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How would Hogan have fared against golf's greatest amateur, Bobby Jones? Says Ben Hogan himself: "If Jones were around today, he'd be a champion. He'd rise to the competition." One thing they have in common is that both made golfing history. Jones did it in 1930 with his "Grand Slam" (British Amateur, British Open, U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur). In 1948, Hogan became the first golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, the P.G.A. championship and the Western Open in the same year. He was also golf's top official money winner (with $32,112 in prizes), and he was winner of the Vardon Trophy with an average of 69.3 strokes for every 18 holes in tournament competition.
Mind & Muscle. The characteristics of skill and temperament that Ben Hogan uses to dominate golf are the characteristics of any champion, developed with infinite care. As a golfer, of course, one great part of his game rests on his swing. In Hogan, a natural left-hander who switched to a right-handed game, it is strictly a manufactured asset, put together piece by piece and grooved by endless hours of dogged practice. Bobby Jones used to swing with drowsy, easy grace. Hogan stands with knees flexed, fanny protruding, toes pointed slightly outward —and swings with all the business-like authority of a machine stamping out bottle caps. He flatly insists: "There's no such thing as a natural golf swing."
The second part of Hogan's equipment is nervous tension, under fine control. He believes it is something a golfer must be born with, then have tempered under pressure. Hogan's outward manifestation of it: a frozen half-grin, something like an infant's "gas smile," denoting pain inside. When the going gets tough as it did in the 1947 Jacksonville Open—he took eleven strokes on a par-three hole—the Hogan nerves hold. On the next hole at Jacksonville he got a birdie.
He is still bothered by two items of tournament atmosphere: the click of cameras and the spectators who jingle pocket change. "The change-jinglers," he complains, "always wait until you reach the top of your backswing, then there's a silence like a kitchen clock stopping. It wouldn't bother me if they kept right on jingling."
The third feature of Hogan's game is the consistent use of his wits. His fellow pros say that he doesn't play greens—"he thinks them." Before every tee shot, he selects the exact spot where he wants his ball to stop rolling; he expects to come very close. From each of his clubs he exacts similar standard ranges (see chart). Between shots, as he walks briskly along the fairway, Hogan's mind is working ahead. Heading for a second shot on one hole, he will crane to see where the pin has been spotted on a nearby green still to be played (pins are moved every day in tournament golf).
The Blacksmith's Son. Except for the usual pride in being a Texan, Ben Hogan had little to start out with. He was the son of Chester Hogan, the town blacksmith in Dublin, Tex. It was cattle country and most of Blacksmith Hogan's business was shoeing cow ponies. A silent, left-handed runt of a kid, Ben learned how to ride and to fight with his fists.