 shots he took, 141 were taken in reaching the greens. Of the 141, 139 were rated from well executed to superbly executed. The remaining two were a drive that missed the fairway by some five yards and

a five iron to a par three hole that missed the green by about the same distance. It was difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of anybody hitting the ball better over a four day span." And while the ball striking prowess of Mr. Hogan is well documented, his putting prowess or lack thereof is also quite noteworthy. Well, Mr. Hogan's putting, you probably heard, I didn't see him. I don't remember seeing Mr. Hogan, because I don't think he liked to put that much. I'll tell you a funny story from a friend of mine

that got to play the 18th hole with Mr. Hogan, but I didn't see him practice, but you know, he loved the going out and hitting balls, you know what I mean? That was just, that was his exercise and that was his passion, but I didn't see. Did you see Mr. Hogan putting? He didn't put very often at all. The one time I saw him go to the putting green at Shady Oaks was he threw down a couple of golf balls by the putting green and took a few practice strokes and chipped one up a man and went and picked the golf balls up and walked off the green. And by the looks of all the putters and the designs of putters and the shapes of putters and everything that he worked hard on

building something that would work for him. But I've got the impression that it was not he wasn't the best putter. I think, you know, early in his career, I think he was an extraordinarily good putter, and then I think he became not a very good putter, you know, and that's why we have so many of his putters in the office. The cute story I was going to tell you was my father and I had a friend in from out of town and Mr. Hogan comes over and they were walking and joins them on the 18th hole of Shady Oaks. And he said, can I play the end the last hole with you? And they said, well, sure, you know, so he plays end and said, he hits a beautiful drive down the fairway and you know, hits a seven iron,

you know, about 10 feet from the pin. And they all go up there and they all go to the green. And Mr. Hogan's, and Mr. Hogan's head straight for the golf shop and the caddy goes over and picks up Mr. Hogan's ball by 10 feet and pennies that Mr. Hogan don't put. During Hogan's prime years of 1938 through 1959, he won 63 professional golf tournaments despite some pretty significant interruptions. This was the first.

He served in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to the end of the war in 1945. He was an instructor pilot. He obtained his pilot's license. He did things to help sell war bonds to. They used him the right way for him, but he was proud. And I think he made a first lieutenant rank whenever he was in the Army or Corps in the 1940s.

But calling what happened on February 2nd, 1949 and interruption wouldn't come close to doing it justice. He has a head on crash with a Greyhound bus and suppose we the only reason he lives was he dives across the Valerie to save her life, you know, and that ended up saving his life. The horrific accident left the 36 year old with a double fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collarbone, an ankle fracture, a chip rib, and maybe the most damaging and most life threatening near fatal blood clots.

If you remember early after the accident, there was a lot of question as to whether he would even walk much less like golf. He was given several blood transfusions, then doctors performed abdominal surgery to tie off the inferior venecava, the large vein that carries blood from the lower half of the body to the heart. Hogan remained in the hospital for 59 days. Whenever Mr. Hogan was in the hospital, he started getting all these get-will telegrams and cards and stuff like that.

And he didn't understand it. And he was talking to a Valerie and he's, you know, these people don't know me. Why are they sending me a get-will card and stuff like that? It's also, that was also a point in his life where he started understanding, you know, how respected and how admired he was as a point in his life where he started understanding, you know, how respected and how admired he was as a golfer. And it actually kind of made him, I think. He still had to do as Chip said.

He still had to completely focus on the game because that was his approach to the game. But he also realized how he was viewed by the public and how respected and admired and everything. He was. So it kind of changed. It changed the way he looked at the patron, you know, thereafter that. Hogan began playing golf again in November

and resumed tour life at the beginning of 1950, just a year after the accident that almost killed him and nearly left him crippled. Prior to the accident, Hogan's cool and sometimes cold demeanor didn't necessarily make him especially popular with the fans. But things would be very different for him when he returned to professional golf. That is where the public really kind of fell in love with Mr. Hogan. So here's the little guy

that literally dove across his wife to save her alive. Had his legs crushed, had all the complications, the blood slots and everything, might never walk again. 16 months later, he wins the US Open of Marion. He hit the Miracle of Marion and then he wins the US Open of the next year and they almost won to the next year and then he wins it again the next year. It wins three of his four US Open's, you know, when he theoretically perhaps wasn't ever going to walk again. I hope you caught all that. I think it's also worth noting that prior to the accident, Hogan was coming off wins in

his two most recent major starts, the 48 US Open and the 48 PGA, in his first major start after the accident. He finished fourth at the 1950 Masters. He then won the 50 US Open, the 51 Masters, and the 51 US open. Three consecutive major starts, and five of the last six majors that he played in. And Mr. Hogan's swing even changed from before the accident to after. So even he had two different swings.

I think Jack Necklace said, here's a guy that was the greatest golfer that are the greatest ballstacker there, Relig, had his body destroyed, rebuilt his golf swing to his new body time, became the greatest ballstacker again. But somehow the best was still yet to come. In 1953, Ben Hogan entered six tournaments. He won five of them.

The first of these five was the masters where he shattered the 72-hole scoring record in route to his second green jacket. And after winning the Pan American Open and the Colonial, he went wire to wire to when the US Open at Oakmont by 6, collecting his fourth US Open title in his last five starts. The tournament concluded with 36 holes on Saturday, which was especially excruciating for Hogan considering the condition of his legs. At that point, Mr. Hogan had a decision to make. It wasn't common for Americans at that time to play in those championships, you know,

maybe more than once a year, just because of the difficulty with travel and trying to get over there. And, you know, when you look at the interviews and why Mr. Hogan went there, and Mr. Hogan never really even thought about going there until his friends, until his competitors and his other buddies said, you know, you really need to go over there and play in this event to kind of complete your career. And Mr. Hogan's comment was, well, I might as well oblige him and go play in it. And it was non-shallot.

It wasn't anything he was really expecting, but his friends asked him to go play. And he says, well, I guess I'll go play. And I went time to go, is there any wins it? In retrospect, it was not that easy of a decision. Not only was the journey long, but the purse was small. The dates conflicted with the PGA championship. And all players at that time had to play a 36 hole qualifier for the event.

These factors kept a majority of the Americans at home. Getting over to Karnowski for the Open Championship in 53, he took a steamship over there. It was weeks getting over and weeks getting back. That was after his accident. He was still having tremendous issues with his legs. Then they had the issue of getting him a tub, you know, because after he would play golf, he would have to get in with the salts and everything. And so to kind of get the swelling out of his legs and everything, I mean, he was not, that was four years after that, but he still had tremendous circulatory issues. Hogan arrived at Karnusty two weeks early to play the course and to practice with the

smaller golf ball that was used in the UK at the time. After easily qualifying for the event, Hogan battled a bulky putter the first couple of days, but miraculously, despite the condition of his body, he improved his score every day, shooting 73-71-70 and a course record 68 in the final round to win the title by four shots. On each of the four days at the sixth hole, Hogan threaded the out of bounds that framed the left of the hole and the centerline bunkers. The hole would later be named Hogan's Alley. The Glasgow Herald noted, no film scenario writer could have thought out a more dramatic

story during this day for golfing memory. Additionally, Robert had a tremendous story about Hogan's meals that week. They were still on rationing after the war. There's a great story where he's in the restaurant and Mr. Hogan always liked beef, you know, so that he needed the protein to kind of give him the energy to go play and they served him a little bit of steak

there at the end, you know, and Mr. Hogan got kind of upset. And he said, you know, why can't I get a good piece of beef? Well, Mrs. Hogan knew that everybody at the end had thrown in their war coupons for food. So Mr. Hogan could get that steak. And she told him, she said, you're going to quit complaining about that. You're going to enjoy that steak. And she told him what everybody, you're gonna quit complaining about that. You're going to enjoy that stake. And she told him what everybody had done, which he didn't know, and which kind of,

I'm sure kind of embarrassed Mr. Hogan. But after he went and won the championship, he went back to the end and met with the people that were there and met with the staff and shook their hands and thanked them all and stuff. It was a very emotional thing of kind of going back, you know, to that in and thanking them for that. Hogan remains as the only player to ever win the Masters US Open and open

championship in the same season. Jack Nicholson, Arnold Palmer, both finished one shot short in their chances at the open in 72 and 60 respectively. A Saturday Saturday 81 at Murafield and miserable weather cost Tiger his shot at it in 2002 and Jordan Speed finished a shot out of a playoff at the 15 open at St Andrews after bogeying the 71st hole. Perhaps nothing defines Hogan's immeasurable popularity than the treatment he received upon returning to the US after one of

the most unique flexes in golf history. The returning aboard the Superliner United States is Little Ben Hogan, the greatest golfer of them all, fresh from his spectacular victory in the British Open. All New York, pours out a welcome. With his wife Valerie at his side, Ben is interviewed on the Liner's deck. I'm a golfer and have been since I was 12 years old and Tournament golf is my life. And I'm quite sure that I'm going to keep playing

and I'm certainly going to play in the open again. And now Old Broadway becomes Hogan's Alley. New York is really golf happy today. It's the biggest welcome the city has given any golfers since the heyday of bobby jones twenty three years ago and a ceremony at city hall with marion pelotary makes the greeting official the city's goal goes to bennogan the world's greatest golfer think he's the last golfer to receive a ticotite bright in new york

yeah bobby jones and benn Ben Hogan are the two that ever received that. Hogan would have several more close calls and majors, but the 53 open was his last major victory. His nine major titles ranked second only to Walter Hagen at that time, although that total of nine majors is actually somewhat up for debate. In 1942 during World War II, Hogan won what was called the Hail American Open. Most people in Fort Worth will kind of know this, and I've personally heard Mr. Hogan talk about this, but when the Hail American Open was played, it was played as the feeling for the US Open that year.

And subsequently, the USGA decided that it would not be a US open, but whenever it was played, it was played as such. The late Dan Jenkins, who just passed here recently, recounted the field, and the field was very strong in that US open. The argument from the USGA was it was not as strong, The argument from the USGA was it was not as strong and that's the reason that they didn't count as a US Open, but I can tell you from personal experience, Mr. Hogan is here to the US Open win. And whenever you would ask Mr. Hogan about how many US opens he won, he would say five, not four. And you would say, well, Mr. Hogan, you know, the record say four. And he said, I have five US open medals and they all look exactly like. And he was, you know, so Mr. Hogan, you got a different answer.

And and Hogan fans around here, you'll get a little different answer on how many US opens. You go to other places, you go to the official USGA, etc. You'll kind of hear four. If you talked to Mr. Hogan's friends, or hear four if you talk to Mr. Hogan's friends or if you were to talk to Mr. Hogan, you would hear five. If you go into the trophy room here at Colonial, I think you will see they have five been Hogan, US Open, First Place Metals, not four. Hogan is remembered in golf in a lot of ways and hopefully you've learned as much from listening to this podcast as I have and researching and putting it all together. And one of the ways he of course is remembered is his book,

Five Lessons, the Modern Fundamentals of Golf. In the Five Lessons, Hogan breaks the swing down to four parts, the fundamentals, the grip, stance, and posture, and the swing. The book remains as one of the highest selling golf books in history. And while we didn't talk about it much, Hogan is of course famous for starting his own golf equipment company in 1953. It's clear from the short amount of time I've spent in Fort Worth that Hogan's light still shines bright. And before I let Robert and Chip go, I asked them how they thought Mr. Hogan would like to be remembered. The director of golf at Shady Oaks asked Mr. Hogan very late in life, he said, you know,

how do you want to be remembered? And that was the word Mr. Hogan used. He said, I'd like to be remembered as a gentleman, not as a greatest golfer, not as a greatest ball striker, not as whatever. I'd like to be remembered as a gentleman. That's pretty, pretty much what Mr. Hogan was. Hogan's legend lives on through his foundation, which both Robert and Chip represent. The Ben Hogan Foundation was established in 1997, so it's a pretty young foundation with a very simple purpose. The purpose of the Ben Hogan Foundation

is to honor the legacy and celebrate the life of Ben Hogan. And we do that by doing things that we think Mr. Hogan would want us to do. So, Mr. Hogan loved children, so it's very natural for us to create a partnership with the first T. We built the first Ben Hogan Learning Center for the first T. We're building or we're in the process of breaking ground to build our second Ben Hogan Learning Center. Mr. Hogan would love that because it is teaching young people not only the game would go off, but it is teaching them life skills that they'll use throughout their life.

The nine core values, the first T. Celebrates, like integrity and honesty and perseverance. Well, who better has an example of those attributes other than Mr. Hogan. So we really like the youth development aspect and we do that because we than Mr. Hogan. So we really liked the youth development aspect, and we do that because we think Mr. Hood would want us to do that. We have five different scholarship programs that we have both full and partial scholarships. And then when Mr. Hogan was winning

about a third of the tournaments he was entering before the war, when the war broke out in 1942, he left the PGA tour to join the Army Air Corps, and he proudly served his country, and he was a very patriotic American. So our third leg of the Ben Hogan Foundation is to honor our soldiers. So we do an event each year down at Ford Hood for the soldiers afforded. We do a golf tournament and et cetera. So it's very simple. It's just, it's youth development. It's scholarships and education and it's honoring our

military and it's those three attributes that we know Mr. Hogan would want us to do. I'm gonna leave you all with a story that Robert told me offline that I really, really wish I would have kept the Mike's rolling for. And it's about the last three golf balls that Ben Hogan ever hit. One day at Shady Oaks, the professional Mike Wright was surprised to see Mr. Hogan walk into the golf shop.

It was long past his playing days, but his golf clubs were located there and he requested his driver and three golf balls out of the bag. From there, Wright watched as Mr. Hogan headed to the 10th tee there at Shady Oaks, a straight par four where you would prefer to drive it down the right side of the fairway. Hogan teed a ball up and with no warm up, he rips one with a fade to the right side of the fairway. He teed another one up, ripped it, little fade, right side of the fairway, four or five feet from the other ball.

He teed up a third ball, ripped it, little fade, ends up 4-5 feet away from the second one. He picked up his tee, walked down, picked up his three golf balls, and to everyone's knowledge it was the last time Ben Hogan ever hit a golf shot. Three perfect shots after not touching a club for a year. Thanks everybody for tuning into this special edition podcast, I hope you enjoyed it. We look forward to bringing you more content from the grounds at Colonial this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge. Cheers. That's better than most. How about in?

That is better than most. Better than most.