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It is this physical domination over himself —or his belief in it—that enables Hogan to do things on a golf course that baffle human understanding. At 39, he needs no warm-up tournaments to toughen his nerves and sharpen his game. He just shows up for the big ones, sets the machinery in motion—and wins. Then he drops out of sight again, leaving behind another "miracle" for the Hogan legend.
In the interims Hogan can be found playing the grass-roots circuit, making one-day stands in small towns against local hotshots. Wherever he stops he draws a crowd. His poise on such occasions is perfect. He urges folks to edge in closer, and when everything has become intimate and relaxed he begins telling them how to play golf in one easy lesson. "There's not much to playing this game," he lies genially. After spieling off a few tips about grip and stance, he belts out a few balls. "See how easy it is?" he asks finally, and all the onlookers nod. Then, after playing an exhibition match against local pros, he takes a bow, signs some autographs and departs. His fee for the afternoon's work is a flat $1,500.
THE ingredients that Hogan uses are not available to everybody. Some of them are hereditary, handed down from his Irish father, who plied his trade as a blacksmith in Dublin, Texas. Some of them come from his early environment. After his father died (when Ben was nine), he had to fight for everything—including his job as a caddy—and he got used to fighting. The mechanics of his golf came hard. Hogan had little natural talent for the game and was left-handed to boot; in overcoming these handicaps he built up patience and selfdiscipline.
When Hogan became the game's most successful player—topping all comers in prize money for five seasons—he still lacked some ingredients. He could not leave his work on the golf course, but let his passion for perfection rule his whole existence. His keen eyes noted such minute details as the fact that one knob on a hotel bureau drawer did not match the other. His finicky palate rebelled at restaurant food from Kalamazoo to California; unless a steak was cooked just so, back it would go to the kitchen. Only in his treatment of Valerie, his wife, did he show a gentle side.
The last and perhaps the most important ingredient in Hogan's stew was one the fates added. It happened when he was 36, on a lonely stretch of road in Texas, the night a Greyhound bus crashed head-on into his Cadillac. As he lay in Hotel Dieu hospital in El Paso, down to about 105 Ibs., he had plenty of time to meditate—about the past, the present and the hereafter. When Valerie talked with him during visiting hours, the subject of golf was never mentioned. Asked by a newspaperman if he would ever play again, Hogan answered vaguely, "I just don't know. I don't know what it's done to my nerves."
What had happened to his legs was worse. He had suffered two embolisms, and to prevent a third and perhaps fatal clot from reaching his lungs, the doctors permanently tied off the large veins in his legs. Whether he would be able to walk again depended on whether he could stand the excruciating pain when the smaller veins began to carry the extra load.