My New Project To Swing Like Ben Hogan

Two months ago I started a project to swing like Ben Hogan. And I was reading a post on here which asked the question why anyone would want to swing like Ben Hogan.

I thought it was an interesting question. And as I’m taking this project rather seriously (take a look at my blog for more information: http://www.hoganswing.com) I thought it would be an interesting question to answer.

My name is Nick Bayley, and as far as I’m concerned, the reason why I’m trying to swing like Ben Hogan is to keep playing golf. You see, back in my teenage days I played golf because I...

1. Loved playing golf, and
   
2. Wanted to become a touring pro
   

I was a pretty good amateur here in New Zealand for my age, but I never improved enough to make it. So at about 21 years of age I gave up trying to be a pro and got a career. Then my first child was born when I was 24 years of age, and I gave up my regular games of golf for 14 years to focus on my business and family. At 38 years of age I started playing golf again, and within about a year I got my handicap down to scratch.

But now I have no intention of going pro. So I’m just playing golf for the sake of playing golf, and about 3 months ago I was seriously considering quitting the game for lack of real drive and purpose.

I didn’t really want to quit, but I needed a reason to keep playing. I’ve always been fascinated with Ben Hogan, as he’s a true golfing legend. Years ago as a teenager I tried following the instructions in his book, Five Lessons, but quickly gave it up when I tried unwinding with the hips to start the downswing. That completely screwed me up. I now know why, but I didn’t have a clue back then.

So that’s the reason why I’m trying to swing like Ben Hogan – a reason bigger than the game. Like my reasons or hate it, but that’s why I’m doing it. I also need to clarify what I mean when I say that I’m trying to swing like Ben Hogan, with some Ben Hogan caps...

I AM NOT TRYING TO DUPLICATE BEN HOGAN’S SWING

Trying to build a carbon copy of Ben Hogan’s swing is not possible in my opinion, because of the different physical make-ups.

When you look up the word ‘like’ in the dictionary, it talks about resembling someone or something and/or sharing the same characteristics of someone.

When you do research on Ben Hogan, I don’t think there has ever been a golfer that has had more written about them. He had a mystique and a great story (struggling pro to successful pro, car crash then a great comeback etc., etc.) He basically invented practice. He is known as the best ball striker ever. He has a couple of great instructional books explaining how to swing like him. He has a great swing, the best swing I’ve ever seen. His ball striking was known for being powerful AND accurate.

Basically he is widely recognized as the best ball striker ever, with the best swing ever. PLUS he has two great instructional books about his swing method.

So I’m NOT trying to have a swing exactly like Ben Hogan’s. But what I’m trying to do is have a swing with some very important characteristics that I think Ben Hogan had. Here are the characteristics I want to have in my own swing:

One Plane Swing

Ben Hogan swung back on a single plane, and he swung down on a very similar plane. My starting point swing (video below of this) is one where I swing back on an upright plane and then come down steeply as well, and consequently I had very big divots and hit weak fade/slice shots most of the time. So I started with a two plane swing and I want to have a single plane swing like Hogan.

Lag

Ben Hogan had tremendous lag in his swing. The most I’ve seen at the transition phase of a golf swing. This is one big reason why I believe he hit the ball so long.

Impact Sound

I’ve often read that you could tell when Ben Hogan was hitting the golf ball, because the sound at impact was distinct. I want that same quality when I hit the golf ball. However, I think that will largely be related to the next characteristic.

Swing Speed

Ben Hogan had a very fast swing. I have read that one golf instructor estimated that he swung at around 130 mph. I think that is over-rated, but there’s no doubt he swung fast.

Swing Consistency

Ben Hogan had a swing that stood up to the most intense pressure. It was repeatable, powerful and consistent. My swing changes from swing to swing, and it’s frustrating! A large part of that is because I use my hands to control the swing. Through this project I want to take my hands out of the swing as much as possible (particularly through impact), like Hogan, so that I can return the clubhead consistently to the right place at the right time.

Length/Accuracy

Ben Hogan was known for being long and very, very accurate. There are many stories of him hitting balls to his caddy on the driving range, and the caddy never having to move. I saw Nick Price practicing when he was the best golfer in the world, and he was hitting a 6-iron. His caddy hardly ever had to move either. It was one bounce and the caddy would catch the ball. If I hadn’t seen that display I would have not thought it was possible to be that good a ball striker.

Swing Atheistic

I like the look of Hogan’s swing. I want someone to see my swing and to say it looks similar to Hogan’s.

So that’s the swing characteristics I want to achieve by doing this Ben Hogan swing project. And as I have said, I have been doing this swing project for 2 months now. In that time I have been studying Ben Hogan’s setup, and implementing the changes into my own setup.

I am going to take videos throughout this entire process. Here is the video that I took of my swing before starting this project.

[media=]http://youtu.be/d7PJB-VgpAU[/media]

And here is my new Hogan-like setup, two months later.

[media=]http://youtu.be/PPtX4JQBl2E[/media]

What I’ve found interesting is that my swing has changed for the better since implementing these setup changes.

I have discovered a lot about Ben Hogan over the last two months, and the way he setup. You can see a lot of detail about this on my blog: http://www.HoganSwing.com.

The most interesting thing I’ve found, is that most of what Hogan says to do, he didn’t actually do himself. I will share more about that on here in another post sometime soon.

Anyway, that’s the reason why I’m trying to swing like Ben Hogan. The main reason is to keep playing golf.

After two months I’m ready to start working on changing my swing to be more like Ben Hogan. I’m looking forward to that. To finish, here’s some pictures of my new setup position compared with Ben Hogan’s.

Pretty interesting swing.. Good luck man

[quote name='tylerdurden' timestamp='1407256998' post='9862751']
Pretty interesting swing.. Good luck man
[/quote]

Thanks for that. I'm looking forward to trying to swing like Hogan. I've analyzed what he did to the 9 o'clock position and found some interesting things he did. It would certainly account for his amazing consistency I think. It's been an interesting project so far.

I like the music.

One thing that stands out immediately is that you stay in forward flexion forever unlike Ben Hogan.

[quote name='dairic' timestamp='1407289293' post='9866755']
I like the music.

One thing that stands out immediately is that you stay in forward flexion forever unlike Ben Hogan.
[/quote]

Do you have an example of that?

[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1407271026' post='9864611']
[quote name='tylerdurden' timestamp='1407256998' post='9862751']
Pretty interesting swing.. Good luck man
[/quote]

Thanks for that. I'm looking forward to trying to swing like Hogan. I've analyzed what he did to the 9 o'clock position and found some interesting things he did. It would certainly account for his amazing consistency I think. It's been an interesting project so far.
[/quote]

Real isn't feel. Throwing coins in a dry wishing well.

[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1407291692' post='9867081']
[quote name='dairic' timestamp='1407289293' post='9866755']
I like the music.

One thing that stands out immediately is that you stay in forward flexion forever unlike Ben Hogan.
[/quote]

Do you have an example of that?
[/quote]

Here's you vs BH. Notice how you still maintain forward bend well into the follow through while BH extends like a boss.

[attachment=2360865:BH project.jpg]

I like the music.

 

One thing that stands out immediately is that you stay in forward flexion forever unlike Ben Hogan.

 

Do you have an example of that?

 

Here's you vs BH. Notice how you still maintain forward bend well into the follow through while BH extends like a boss.

 

 

Oh, that's from the starting point swing. Even though I haven't started working on my swing yet, I thought it would be interesting if I have improved in that regard just from the setup changes I've made. It appears as though I have but still a lot of work to do.

Looks good hoganswing, keep it up!

What kind of ball flight are you getting? Are you consistently hitting the same type of shot regardless of the club?

[quote name='lonestar48' timestamp='1407353448' post='9872987']
Looks good hoganswing, keep it up!

What kind of ball flight are you getting? Are you consistently hitting the same type of shot regardless of the club?
[/quote]

Thanks for that. My ball flight now is higher than the starting point swing. In that starting point swing I was trying to hit a fade and to do it I was swinging down very steep and de-lofting the club quite a bit. Now my swing is more rounded I am sweeping the ball more and the ball is flying higher.

Throughout the last couple of months I've learned a lot from studying Hogan. And I thought I would share some of my discoveries. Now the first thing I quickly found out is what Ben Hogan said to do he often never did himself. I used to think Five Lessons was a book on how to swing like Ben Hogan but it's not. It might have been a book about what Ben thought he did or what he thinks the average golfer should do, but it's not a book on how to swing like him. Just 3 examples of this are:

1. Ben said in Five Lessons to have the right foot at a right angle to the target line. But Ben often had his right foot turned away from the target line a lot. I have noticed on shorter irons he had his right foot square to the target line but on longer clubs and woods he turned out his right foot AWAY from the target a lot.

2. Arms close together at address. Ben did not have his arms close together at address and his right arm was a long way from his body.

3. Ball position. Ben said in Five Lessons to have one ball position but he moved the ball position around depending on the shot he was trying to hit.

Anyway, when I started looking at trying to swing like Ben Hogan I started looking at his grip. And it’s no secret that Ben Hogan went from playing golf with a strong grip to playing with a weak grip. He did that to combat a hook problem, and it clearly helped a lot! And it’s probably because of that, Ben says in Five Lessons….

So what constitutes a good grip in Ben Hogan’s eyes?

Well, Ben Hogan used an overlapping Harry Vardon grip. In Five Lessons he goes into great detail about his grip. In fact, he talks about the grip for 19 pages! I’m not going to cover everything Mr. Hogan has said, you’ll need to read the Five Lessons book for that. But what I want to cover here is what Ben Hogan said he did and then look at what he actually did. First, here is a picture of Ben Hogan’s grip from the 1940′s before the car accident:

Now here is a picture of Ben’s grip after the car accident:

When you compare those two grips…

….it’s very clear that his grip after the car accident was a lot weaker than his grip before the crash.

In ‘Five Lessons’ Mr. Hogan said that the V of the left hand should point towards the right eye and the V of the right hand should point to the chin. If you look at the pre-crash grip, the V of the right hand points to about the right shoulder. And in the post crash grip the V of the right hand appears to point almost at the left shoulder. But in ‘Five Lessons’ Ben talks about the personal modifications he made to his grip. For example, he talks about shortening his left thumb and moving his left hand a good half inch to the left so the left hand was directly down the shaft. He then says that those adjustments were beneficial to him and he would advocate them for golfers that swing like him.

After looking at this I decided to use a neutral, Vardon grip. More like Ben’s pre car crash grip – because I don’t swing like him yet. When I do I may look at making modifications like he did if I find that I’m drawing/hooking the ball too much. And I think that’s wise advice for anyone following Hogan’s teachings. Start with a neutral, fundamentally sound grip and look to weaken it if you need to. But like Hogan says… those are personal adjustments.

BH didn't talk about his grip for 18 pages.

I've never read where Mr. H's accident precipitated a grip change. What month/year was the 40's grip pic taken?

[quote name='Jobu' timestamp='1407641637' post='9899063']
BH didn't talk about his grip for 18 pages.
[/quote]

In my version of Five Lessons, Lesson 1 on the grip starts on page 18 and goes to page 36.

[quote name='moehogan' timestamp='1407646211' post='9899401']
I've never read where Mr. H's accident precipitated a grip change. What month/year was the 40's grip pic taken?
[/quote]

I think that picture is from an old life magazine article. Not the 1955 one. It was from the early 40's sometime. It appears as though after the accident his grip got weaker and weaker. Particularly his right hand.

[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1407667838' post='9900011']
[quote name='moehogan' timestamp='1407646211' post='9899401']
I've never read where Mr. H's accident precipitated a grip change. What month/year was the 40's grip pic taken?
[/quote]

I think that picture is from an old life magazine article. Not the 1955 one. It was from the early 40's sometime. It appears as though after the accident his grip got weaker and weaker. Particularly his right hand.
[/quote]

Or maybe the grip started getting weaker after September 1947?

Maybe it changed, maybe not so much, I dont think that was his secret. Unless you count consistency as a "Secret".

Maybe it changed, maybe not so much, I dont think that was his secret. Unless you count consistency as a "Secret".

Or maybe the right hand change gave him the range of motion to apply it? Guess we'll never know for sure!

Maybe it changed, maybe not so much, I dont think that was his secret. Unless you count consistency as a "Secret".

 

Or maybe the right hand change gave him the range of motion to apply it? Guess we'll never know for sure!

 

I'm always mystified by those two pics.

Maybe not as mysterious as it seems, D ... what if the left left hand is working CCW, just like Mr. H said in 5L, while the right is working CW or under like Sam Snead guessed. If one uses the grip pressure points described in 5L (last 3 fingers of the left hand and the middle two fingers of the right) with firm pressure, the result is a very stable clubface. Mr. H spelled out how the left works, but, did he only give us a clue on the front cover of the dust jacket for the right?

Furthermore, when you throw the two handed basketball pass, the left hand helps guide but must eventually get out of the ball's way. The right must drive behind the ball but cannot rotate CCW with the left or the ball gets spun into the floor. Maybe he did explain it afterall. LOL.

Anyone got any front shots of the older hogans grip?

Throughout the last couple of months I've learned a lot from studying Hogan. And I thought I would share some of my discoveries. Now the first thing I quickly found out is what Ben Hogan said to do he often never did himself. I used to think Five Lessons was a book on how to swing like Ben Hogan but it's not. It might have been a book about what Ben thought he did or what he thinks the average golfer should do, but it's not a book on how to swing like him. Just 3 examples of this are:

 

1. Ben said in Five Lessons to have the right foot at a right angle to the target line. But Ben often had his right foot turned away from the target line a lot. I have noticed on shorter irons he had his right foot square to the target line but on longer clubs and woods he turned out his right foot AWAY from the target a lot.

 

2. Arms close together at address. Ben did not have his arms close together at address and his right arm was a long way from his body.

 

3. Ball position. Ben said in Five Lessons to have one ball position but he moved the ball position around depending on the shot he was trying to hit.

 

Anyway, when I started looking at trying to swing like Ben Hogan I started looking at his grip. And it’s no secret that Ben Hogan went from playing golf with a strong grip to playing with a weak grip. He did that to combat a hook problem, and it clearly helped a lot! And it’s probably because of that, Ben says in Five Lessons….

 

“Good Golf Begins With A Good Grip”

 

So what constitutes a good grip in Ben Hogan’s eyes?

 

Well, Ben Hogan used an overlapping Harry Vardon grip. In Five Lessons he goes into great detail about his grip. In fact, he talks about the grip for 18 pages! I’m not going to cover everything Mr. Hogan has said, you’ll need to read the Five Lessons book for that. But what I want to cover here is what Ben Hogan said he did and then look at what he actually did. First, here is a picture of Ben Hogan’s grip from the 1940′s before the car accident:

 

 

Now here is a picture of Ben’s grip after the car accident:

 

 

When you compare those two grips…

 

 

….it’s very clear that his grip after the car accident was a lot weaker than his grip before the crash.

 

In ‘Five Lessons’ Mr. Hogan said that the V of the left hand should point towards the right eye and the V of the right hand should point to the chin. If you look at the pre-crash grip, the V of the right hand points to about the right shoulder. And in the post crash grip the V of the right hand appears to point almost at the left shoulder. But in ‘Five Lessons’ Ben talks about the personal modifications he made to his grip. For example, he talks about shortening his left thumb and moving his left hand a good half inch to the left so the left hand was directly down the shaft. He then says that those adjustments were beneficial to him and he would advocate them for golfers that swing like him.

 

After looking at this I decided to use a neutral, Vardon grip. More like Ben’s pre car crash grip – because I don’t swing like him yet. When I do I may look at making modifications like he did if I find that I’m drawing/hooking the ball too much. And I think that’s wise advice for anyone following Hogan’s teachings. Start with a neutral, fundamentally sound grip and look to weaken it if you need to. But like Hogan says… those are personal adjustments.

I've seen other posters use the first picture to prove Hogan had a stronger pre secret grip but they always overlook a major detail.If you look at how open his clubface is,it has the same effect as weakening his grip.If the clubface was held square to the target line then his grip would look a lot weaker.

Throughout the last couple of months I've learned a lot from studying Hogan. And I thought I would share some of my discoveries. Now the first thing I quickly found out is what Ben Hogan said to do he often never did himself. I used to think Five Lessons was a book on how to swing like Ben Hogan but it's not. It might have been a book about what Ben thought he did or what he thinks the average golfer should do, but it's not a book on how to swing like him. Just 3 examples of this are:

 

1. Ben said in Five Lessons to have the right foot at a right angle to the target line. But Ben often had his right foot turned away from the target line a lot. I have noticed on shorter irons he had his right foot square to the target line but on longer clubs and woods he turned out his right foot AWAY from the target a lot.

 

2. Arms close together at address. Ben did not have his arms close together at address and his right arm was a long way from his body.

 

3. Ball position. Ben said in Five Lessons to have one ball position but he moved the ball position around depending on the shot he was trying to hit.

 

Anyway, when I started looking at trying to swing like Ben Hogan I started looking at his grip. And it’s no secret that Ben Hogan went from playing golf with a strong grip to playing with a weak grip. He did that to combat a hook problem, and it clearly helped a lot! And it’s probably because of that, Ben says in Five Lessons….

 

“Good Golf Begins With A Good Grip”

 

So what constitutes a good grip in Ben Hogan’s eyes?

 

Well, Ben Hogan used an overlapping Harry Vardon grip. In Five Lessons he goes into great detail about his grip. In fact, he talks about the grip for 18 pages! I’m not going to cover everything Mr. Hogan has said, you’ll need to read the Five Lessons book for that. But what I want to cover here is what Ben Hogan said he did and then look at what he actually did. First, here is a picture of Ben Hogan’s grip from the 1940′s before the car accident:

 

 

Now here is a picture of Ben’s grip after the car accident:

 

 

When you compare those two grips…

 

 

….it’s very clear that his grip after the car accident was a lot weaker than his grip before the crash.

 

In ‘Five Lessons’ Mr. Hogan said that the V of the left hand should point towards the right eye and the V of the right hand should point to the chin. If you look at the pre-crash grip, the V of the right hand points to about the right shoulder. And in the post crash grip the V of the right hand appears to point almost at the left shoulder. But in ‘Five Lessons’ Ben talks about the personal modifications he made to his grip. For example, he talks about shortening his left thumb and moving his left hand a good half inch to the left so the left hand was directly down the shaft. He then says that those adjustments were beneficial to him and he would advocate them for golfers that swing like him.

 

After looking at this I decided to use a neutral, Vardon grip. More like Ben’s pre car crash grip – because I don’t swing like him yet. When I do I may look at making modifications like he did if I find that I’m drawing/hooking the ball too much. And I think that’s wise advice for anyone following Hogan’s teachings. Start with a neutral, fundamentally sound grip and look to weaken it if you need to. But like Hogan says… those are personal adjustments.

 

I've seen other posters use the first picture to prove Hogan had a stronger pre secret grip but they always overlook a major detail.If you look at how open his clubface is,it has the same effect as weakening his grip.If the clubface was held square to the target line then his grip would look a lot weaker.

I just used that picture because that's the best closeup picture of his grip from that time that I could find. But I think it's accurate because In power golf he describes his grip and he says that he can see 3 knuckles on his left hand and the V points to his right shoulder.

I'm sure he probably did weaken his grip but my point is that picture is a bad example.Maybe pre secret Hogan used a strong grip and opened his clubface but then changed it to a weak grip with a square club face.They might be the same grip orientated differently at address but it can change the feel of the swing dramatically.

It would be good to see more pics of pre secret Hogan at address to confirm this.

[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1407654334' post='9899697']
[quote name='Jobu' timestamp='1407641637' post='9899063']
BH didn't talk about his grip for 18 pages.
[/quote]

In my version of Five Lessons, Lesson 1 on the grip starts on page 18 and goes to page 36.
[/quote]

that's 19 pages, and the original was an article in Sports Illustrated

[quote name='Jobu' timestamp='1407857638' post='9917119']
[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1407654334' post='9899697']
[quote name='Jobu' timestamp='1407641637' post='9899063']
BH didn't talk about his grip for 18 pages.
[/quote]

In my version of Five Lessons, Lesson 1 on the grip starts on page 18 and goes to page 36.
[/quote]

that's 19 pages, and the original was an article in Sports Illustrated
[/quote]

True! :-)

[quote name='dap' timestamp='1407839153' post='9915387']
I'm sure he probably did weaken his grip but my point is that picture is a bad example.Maybe pre secret Hogan used a strong grip and opened his clubface but then changed it to a weak grip with a square club face.They might be the same grip orientated differently at address but it can change the feel of the swing dramatically.

It would be good to see more pics of pre secret Hogan at address to confirm this.
[/quote]

It would be good to see more pics of Hogan from the 1940's but I can't find any good one's of his grip apart from that one I posted. I think you may be right though about having a strong grip and an open clubface at address though then changing the grip and having a square clubface. He obviously tried a lot of things to fix the hook problem.

great thread it'll be fun to follow this!

After looking at Ben Hogan's grip I turned my attention to how he setup with his feet. And when you look at the placement of Ben Hogan’s feet at setup, there is a heck of a lot going on. There’s five main elements that I looked at. They were:

1. Feet positioning

2. Weight distribution

3. Ball Position

4. Alignment

5. Feet width

Ok, let’s look at the first one on the list, which is feet positioning.

In ‘five lessons’ Ben Hogan said that the back foot should be at right angles to the flight and the left foot should be turned out a quarter of a turn to the left. Here is a picture showing what Hogan was talking about:

So that’s pretty clear and easy, but did Hogan actually setup like that? Well, here’s some pictures showing his feet positioning throughout his career:

Now it’s very clear to me that he did not have his back foot square. So I put one of these setup pictures in cSwing (my swing analysis software) to see exactly how much his right foot was turned out. Here are the results:

So his right foot was turned out quite a lot AND his left foot was turned out more than a quarter of a turn (22.5 degrees). I then did this analysis on a lot more setups and the picture above is very accurate to how he setup with his feet throughout his career, whether it was pre or post car crash.

Up until this point in this project I was practicing setting up with my right foot at a right angle and my left foot turned out a quarter turn. But having seen this I am going to relax a bit on the right foot and let it be turned out a bit. This will help with a bigger turn on the backswing.

Ok, let’s now look at weight distribution. Hogan appears to have his weight evenly distributed at address. Although by kicking his right knee in it looks like he has weight on the inside of his right foot at setup.

In ‘five lessons’ he says “Your weight should be a bit more on the heels than on the balls of the your feet, so that, if you wanted to, you would be able to lift your toes inside your shoes.” When you look at him setup from down the line it appears as though that’s where he has his weight distributed. It certainly doesn’t look like it’s on the balls of his feet.

All right, let’s now turn our attention to ball position. In ‘five lessons’ there was the following chart showing where you should position the ball and move your right foot, depending on the club. I will get to feet width in a minute, but first let’s look at the ball position:

In ‘five lessons’ Hogan says this about ball position: “I spot it a half to an inch inside the left heel, toward the right foot”. Ben advocates having one ball position and then simply moving the right foot depending on the club being used. Now did Ben Hogan position the ball where he said he did, or not? Here’s a number of photo’s of him at setup so we can see:

It’s clear that Ben Hogan moved his ball position around quite a bit depending on the shot he wanted to hit. But from swing videos it appears that the older he got, the more back in his stance he put it. His ball position seemed to range from inside the left heel to the middle of his stance. I am going to practice one ball position like Hogan advocates in ‘five lessons’. In fact, I have created a ball position chart, like above, with a piece of vinyl. I have one ball position and I simply move my right foot around depending on what club I’m using. It seemed that Ben erred on the side of having the ball further back in his stance, so that’s what I will do too.

Next up we’re going to look at feet alignment. Above we have the diagram from ‘five lessons’ in which Ben teaches to have a closed stance for driver and long irons, a square stance for mid irons, and then an open stance for short irons. I have seen Ben setting up like that. For example….

Driver (Closed Stance)

Mid Iron (Square Stance)

Wedge (Open Stance)

Having said that, I have seen wedge shots from Hogan where it appears as though he has a closed stance. And it appears from a lot of different swing that he tended to have a closed stance more than an open one.

Ok, let’s now look at feet width. In ‘five lessons’ Hogan said to setup with a 5-iron so that your feet are shoulder width apart. Here is a picture showing his setup with what looks like a 5 iron.

Then he said with clubs longer than that your feet get progressively wider, and for shorter clubs than that your feet get progressively closer together. It’s universally considered that Hogan had a wide stance. But was it as wide as he said? Let’s look at the driver to see if he had his feet wider than what he said for his 5 iron:

In 3 out of four of those setups he had his feet wider than shoulder width apart. About an inch to two inches wider. In the last picture from 1965 his feet were about shoulder width apart. So he might have narrowed his stance as he got older. But it’s clear that what he said in ‘five lessons’ in terms of stance width, for the most part, is what he thought was best and what he tried to do. Again however, there are shots where it looks like his stance is narrower than what he said you should do. But what he said you should do and what he did where often different.

Why is that?

I think a lot of this comes down to the shot Ben was trying to hit. Take alignment for example. If he was trying to hit a knock down draw wedge, then he would change the alignment of his feet. The same is true as far as ball position is concerned. If he wanted to hit a shot lower he would put the ball back in the stance.

Anyway, that’s my take on Ben Hogan’s feet positioning. As I said at the beginning of this post… there’s a lot going on with Ben Hogan’s feet placement and positioning!

I'm sorry but I can't get behind some of this analysis. I am no Hogan expert, but for example...you go into great detail about how wide is feet are above. But...I would suggest that most of us, Hogan included, may reference stance width while standing tall, before the slight narrowing of shoulder width due to addressing ball. Five iron example...