Interesting story......thought i would share....

I've been playin golf for almost a year now and its been a tough ride i tell ya. what to choose and what not to choose.....who's book to follow, who to listen to, who not to listen to......yadda yadda yadda.....one interesting thing is i was told last year to buy Hogan's five lessons book.....so i called my uncle up on Florida and checked with him before i read it and it confused me even more.....i asked him if this is a good book for a beginner to read and he answered said its probably the best golf book written.....very short but straight to the point.....i asked him if he could look at any yard sales (because he's 80 and retired and does these kinda things now) and he said he would look.....and when i got home the other day and checked the mail box there was a package in the mail from him.....he had went to the local library and copied the whole book for me....he said i underlined some things that may help you with your golf game, he said take this book and study it hard, he said it will help your golf game like it did mine 30 years ago.....he closed by saying golf is a fun game, he said once you learn to hit the ball far and straight this game will become a lot more fun.....

has anyone been successful from this book????

Uhm, yes, but he just broke any copyright laws by copying the book! Nice gesture though

If you have an iPad or iPhone, theres a very slick app for Hogans Five Lessons that I believe is about $4.99 and is interactive.

[quote name='outlaw1984' timestamp='1348239581' post='5673541']
I've been playin golf for almost a year now and its been a tough ride i tell ya. what to choose and what not to choose.....who's book to follow, who to listen to, who not to listen to......yadda yadda yadda.....one interesting thing is i was told last year to buy Hogan's five lessons book.....so i called my uncle up on Florida and checked with him before i read it and it confused me even more.....i asked him if this is a good book for a beginner to read and he answered said its probably the best golf book written.....very short but straight to the point.....i asked him if he could look at any yard sales (because he's 80 and retired and does these kinda things now) and he said he would look.....and when i got home the other day and checked the mail box there was a package in the mail from him.....he had went to the local library and copied the whole book for me....he said i underlined some things that may help you with your golf game, he said take this book and study it hard, he said it will help your golf game like it did mine 30 years ago.....he closed by saying golf is a fun game, he said once you learn to hit the ball far and straight this game will become a lot more fun.....

has anyone been successful from this book????
[/quote]

The book is undeniably a work of art, but success depends on how much work you put into it. Incidentally, I read 5 Lessons when I first started and most of it went completely over my head. After reading hundreds of other books, I came back to it with a much diff perspective and that point a lot of what I read was just confirming what I'd found in the other sources - it was all there all along. If you accept the fact that you will fail a ton before you finally succeed, and that "success" is a relative term, you'll be fine. It's mostly an exercise in patience.

One other tip, people will try and put down your efforts - be your own council and you'll be fine.

well i bought the book before he sent it to me from amazon

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-VZWLZnrc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-VZWLZnrc[/url]

I've hav absolutely no success from the 5lessons book.

[quote name='Ben Hogan Swing Project' timestamp='1348247240' post='5674199']
I've hav absolutely no success from the 5lessons book.
[/quote]

blasphemy!

That d*mn book has haunted me since i read my father's copy in the 1960's.
I still have that copy, I don't open it very often but it is always there taunting me.
I didn't understand it then and I can't do it now.
It is probably the most evil thing ever published about golf.

The book is truly amazing. It has SO MUCH good information it's deadly. It's one of those things you HAVE to read it more than once or twice. I would say about 20-30x over the course of about several years. When you can recite/summarize sections, you're making headway. When you can put them into motion WITHOUT thought, that's even better. When you KNOW the specific keys that HAS to be done EACH and EVERY swing, that's the 'secret'.

[quote name='Ben Hogan Swing Project' timestamp='1348247240' post='5674199']
I've hav absolutely no success from the 5lessons book.
[/quote]

Lol

[quote name='JBOMB808' timestamp='1348259514' post='5675141']
The book is truly amazing. It has SO MUCH good information it's deadly. It's one of those things you HAVE to read it more than once or twice. I would say about 20-30x over the course of about several years. When you can recite/summarize sections, you're making headway. When you can put them into motion WITHOUT thought, that's even better. When you KNOW the specific keys that HAS to be done EACH and EVERY swing, that's the 'secret'.
[/quote]

You have to do ALL of what's in there. Otherwise you'll end up worse in trying to get his dynamics.

Find your own swing and just use 5L as a guide or intro. All these guys chasing Hogans swing and the infamous secret crack me up.

p.s. If you think 5L is a tough read, try The Golfing Machine. Makes 5L look like a Sesame St book.

[u]5 Lesson---a GREAT work but possibly misleading/incomplete[/u]

5 Lessons is probably the single best work on the golf swing ever written, but it is not perfect....based on my own experiences and my work with Geoff Jones, these are where I think the "confusing/questionable" parts are:

1. Hogan's grip discussion---Geoff Jones (aka Slicefixer) thinks Hogan's grip was actually stronger than he claimed....he thinks that Hogan set up with the club fairly "high" and that this causes the appearance of it to be misleadingly weak....ALSO Hogan makes clear, that his "weak" grip (if indeed it was) is an idiosyncracy....and not a true fundamental....most teachers today advocate more of a "fingers-based" grip rather than the "palm and fingers" grip that Hogan portrays

2. Hogan's discussion of him "pressing the forearms together"....again Geoff thinks, based on footage, that Hogan may have thought he was doing this, but he really was not....a case of "feel-- not being real"

3. Hogan discussion of supination/pronation....this has confused many, many players....Geoff thinks that this is unnecessary/unwise to think about on the forward swing

4. Hogan's "advocacy" of strong left hip rotation....most everyone forgets the CAVEAT that Hogan wrote,....when he said that some slight lateral move at the start of the downswing, before one gets to the left-hand pivot/rotation point....when the left hip/ankle/knee align, is needed

5. Hogan's advocacy of a particular "waggle" movement---again, this is something Hogan liked, but is not a true fundamental

.............................Given these shortcomings...why then is 5 Lessons valuable?!

1. emphasis on swing being a "chain reaction"....with the club head responding passively to the stored/manufactured torque produced by the body's large muscles
2. great discussion of arms vs. shoulders vs. hips rotation, and their relative magnitudes and proper sequence in the backswing---esp. the diagrams in the early chapters with the "from above" cross-sectional diagrams
3. emphasis on letting body and club "swing freely" and automatically on forward swing...once proper angles/torque have been created
4. VERY interesting discussion on assorted set-up aspects....e.g. playing from "inside muscles" of legs...discusssion of foot angles relative to line of flight as the "governors" of the golf swing...



MAKE no mistake....the modern rotational golf swing that is esp. prevalent in European golfers....is the direct theoretical/practical descendent of most of what Hogan talked about....look at Lee Westwood, Nicholas Colsaerts, Graeme McDowell, the Molinari brothers, Anders Hansen, Hunter Mahan, Van Pelt, Steve Stricker, etc. are highly "rotational",large-muscle body-dominated golf swings...and Hogan is the godfather, IMHO, of this type of swing

PS:: Save this post, and print it out later....because the minutiae of swing theory/setup, etc. only becomes understandable/relevant once you get a bit into the process/journey.....even Hogan said it would take 6 mos. minimum to master, on an elementary level, what he talked about....in my opinion, most people who have not been helped by it....swing off a different model--which is fine---more than one way to skin a cat as they say, or they fail how to learn/practice/implement intricate athletic movements....which in my opinion require time, patience, a LOT of repetition, good checkposts/feedback and correction along the way----this is where most people fall by the wayside....

Oh c'mon...so you think Hogan is not intelligent enough to notice the difference in what he said, what he wrote, and what he did? I find it actually unbelievable that people say Hogan is wrong re his own swing...

1. He truly had a weak grip, its just that he fully unc0cks his L wrist at setup (makes it relatively higher) and has a mid-body hands position (makes it relatively looking strong). Even then, he has a relatively low hands relative to the club.

2. His elbows are really close to each other from mid-way in the BS. If you have tumors in your armpits, what would you do? If you look at an angle right in front of his shoulder line at the top of the BS, his elbows are as close as anyone in the game, especially in transition (when pivot engages).

3. He truly rolled that L wrist. He pronated in BS, as can be seen by his L elbow swivel and his layoff move in transition. His supination you can see his L elbow starting to swivel when his hands gets in front of the ball. In follow-thru you can see his L elbow still in front of him but his R forearm is already up pointing towards the sky. If you relate this to his pivot that makes his hands travel higher, hence his high hands finish, you'll understand. This tailbone release is his unique extension that many cannot emulate. This prevents the hands from turning over fast, it turns over very slowly, in fact it makes the hands to reverse-rotate. So he has to supinate.

4. There are many ways to turn the hips. He said turn the hips, but make sure there is enough lateral. So primary is turn, secondary/by-product should be the lateral. He said this act must transfer the weight from R to L foot. He doesn't need to align the L hip and ankle first because he has that counter-fall going on from P3 onwards. He has a lot more discussion in 5L re hip turn. He also said AFTER the turning of the hips in transition, this should get the belt buckle in line with the ball. After, not before. He also said that his hips are always leading and becomes square to the target at impact.

5. Waggle not a fundamental? He has so many pages discussing it. Heck, it is his whole swing. The only difference is that you turn the shoulders in an actual swing thus increasing the arc of the swing. He said this. These are not my words.

I have so much respect for Geoff/Slice and his teachings. But I am so in disagreement in Hogan not doing what he said, or in people saying Hogan didn't know what's happening in his own swing. Just typing that makes me cringe...lol

[quote name='hogangolf101' timestamp='1348373075' post='5680275']
Oh c'mon...so you think Hogan is not intelligent enough to notice the difference in what he said, what he wrote, and what he did? I find it actually unbelievable that people say Hogan is wrong re his own swing...

1. He truly had a weak grip, its just that he fully unc0cks his L wrist at setup (makes it relatively higher) and has a mid-body hands position (makes it relatively looking strong). Even then, he has a relatively low hands relative to the club.

2. His elbows are really close to each other from mid-way in the BS. If you have tumors in your armpits, what would you do? If you look at an angle right in front of his shoulder line at the top of the BS, his elbows are as close as anyone in the game, especially in transition (when pivot engages).

3. He truly rolled that L wrist. He pronated in BS, as can be seen by his L elbow swivel and his layoff move in transition. His supination you can see his L elbow starting to swivel when his hands gets in front of the ball. In follow-thru you can see his L elbow still in front of him but his R forearm is already up pointing towards the sky. If you relate this to his pivot that makes his hands travel higher, hence his high hands finish, you'll understand. This tailbone release is his unique extension that many cannot emulate. This prevents the hands from turning over fast, it turns over very slowly, in fact it makes the hands to reverse-rotate. So he has to supinate.

4. There are many ways to turn the hips. He said turn the hips, but make sure there is enough lateral. So primary is turn, secondary/by-product should be the lateral. He said this act must transfer the weight from R to L foot. He doesn't need to align the L hip and ankle first because he has that counter-fall going on from P3 onwards. He has a lot more discussion in 5L re hip turn. He also said AFTER the turning of the hips in transition, this should get the belt buckle in line with the ball. After, not before. He also said that his hips are always leading and becomes square to the target at impact.

5. Waggle not a fundamental? He has so many pages discussing it. Heck, it is his whole swing. The only difference is that you turn the shoulders in an actual swing thus increasing the arc of the swing. He said this. These are not my words.

I have so much respect for Geoff/Slice and his teachings. But I am so in disagreement in Hogan not doing what he said, or in people saying Hogan didn't know what's happening in his own swing. Just typing that makes me cringe...lol
[/quote]

I think you're missing the point of my response. Any instructional book is about making OTHER people into better/more successful golfers. In that sense I would call a "fundamental" something that is essential to playing golf well. In that sense, neither a "Hogan waggle" nor Hogan's pronation/supination is essential for successful golf---I think Hogan's words are that "a true fundamental is something every good golfer does...and if he does not, then he is not likely to be a likely to be a good golfer" or words to that effect. There are tons of good rotational swingers with stronger grips, no Hogan waggle, and no Hogan supination/pronation going on...hard to say, at least to my thinking, that these are truly fundamental, then.

As far as keeping the elbows in...I think, if I'm not mistaken that he talks about this when discussing setup...his swing, to my eye, does not show the degree of connectedness that he talks about in the book...still VERY connected but not quite in the way he mentions it.

Finally, re: hip rotation and lateral drive, I think we are actually in agreement. ( I would note that Hogan's recommendation for a broad stance---shoulder width or greater, will probably induce undesirable lateral "downdrive" in a lot of readers/followers of [u]5L. )[/u] Some of my other posts discuss why I think this is the case.

I am fascinated, and awed, by Hogan as a golfer and competitor, and someone who fought his way back after his body---but not his spirit---had been broken. But I don't think we need to make him into a superhuman being to appreciate his legacy as an instructor. He himself said that video would have helped him win even more tmts.---I think he was really talking about the "feel---not real" problem that is part of golf. I also think he was genuinely surprised by the runaway success of [u]5L[/u]--the greatest selling golf instructional book ever written--far surpassing Vardon's, Jones', and Byron Nelson's instructional efforts. He later admitted in an interview that the discussion of his "lefthandedness" was more or less a tall tale. Would it be exactly the same had he known how popular it would be?!...yes, he said in later editions that it wouldn't change much....but he also said it could not be considered the LAST word on golf instruction or golf insight....in some ways, Hogan is a kind of a mystic--a real life Shivas Irons who I think was maybe more concerned with the quest for mastery than in the actual result.....he said that the greatest satisfaction was in the hard work itself....I think he had achieved true "peace of mind" when he semi-retired...because in the words of John Wooden, another hero of mine, he had achieved the "peace of mind....that comes from knowing that one has worked, with all his effort and commitment, to be the best that one can be..." (the quotation from Wooden is not exact...but the overall sense is accurate).

Every Golf legend waggles the club.

In Hogan, that is exactly how he swings the club. That clearly is a fundamental.

Every Golf legend approaches impact with their L wrist in supinating, not pronating manner. You will see it at impact neither supinating or pronating, but that is just part of his swing. If you roll during the whole swing, and that roll of yours is long, say 6 feet long, the 1 foot of impact the roll would look like there's no rolling at all. Beginners are like rolling the whole swing for like 2 feet. No wonder they hate rolling.

Hogan actually doesn't lose his R armpit connection, points his R elbow down at all stages of the swing, and his L arm remains connected to his chest/armpit. That looks like he's keeping the elbows close. What you see in videos are his pre-shot routines and waggling wherein he has kinked/soft elbows/arms. But right before he takes it away or forward presses, he straightens his L arm and the elbows get closer. Take a look again.

If Hogan adopted a narrow instead of relatively wide stance, by the time his counterfall ends his tailbone would be so forward of his L foot he will have to have axis tilt of 45 degrees just to maintain balance, let alone hit the ball decently.

I'd say his 8 fundamentals are indeed fundamentals for accuracy and distance. Accuracy AND distance.

All IMHO, of course.

Great discussion gents. Not to sidetrack, but have any of you checked out the 5L iPad app. I was thinking of getting it but unsure if its worth the $4.99

[quote name='Swisstrader98' timestamp='1348435544' post='5682257']
Great discussion gents. Not to sidetrack, but have any of you checked out the 5L iPad app. I was thinking of getting it but unsure if its worth the $4.99
[/quote]

Own the 5 Lessons iPad app & love it; it's a smart excerpting of the original text & illustrations plus some new 3D images, well worth the $5.

Hate to sound like an old fart....but generally much prefer looking at decent quality hard-copy , i.e. paper, rather than a video screen. Look around at 2nd hand booksellers---I think Amazon has a link to them....w/ so many copies of [u]5L[/u] being sold over the years, this is probably the easiest golf book to find for little dinero...I think I paid $4.95 for a decent quality 2nd hand edition...Also, the word "excerpt" makes me nervous. As mentioned, the work itself is cryptic in places. In short, it's not the kind of book one refers to quickly and says "Aha...NOW I got it." Rather, you look at it...ponder it...think about your own setup/swing...maybe video them....figure out how they compare and then figure out where to go from there.

Now,if someone would put together an electronic version that maybe had Hogan swing footage integrated into it....THAT would be a worthwhile use/exploitation of a new medium.

(Course I prefer listening to my old, but still good, vinyl copy of Coltrane's "My Favorite Things", racking it up on my good quality turntable and stereo...blasting it and then inviting the young uns' into listen to something that is NOT MP3-based....I love the expression on their face when they hear real sound quality---not the electronically truncated drek that they've been habituated to in today's world.)

[quote name='goldenwave77' timestamp='1348490016' post='5684455']
Hate to sound like an old fart....but generally much prefer looking at decent quality hard-copy , i.e. paper, rather than a video screen. Look around at 2nd hand booksellers---I think Amazon has a link to them....w/ so many copies of [u]5L[/u] being sold over the years, this is probably the easiest golf book to find for little dinero...I think I paid $4.95 for a decent quality 2nd hand edition...Also, the word "excerpt" makes me nervous. As mentioned, the work itself is cryptic in places. In short, it's not the kind of book one refers to quickly and says "Aha...NOW I got it." Rather, you look at it...ponder it...think about your own setup/swing...maybe video them....figure out how they compare and then figure out where to go from there.

Now,if someone would put together an electronic version that maybe had Hogan swing footage integrated into it....THAT would be a worthwhile use/exploitation of a new medium.

(Course I prefer listening to my old, but still good, vinyl copy of Coltrane's "My Favorite Things", racking it up on my good quality turntable and stereo...blasting it and then inviting the young uns' into listen to something that is NOT MP3-based....I love the expression on their face when they hear real sound quality---not the electronically truncated drek that they've been habituated to in today's world.)
[/quote]

I agree; should've been clearer in my earlier post that my recommendation of the 5L iPad app is as an addition to, not instead of, hard copy.