What did Ben Hogan mean when he said.....

[moefan]

Ben Hogan said many things that might be understood in different ways. I won't list them all off but I will start off by asking what does he mean by using the inside muscles to swing a golf club. How does one isolate and activate only those muscles.

 

moefan

[alansmithdc]

His comment was too use the muscles that stretch along the inside. Verses, use the muscles that contract along the inside. Very different muscle actions depending on which action (stretch or contract) you are using.

[moefan]

Thanks for your response. I was thinking that all muscles have to contract to move us in any direction. What about his comment that the secret is easy to see if I told you where to look.

 

moefan

[moehogan]

 

 

[moefan]

Now that looks very interesting! I have noticed that in other players too. I don't know how it's done.

 

moefan

[moehogan]

> @moefan said:

> Now that looks very interesting! I have noticed that in other players too. I don't know how it's done.

>

> moefan

 

Maintain some of the DS right arm clockwise winding (torque) through impact. It’s motivated by the grip pressures of the two middle fingers of the right hand.

 

 

[moefan]

Yes I think that's right. I will try this next practice session. Goes well with some other things I'm working on.

 

moefan

[moefan]

Ben Hogan said " The Secret is in the dirt". Many have said this means driving range practice. I would like to hear other ideas.

 

moefan

[WinKiePie]

I think he meant for anyone who wants to get better to go practice their butts off like he does. I don't think it actually has anything to do with his secret. Some might say it has something to do with how he digs his right foot into the ground hence the extra spike in his right golf shoes. But to me the extra spike simply was to assist the thing that his right foot does automatically in his downswing as a result of his real secret. My two cents.

And he likes to say things that are true, in a sense that it is part of what he does but he does so in a way that it is near impossible to actually know what he is doing. For example, he tells us that he fans the face open in his backswing.... not true at all. He takes the club back with the face looking at the ball just like any good golfer does. Why does he say he do that? I think it is true that he "feels" like he is doing that but why does it not look like that on camera? This is why I love to study Mr.Hogan. He is truly an enigma.

[LYG]

An example of the confusion about some of what he said (versus what he did).

The "inside" muscles of the original poster, great answer by more fan.

Hogan showed the image (in Five Lessons) of his arms wrapped in rope. He did, in fact, wrap a belt around his arms at practice at times...I knew a contemporary who played the tour with Mr. Hogan, got some swing help.

But (post accident) his arms were a bit "looser" at address, especially his left one. Go watch some video, see what I mean.

[double_d]

He was intentionally vague. He was like that.

I know this won't be a popular opinion but, based on books I read about him, I think he was kind of a jerk, to put it mildly.

Basically, anyone who couldn't stand Arnold Palmer, immediately becomes suspect to me.

[moehogan]

Hogan was a searcher, an experimenter, a tinkerer ... a relentless perfectionist who was determined to get it right. He was constantly looking to improve, even after finding "the secret" that finally cured his hook and gave him much greater consistency.

So outworking everyone else was keeping sharp what he had already discovered while also finding the new edge. He admitted that he never achieved perfection, but claimed that he came pretty close.

[nitram]

Some folks think Tom Brady is a jerk, along with Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers.

Same was said about Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, and Reggie Jackson.

Ditto for Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Larry Bird.

Same theme for any mainstream sport you choose. Those who work their as$ off to become the best at their craft can become a little short with others.They tend to not suffer nor tolerate rudeness and/or inattention very well, if at all. Some of this is because they are all shielding themselves from the general public. A self-defense mechanism, if you will.

The reason I mention these 9 individuals is I have met them all and they were the furthest thing from being a jerk. In fact, all nine were cordial and spent more than there allotted time.

Also, the man who taught me to golf caddied for Hogan on occasion and attended his funeral service.He told me several stories about him and said the only time he saw him terse with anyone was when he thought you were'nt paying attention to what he was saying. I can totally relate to that.

 

 

[double_d]

He never called Arnold Palmer by his first name. He called him either "Fella" or "Palmer".

He took an immediate dislike to Palmer and Palmer said he never knew why.

This wasn't a matter of Hogan being gruff with regular people or autograph hounds

He was a bully to his fellow pros. He bullied Sam Snead.

There are those who got along with him and were even close to him. Ken Venturi, Jimmy Demaret, etc... but, he was a hard man.

[dlygrisse]

Maybe Hogan knew something about Arnie, that the general public didn't know...…..Arnie probably handled the general public and fans better than any athlete in history, but he had some skeletons.

[double_d]

I don't discount that possibility but, why was he the way he was with everyone else?

[Nels55]

I think that Arnold failed the test with Hogan. Hogan liked to stick the needle in and if the needled person gave it back then Hogan like him. I can't find a reference on the net to the Venturi story but basically Venturi had been told that Hogan would give him some s and to respond back the same way. During the round in question Hogan told Venturi that his clubs were crap and Venturi responded with something about being on military pay and so on, wish I could remember exactly. Anyway Hogan liked him for that and built Venturi a new set of Hogan clubs.

So, the Palmer / Hogan story that I am thinking of was a practice round where Hogan did not talk to Palmer and then after round took separate table with his partner and asked out loud how Palmer got into the Masters. Instead of giving it back to Hogan Palmer got upset which is probably what most people would do. Anyway my guess is that Hogan had no use for Palmer after that.

That is my theory on what happened based on what I have read about the two of them. LOL I think that it could be correct or at least somewhat correct?

[moehogan]

I think Hogan resented all the attention that Arnie was getting when he first hit the scene. Hogan had accomplished so much and here comes Palmer, the new guy on the block, and everyone is fawning all over him. Look at the record Jack had to amass to eventually siphon off some of the fan focus from Palmer.

Arnie magically had the aura of a "made for TV" hero!

[moefan]

It has been reported that Ben Hogan walked by Moe Norman one day when Moe was practicing. Ben was heard to remark "Just keep hitting those accidents." What could that mean?

[moehogan]

Hogan said any straight shot was an accident. Pipeline Moe!

[moefan]

What did he mean when he said "the faster I swing the straighter it goes"?

moefan

[chipa]

@moefan I read Hogans book like many and have tried a lot of different swings over the years and now I agree that the inside muscles of the arms are the most important, especially the left thumb and the muscles connected to it that run up the inside of the left arm. When the club is gripped correctly with the left hand/arm pronation at some point in the backswing the extended thumb can connect firmly(in a good sense) with the right hand as long as there is a good weight shift and enable one to hit very hard with the right hand. It also seems like it's difficult to hit it left. Maybe that's what Hogan was referring to when he said "the harder I hit it the straighter it goes".

[moefan]

I think he was referring to using his hip rotation(core) to power the swing. It's the swinging a weight on a string idea. The faster you spin it the straighter it goes.

 

moefan