(4 of 6)
There were no golf courses in Dublin. Until his father died and the Hogans moved up to Fort Worth, Ben didn't even know there was such a game. In Fort Worth, at twelve, he made the startling discovery that caddies at Glen Garden Country Club made 65¢ a round, better than he could do selling papers at Union Station. He strolled over, hands in pockets and hat brim upturned, to find out what it took to be a caddy.
He found out the hard way. Glen Garden's caddy corps blindfolded him, stuck him in a barrel and rolled him down a boulder-strewn hill behind the caddy house. At the bottom, he was paddled soundly. Then, in a kangaroo court finale, the boss caddy picked out a kid Hogan's size and said: "All right, fight him." Ben whipped the other kid and got a job.
After a year or so of caddying, he decided to try the game himself. He scared up some old clubs and started swinging. Since left-handed clubs were hard to come by, he became a righthander. But he seemed to have little natural talent. Says Denny Lavender, West Point golf coach who grew up with Ben: "He didn't do one thing right. He couldn't putt. As a kid he practically ran at the ball."
At 15, another product of Glen Garden's caddy pen, Byron Nelson, was burning up the courses and breaking 70. Ben was not that good, but one Christmas Day he tied Nelson in the annual Glen Garden caddy tournament. He practiced like a beaver. Bobby Jones once said: "Hogan is the hardest worker I've ever seen, not only in golf but in any other sport." He played the Texas amateur circuit, trying to do as well as such crack golfers as Ralph Guldahl (who became U.S. Open champion in 1937 and 1938) and Nelson (U.S. Open champion in 1939). Hogan's rule, then as now: "If you can't outplay them, outwork them." At 19, when his game was good but still as unpredictable as a slippery green, Ben Hogan turned pro. Then he decided to get out of Fort Worth.
Putts on the Rug. In 1932 he struck out for Los Angeles with $75 and big ideas about making the winter tour. A month later he was back in Fort Worth, broke. The following winter, he went west again, got as far as the Agua Caliente Open (where he won no prize money) and the Phoenix Open (where he picked up $50). He had turned in some good scores for 18 holes, but he had no consistency. It taught him one lesson: "There's no such thing as one good shot in big-time golf. They all have to be good—and for 72 holes."
Then for four years, through Fort Worth's "blue northers" and hot summers, he worked away at his game. He picked up a fair dollar any way he could, working at dozens of odd jobs. The next time he hit the golf circuit (in 1937) he had two mouths to feed: he had married attractive Valerie Fox, a home-town girl he had known since they went to kid parties together. They skimped on food and entertainment. Ben haunted the practice tee, even brought his putter back to the hotel to practice on the rug. By 1940, he was beginning to look like a golfer. He came in second in six consecutive tournaments, finally won Pinehurst's North & South Open. That year he finished as golf's top money-winner (with $10,656), repeated in 1941 (with $18,358) and again in 1942 (with $13,143).