Excerpts

CHAPTER 1 THE PUTTING MYSTIQUE Ben Hogan once, sarcastically, called putting "another game," but as he matured as a golfer he gained respect for the ground game and the art of rolling the rock with the flat stick. My writing career spans 35 years, first as a freelance writer of golf articles, followed by 5 years working in London as a golf columnist for the Surrey County Magazine while working concurrently as an assistant editor of the weekly publication Golf Illustrated, the first-ever golf magazine, and last but by no means least, a 15-year stint as senior editor of instruction at GOLF Magazine. During this period of time, I can say, proudly, that I've collaborated with the world's best golf teachers and top tour professionals on instructional articles and how-to books, covering everything from full-swing technique to fairway iron play, from trouble play shots to power-driving methods, from short game to putting tips. When it comes to putting, I've observed and picked the brains of some the game's most talented and accomplished putters, including Ben Crenshaw, Isao Aoki, Billy Casper, Gary Player, Bob Charles, Jan Stephenson, and Seve Ballesteros, in addition to lesser-known but supremely skilled putters like Morris Hatalsky and John Garner. I have also had the opportunity to work with Dave Pelz, golf's foremost putting guru, and to interview Stan Utley, the famed pro and short game expert, and glean insights from their vast knowledge of the subject. In wanting to set the record straight as to the truth about Hogan's putting skills, and the historical significance of the innovative four-stroke putting system this talented Texan depended on to hit winning putts and set scoring records in major championships, I did some meditating on the best orthodox and unorthodox methods of the past and present, as Hogan himself had done during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In the process, I discovered an interesting irony having to do, particularly, with today's popular putting trends. Once I started seriously looking at all of the present putting styles being pitched as unique, such as the cross-handed technique employed by PGA Tour pro and 2003 United States Open Champion Jim Furyk, and went back in history to examine these methods, I realized that the unorthodox methods being presented as new were, by and large, old hat and merely enjoying a revival. To make my point straightaway, Ben Hogan had even tried the cross- handed putting method, decades before Furyk. What's more, Hogan had invented new ways to putt that few golf professionals and golf experts took note of, largely because they lacked the "eye" to spot nuances in Hogan's putting actions and, too, because Hogan's unique, sometimes unorthodox techniques failed to fall in line with the common beliefs and teachings of golf instructors of the day. For these reasons, Hogan's system has never been revealed or written about until now. Ben Hogan (right) with Byron Nelson (left) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower (center) at Augusta National Golf Club, before the start of the 1953 Masters. After conducting my own focus groups composed of public- and private-course golfers and reviewing data based on surveys conducted by leading golf publications, golf equipment companies, and national golf organizations, I learned that average recreational golfers miss a high number of short putts as well as three-putt from the 25- to 50-feet range a few times per round of 18 holes. Furthermore, except for low handicap players, an infinitesimal number of golfers carry a custom-fit putter in their bag. At this juncture, I realized it was time to reevaluate putting instruction and revisit an old idea, one that originally popped into my head as far back as 1980, while I was on a business trip to the Isle of Man with a veteran golf writer, Englishman John Stobbs. While flying over the Irish Sea with John in a prop plane, I brought up the subject of Ben Hogan's incredible power-fade swing, hoping to hear some new insights from a true golf historian and how-to golf expert as well as a single-figure handicap player, but the Englishman surprised me by sweeping right over Hogan's full swing. Instead, Stobbs spoke of the area of the game he believed to be the most important of all shot-making departments-- putting--then quickly supported his profound statement with facts, citing Hogan's wins in tournaments and major championships and mentioning specific anecdotes about short, medium-length, and long putts Hogan sank on his way to victory. While I consider myself well-versed on Hogan's major championship first- place finishes, I admit to being surprised when hearing this longtime die- hard Ben Hogan fan recount success stories on the greens that, as you'll learn, are high on the list of the most clutch putts holed in the quartet of golf's most prestigious events (commonly referred to as the major championships), all of which the great Ben Hogan has won. While I knew, for example, that Hogan had won the 1953 Masters, shooting a then-record score of 274, I had no idea he had shattered the old record (set by Ralph Guldahl in 1939 and matched in 1948 by Claude Harmon) by five strokes, owing to sinking putts from everywhere on what many golf aficionados consider, beyond question, the trickiest greens in all of golf. No wonder Hogan said in a posttournament press gathering that it was the best he'd ever played over 72 holes. Ben Hogan, winner of The Open Championship (British Open) in 1953, proudly holds the coveted Claret Jug. What was even more incredible was discovering during my research for Hogan on the Green how just 3 months later on the slow greens of Scotland's Carnoustie links, Hogan, in his first appearance at The Open Championship, set a new competitive course record by birdieing the final hole with a solid putt into the center of the cup for a final-round score of 68 and a 4- day total of 282. Sandwiched between these victories was Hogan's win at the U.S. Open at Pennsylvania's famed Oakmont Country Club, featuring greens so large and lightning-fast that three-putt situations were aplenty among the talented field--except for Hogan, who tamed the beast and beat rival Sam Snead with a five-under-par score of 283 over four rounds. Because the press and golfing public were mesmerized by Ben Hogan's powerfully accurate driving and fairway play, it came as no surprise that American journalists and British scribes focused on Hogan's flawless swing when writing about these three victories, as well as the six other major championship trophies he took home to Fort Worth. Stobbs, however, was as fanatical about Hogan's putting feats and ability to adjust to changes in green conditions--namely, speed and slope--as everybody else in golf seemed to be about his full swing. But no matter how well Hogan hit the ball from tee to green, he still had to "finish the hole"--what the great amateur Robert Tyre Jones Jr. deemed the most important aspect of golf--by sinking a putt or putts. Notably, Stobbs had studied Hogan's career, intending to write a feature story for ParGolf magazine dispelling the myth about this great pro golfer Americans named "The Hawk" suffering throughout his entire career from a golf disease known as "the yips," which causes the player to employ a short and quick jab-stroke that sends the ball flying well past the hole, or a tight, restricted stroke that causes the ball to finish well short of the cup. As I was to learn, Ben Hogan's own sporadic complaints about putts not dropping, even after he shot a low score, and once missing a short putt on the 71st green of the 1956 U.S. Open and then afterward making the mistake of telling the assembled sportswriters that his nerves were shot, triggered a firestorm of bad press. In fact, Hogan's miss--and I was to find out there was more than one--was due to trying out a new putter with a lie angle that was too flat, even for Hogan, who kept his hands quite low and preferred a flat-lie putter. Sadly, not one newspaperman told the truth about Hogan's switch to a new putter that was not custom-fit, like the one he had used for so many years. Thankfully, however, for the record, one distinguished member of the press, Herbert Warren Wind, told the true story and wrote about Hogan's switch to a blade putter in The Story of American Golf (1956). Once Ben Hogan achieved his goal of solving the mystery of the golf swing and revealed his secrets first in LIFE magazine, with Ben making the perfect swing on its cover, his next major goal was to present a new putting method to America's growing golf audience. While some less-informed, inexperienced golfers might believe Hogan was afflicted with G.D. (Golfer's Disease), I like to think that golf fans with common sense would back Hogan and dismiss such a false label on the basis of his record of sinking hundreds of critical putts during his illustrious career. Moreover, Hogan was a victim of his own self-inflicted neurosis-- perfectionism--that sometimes helped him, by encouraging him to push on at all costs and practice for hours a day, and sometimes hurt him because he was rarely satisfied and believed anything short of perfection wasn't good enough. There's no better example of this characteristic trait, albeit in Freudian and Jungian terms, than the recurring nightmare that caused Hogan to wake up in a cold sweat. On his way to shooting a perfect score, with 17 straight 1's on the scorecard, and looking to score another hole-in-one while standing on the 18th tee, Ben swings and hits a shot that heads straight for the flag, lands on the green in line with the hole, bounces a couple of times, rolls toward the cup, but then lips out. For Hogan the perfectionist, the results spell disaster. Surely, this anecdote will allow you to appreciate why Hogan, to some degree, brought on his own bad press concerning his putting, notwithstanding the fact that he could have stopped it had he let the press know he improved his putting skills by inventing a new putting system. He had let the world know he had cured his duck-hook problem by inventing a new swing that he told golfers about in a LIFE magazine feature story, then via a Sports Illustrated instructional series, and then later in the book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, published in 1957. But, as you'll learn, there's a legitimate reason Ben didn't make the putting announcement. So why did Ben Hogan hold back in announcing the new putting system he discovered? I pondered this question more than once during the writing of this book. First and foremost, Ben Hogan wanted to be absolutely certain that his putting system was truly perfected to the maximum and universal in its application. That said, it was not until well after Ben had won a total of 63 golf events that he was absolutely convinced the four-stroke system he invented could work for all golfers and allow the average player, as well as the pro, to become more proficient at hitting different length putts on different types of putting greens. Ironically, the success of Jack Nicklaus, a secret protege of sorts--a man Ben played quite a lot of golf with--had much to do with Hogan's certainty about his system. Second, for Hogan's system to help the golfer putt his or her very best, the player's putter must be custom-fit, suited to the player's natural setup and stroke tendencies. The putter's specifications, relating to such vital elements as lie, loft, length, and putter-face angle, must match up with the player's hand position at address (high or low, for example) and with the fit accommodating perfectly the manner in which the player brings the club into the ball (for example, with the hands well ahead of the putter's head). In consideration of these factors, and knowing that during the 1950s it was unheard of for a major golf manufacturer such as Spalding to offer a made- to-measure club-fitting service to golfers, or even for local club professionals to accommodate more than a few members by customizing a putter as best as possible in the workshop by doing such things as thickening the grip, lengthening the putter, or adjusting the lie and loft in a machine, Hogan believed it best to wait until measuring systems for providing custom putters to the masses were perfected and made more widely available to golfers. On a related note, Ping was the first company to get a grip on this side of the golf equipment business, starting in the early 1970s. As time went by, more companies jumped on the bandwagon, and more and more custom-club shops started popping up across America. Still, Ping was special because light, balanced, heel-and-toe putters with a bigger sweet spot were the company's original anchor. As the brand grew, more models were added to the line and then, later, unique irons, woods, and wedges. Today, in the year 2013, golfers are offered various options for being custom-fit for putters, and several companies even specialize in this area. You'll learn a lot more about buying a custom "flat stick" when reading Chapter 5, to the point of even finding out if the putter you are presently using is okay as is, allowing you to move right into learning Ben Hogan's unique four-stroke putting system. HOGAN WAS so mad at himself for complaining about the greens at various courses he competed on or was about to compete on--as was the case prior to the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie Golf Club in Scotland, when he rudely offered to have lawn mowers shipped over from Texas so that the greens could be cut low and roll at a faster speed, an offer that greatly displeased officials at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the governing body for what golf purists such as myself call The Open Championship--that he practiced hard to adjust, and adjusted so well that he won this premier championship. But what mattered most is that Ben learned the same hard lesson Bob Jones (he hated to be called "Bobby") learned after walking off St. Andrews on his first trip to The Open Championship: Golf is a sport played on an imperfect playing field, and a true golfer must be able to deal with the unexpected and move on, since complaining about golf in Scotland is like chastising the pope in the Vatican, and, furthermore, no one man is bigger than the game. Excerpted from Hogan on the Green: A Detailed Analysis of the Revolutionary Putting Method of Golf Legend Ben Hogan by John Andrisani All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.