My New Project To Swing Like Ben Hogan

[hoganswing]

[quote name='barriec' timestamp='1408162830' post='9945493']
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...
[/quote]

Sorry, I don't understand your point. Are you saying he didn't stand with his feet shoulder width apart with a 5 iron like it shows in the picture?

[barriec]

The picture the way the lines are drawn appears to illustrate Hogan's feet wider than shoulder width.

[hoganswing]

The picture the way the lines are drawn appears to illustrate Hogan's feet wider than shoulder width.

 

Are you talking about this picture?

 

[tembolo1284]

He most def had a wide stance.

[tembolo1284]

Holy cow that hoganswing.com is an awesome website!

[hoganswing]

[quote name='tembolo1284' timestamp='1408451401' post='9963835']
Holy cow that hoganswing.com is an awesome website!
[/quote]

Glad you like it. :-) It's taking some time to do all of this but it's been fun so far.

[hoganswing]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

[moehogan]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

 

April 1947 ... thus, pre-crash, but more importantly, pre-secret. The crash didn't fix his hook, rather Mr. H found his "secret" in September 1947, not 1946 as often reported.

[hoganswing]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

 

April 1947 ... thus, pre-crash, but more importantly, pre-secret. The crash didn't fix his hook, rather Mr. H found his "secret" in September 1947, not 1946 as often reported.

 

Was that when he left the tour because of the hook? And pre-secret, you're talking about the weak left hand grip and the cupping of the left wrist, right? :-)

[moehogan]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

 

April 1947 ... thus, pre-crash, but more importantly, pre-secret. The crash didn't fix his hook, rather Mr. H found his "secret" in September 1947, not 1946 as often reported.

 

Was that when he left the tour because of the hook? And pre-secret, you're talking about the weak left hand grip and the cupping of the left wrist, right? :-)

 

3:18-5:13

 

[hoganswing]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

 

April 1947 ... thus, pre-crash, but more importantly, pre-secret. The crash didn't fix his hook, rather Mr. H found his "secret" in September 1947, not 1946 as often reported.

 

Was that when he left the tour because of the hook? And pre-secret, you're talking about the weak left hand grip and the cupping of the left wrist, right? :-)

 

3:18-5:13

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Do you know where that swing video is from at 4:10?

[moehogan]

I was just looking at some old swing video of Hogan and he had a pretty long swing! Not quite as long as John Daly but not that far off.

 

 

I know that video was shot at Augusta and was pre-crash. Anyone know what year that was taken?

 

April 1947 ... thus, pre-crash, but more importantly, pre-secret. The crash didn't fix his hook, rather Mr. H found his "secret" in September 1947, not 1946 as often reported.

 

Was that when he left the tour because of the hook? And pre-secret, you're talking about the weak left hand grip and the cupping of the left wrist, right? :-)

 

3:18-5:13

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Do you know where that swing video is from at 4:10?

 

Not sure. Could be from 1965 Shell Match with Snead ... golf bag and head covers might be a match.

[tembolo1284]

Dude was crazy flexible pre crash. My goodness! Love watching him smash the ball!

[hoganswing]

Maybe. They implied that it was the time he went from the tour and found the secret. But his swing was way different than that picture I posted with the long backswing.

[hoganswing]

[quote name='hoganswing' timestamp='1408674585' post='9984375']
Maybe. They implied that it was the time he went from the tour and found the secret. But his swing was way different than that picture I posted with the long backswing.
[/quote]

Note: that was in reply to the 1965 comment.

[MMB1500]

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xVjT5dAS98

[Jobu]

[quote name='Eagle006' timestamp='1408709739' post='9985699']
Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xVjT5dAS98[/media]
[/quote]

Shrug, If you actually pay attention to his old swings, he didn't change much, except for the fact that all he had to do was record his good swings. The only resemblance to Hogan is the hat and jacked up trousers.

[hoganswing]

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

 

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Thanks for that. It certainly is taking a bit of time, patience and dedication! And I have seen that guy. I didn't see his swing evolve or change much however. I tried to look to find out what he did to change his swing but couldn't find anything.

 

Now I do see some similar things to Hogan but I imagine if you critiqued his swing with the type of analysis I'm doing you would find many, many things that are not the same as Hogan. Currently I'm looking at what Hogan did until the 9 o'clock position in his swing so I looked at that guy's swing compared with Hogan. Here is a picture of that:

 

 

As you can see, that guy has a swing plane that is too flat and his shoulder plane is too flat. I have found out that Hogan's shoulder plane is always about 30 degrees with every club in the bag. Maybe that was his secret. :-) Also, his shaft plane was always at the ball or slightly on the inside with every club in the bag.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of what that guy doing is doing. I see the marketing in what he's putting out and the selling of stuff and the funny terms for certain positions and it raises a number of questions with me. I have also read his book and was hoping to find some step-by-step stuff but ended up being very disappointed. But that's ok, that's a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)

[MMB1500]

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

 

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Thanks for that. It certainly is taking a bit of time, patience and dedication! And I have seen that guy. I didn't see his swing evolve or change much however. I tried to look to find out what he did to change his swing but couldn't find anything.

 

Now I do see some similar things to Hogan but I imagine if you critiqued his swing with the type of analysis I'm doing you would find many, many things that are not the same as Hogan. Currently I'm looking at what Hogan did until the 9 o'clock position in his swing so I looked at that guy's swing compared with Hogan. Here is a picture of that:

 

 

As you can see, that guy has a swing plane that is too flat and his shoulder plane is too flat. I have found out that Hogan's shoulder plane is always about 30 degrees with every club in the bag. Maybe that was his secret. :-) Also, his shaft plane was always at the ball or slightly on the inside with every club in the bag.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of what that guy doing is doing. I see the marketing in what he's putting out and the selling of stuff and the funny terms for certain positions and it raises a number of questions with me. I have also read his book and was hoping to find some step-by-step stuff but ended up being very disappointed. But that's ok, that's a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)

 

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

 

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Thanks for that. It certainly is taking a bit of time, patience and dedication! And I have seen that guy. I didn't see his swing evolve or change much however. I tried to look to find out what he did to change his swing but couldn't find anything.

 

Now I do see some similar things to Hogan but I imagine if you critiqued his swing with the type of analysis I'm doing you would find many, many things that are not the same as Hogan. Currently I'm looking at what Hogan did until the 9 o'clock position in his swing so I looked at that guy's swing compared with Hogan. Here is a picture of that:

 

 

As you can see, that guy has a swing plane that is too flat and his shoulder plane is too flat. I have found out that Hogan's shoulder plane is always about 30 degrees with every club in the bag. Maybe that was his secret. :-) Also, his shaft plane was always at the ball or slightly on the inside with every club in the bag.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of what that guy doing is doing. I see the marketing in what he's putting out and the selling of stuff and the funny terms for certain positions and it raises a number of questions with me. I have also read his book and was hoping to find some step-by-step stuff but ended up being very disappointed. But that's ok, that's a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)

 

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that he was necessarily the model to follow. He seems to be a decent ball striker (from what I can tell anyway) but I watched a few of his videos and very quickly came to the same conclusion as you. He purports to show how to swing like Hogan, without actually going into any detail about how to do it, or how the average golfer should go about it. His videos seem to be a lot of smoke and mirrors and heavily lacking in substance. Sorry to hear that his paid products aren't any better!

 

Just out of interest, where are you getting your info on how Hogan did what he did, beyond the obvious such as watching videos of him and reading Five Fundamentals? I am entirely ignorant on this topic, but imagine one of the problems would be that fact that every man and his dog seems to have an opinion on what Hogan did or didn't do, many of which conflict with each other. I can imagine it's challenging sorting the wheat from the chaff, not least as Hogan himself wasn't exactly forthcoming about the nitty gritty of his swing.

[hoganswing]

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

 

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Thanks for that. It certainly is taking a bit of time, patience and dedication! And I have seen that guy. I didn't see his swing evolve or change much however. I tried to look to find out what he did to change his swing but couldn't find anything.

 

Now I do see some similar things to Hogan but I imagine if you critiqued his swing with the type of analysis I'm doing you would find many, many things that are not the same as Hogan. Currently I'm looking at what Hogan did until the 9 o'clock position in his swing so I looked at that guy's swing compared with Hogan. Here is a picture of that:

 

 

As you can see, that guy has a swing plane that is too flat and his shoulder plane is too flat. I have found out that Hogan's shoulder plane is always about 30 degrees with every club in the bag. Maybe that was his secret. :-) Also, his shaft plane was always at the ball or slightly on the inside with every club in the bag.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of what that guy doing is doing. I see the marketing in what he's putting out and the selling of stuff and the funny terms for certain positions and it raises a number of questions with me. I have also read his book and was hoping to find some step-by-step stuff but ended up being very disappointed. But that's ok, that's a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)

 

Interesting thread and god luck in your efforts. Would love to swing like Hogan myself, but unfortunately don't have the time, patience, dedication or skill.

 

I take it you've seen this guy on YouTube who has gone on the same journey (with some quite impressive results I must say)?

 

[media=]

[/media]

 

Thanks for that. It certainly is taking a bit of time, patience and dedication! And I have seen that guy. I didn't see his swing evolve or change much however. I tried to look to find out what he did to change his swing but couldn't find anything.

 

Now I do see some similar things to Hogan but I imagine if you critiqued his swing with the type of analysis I'm doing you would find many, many things that are not the same as Hogan. Currently I'm looking at what Hogan did until the 9 o'clock position in his swing so I looked at that guy's swing compared with Hogan. Here is a picture of that:

 

 

As you can see, that guy has a swing plane that is too flat and his shoulder plane is too flat. I have found out that Hogan's shoulder plane is always about 30 degrees with every club in the bag. Maybe that was his secret. :-) Also, his shaft plane was always at the ball or slightly on the inside with every club in the bag.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of what that guy doing is doing. I see the marketing in what he's putting out and the selling of stuff and the funny terms for certain positions and it raises a number of questions with me. I have also read his book and was hoping to find some step-by-step stuff but ended up being very disappointed. But that's ok, that's a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. :-)

 

Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that he was necessarily the model to follow. He seems to be a decent ball striker (from what I can tell anyway) but I watched a few of his videos and very quickly came to the same conclusion as you. He purports to show how to swing like Hogan, without actually going into any detail about how to do it, or how the average golfer should go about it. His videos seem to be a lot of smoke and mirrors and heavily lacking in substance. Sorry to hear that his paid products aren't any better!

 

Just out of interest, where are you getting your info on how Hogan did what he did, beyond the obvious such as watching videos of him and reading Five Fundamentals? I am entirely ignorant on this topic, but imagine one of the problems would be that fact that every man and his dog seems to have an opinion on what Hogan did or didn't do, many of which conflict with each other. I can imagine it's challenging sorting the wheat from the chaff, not least as Hogan himself wasn't exactly forthcoming about the nitty gritty of his swing.

 

When I started I went back to reading Five Lessons and then I would compare that to what I saw him doing in pictures and videos. I quickly discovered that a lot of what is in Five Lessons is not what Hogan actually did. So now I mainly just look at videos and pictures.

 

I have read a lot of discussion on what people think Hogan did and I've come to the conclusion that it generally falls into two camps. The first group think that Hogan didn't like his swing and recommended another better way to swing in five lessons, secret letters, tips to fellow golfers etc., etc.

 

The second group look at what Hogan actually did and try and figure out why.

 

I'm more in the second group but I do read people's opinion and then compare it to what he actually did. More often than not it's not the same.

 

One thing I'm finding doing this are the contradictions. For example, Hogan said that he did everything to stop a hook and then when he found the secret he said he could hit the ball as hard as he wanted and couldn't hit it. But....

 

From early swings of Hogan it's clear that he let the club turn over after the ball. Then as he got older it's clear that in the follow-through he didn't let the club roll over. So I think that was part of his "secret" if there was one and his secret evolved. It wasn't just one thing. He could hit it hard but he was never going to roll the club over. Another interesting thing is Hogan's backswing and transition is very wristy. Then from that point on his hands become less active and the body takes over.

[hoganswing]

As part of this project I researched Ben Hogan's knees at setup and I thought I would share what I found out. In Five Lessons Ben says to have both knees pointed in with the right knee pointed in a fraction more. Did Mr Hogan actually do that or not? Let’s look at some pictures of his setup.

 

 

 

 

It doesn’t look like Ben had his left knee pointed in, but it definitely looks like he had his right knee pointed in. Ben said to have the right knee pointed in more because it helps to brace the right leg on the backswing, which will help to prevent the golfer from swaying his body laterally to the right in the backswing.

 

Now when you look at his left leg, it looks like he doesn’t have nearly the same flex in it as the right leg, does it? I will have more to say on that in a minute.

 

Let’s now look at knee flex…

 

It’s pretty well known that Ben had pretty upright posture. So I looked at his knee flex in cSwing to see how much knee flex he had. Here are some pictures of that with different clubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Ben Hogan had a knee flex of between 156 to 164 degrees for all shots.

 

On the surface there appears to be two main points with knee flex at setup, in regards to Ben Hogan. The first is the pointing in of the right knee, and the second is the amount of knee flex. But there is an important third point that I have noticed, and that is knee alignment.

 

When you look at Ben Hogan’s setup from the down the line view, you hardly see his left leg… and that’s with a closed feet position. Take a look at this picture.

 

 

So what is happening here that allows us to see the left leg on the left of the picture like this?

 

Well, it’s clear from the front on view that Ben points his right knee in. But it appears as though his left knee has less flex in it than his right. And if that’s what he was doing then you wouldn’t see his left leg, even if he had a closed stance. I have never read anything from Ben mentioning this, so maybe this was his secret. :-)

 

There are a lot of subtle things going on with Ben Hogan’s setup. Things you can quickly pass over (like the closed knee alignment) that I think will have a big overall impact on the entire golf swing.

[hoganswing]

Once I completed my research into Ben Hogan's knees at setup I then turned my attention to his hips and back angle and I thought I would share those findings.

 

At setup it looks as though Ben has his left hip slightly higher than his right. I believe that’s simply as a result of the right knee being more bent and pointed in. Here is a picture of this.

 

 

If you stand in your golf stance with both knees slightly flexed, and then you point in your right knee and flex it more, it naturally makes your right hip lower than your left. It also opens up your hips slightly. And from the down the line view you can see that Hogan has his hips slightly open.

 

 

I don’t think Ben was trying to open up his hips intentionally. I just think it’s a by-product of the right knee being pointed in and having more flex than the left knee.

So it’s clear to me that Ben had his left hip slightly higher than his right and his hips were slightly open at address. Next I'm going to look at Ben's back angle at setup.

 

I have looked at Ben Hogan’s back angle at setup in a couple of ways. I have measured from his hip to his head to get a read on how much his spine is angled. Plus I have also measured just his back angle, because Ben has his head angled down quite low – which I like by the way. Here are some of those results:

 

Driver

 

Fairway Wood

 

Four Iron

 

Six Iron

 

Wedge

 

Here are those results:

 

Ben Hogan – Driver

Back Angle Only: 168

Back Angle To Head: 57

 

Ben Hogan – Fairway Wood

Back Angle Only: 154

Back Angle To Head: 56

 

Ben Hogan – Four Iron

Back Angle Only: 152

Back Angle To Head: 51

 

Ben Hogan – Six Iron

Back Angle Only: 150

Back Angle To Head: 50

 

Ben Hogan – Wedge

Back Angle Only: 150

Back Angle To Head: 50

 

So it’s clear that Ben stood a lot taller for his Driver than he did for his wedge. And it’s clear that as clubs got shorter he bent over more.

 

Another important aspect of spine angle is how the spin is tilted. It’s clear that Ben had his spine slightly tilted to the right.

 

 

 

[tembolo1284]

Love this!

[hoganswing]

Here are my findings for Ben Hogan's head at setup along with his shoulders.

 

In his five lessons book, Hogan says that you should let your head go down at setup. He also says, however, you do this by bending your neck down rather than with your back or shoulders. Here is Hogan setting up with a 6-iron.

 

 

Another aspect of head positioning is where and how it is positioned from the face on view. With Hogan I have seen his head turned quite a bit to the right. Another important element is his head in relation to his spine. Is it in the middle of his spine or to the right? I have taken a close look and it appears as though his head is positioned slightly to the right of his spine. I have read that he said to move the head horizontally to the right, and he told the person that was his secret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s clear to me that Ben did 3 important things with his head, which were:

 

1. He let his head bend down naturally from the neck at address.

2. He moved his head horizontally a fraction at address.

3. He turned his head slightly to the right at address.

 

Let’s look at Ben Hogan’s shoulders at address. To start off we’ll do this from down the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s clear that Ben had his shoulders open at address. Now let’s look at his shoulders from the face on view.

 

 

 

 

Ok, so Ben Hogan had his shoulders a fraction open at address so you could see some of his left arm when you looked from down the line. And he had his shoulders tilted 8 – 10 degrees at setup when you look face on.

[ej002]

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.

 

The left wrist bone is more open in the second picture and the right wrist has way more bend. If was straight like in the first picture, it would look much weaker.

 

 

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?

 

 

I don't think he can have a stable clubface through impact, because he is wide open at p6 (we know htis because of his weak right hand grip and the fact he is in pitch position). So from P6 to impact there has to be a lot of roll to square the face. That doesn't sound stable to me.

[MK7Golf21]

whats interesting is he has his right knee bent in at address but doesnt push his hip forward (reverse K). Notice his left hip doesnt line up with his left shoulder.

[tembolo1284]

happy to still see one thread where someone is interested in Hogan!

[ej002]

[quote name='Redjeep83' timestamp='1409926502' post='10069621']
whats interesting is he has his right knee bent in at address but doesnt push his hip forward (reverse K). Notice his left hip doesnt line up with his left shoulder.
[/quote]

Who would line up like that, the SnT dopes? Even they learned that they couldn't do that.

[MK7Golf21]

[quote name='ej002' timestamp='1409936289' post='10070685']
[quote name='Redjeep83' timestamp='1409926502' post='10069621']
whats interesting is he has his right knee bent in at address but doesnt push his hip forward (reverse K). Notice his left hip doesnt line up with his left shoulder.
[/quote]

Who would line up like that, the SnT dopes? Even they learned that they couldn't do that.
[/quote]

Ive heard many instructors, non SnT guys, say to bump your left hip foward and kick right knee in for reverse k. Have your left shoulder line up with your hip. For instance see vid below, this is a very common teaching. It never worked for me very well

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZuvykYxmvs"]https://www.youtube....h?v=tZuvykYxmvs[/url]

[Timanator]

Really good thread, Hogan's lower body dominated that swing. Hist hips turned around pulling everything down and back to the left. The Guy from MSE has a good swing, but it is a different release, and not a pivot dominated swing. Look at the right elbow at impact and the amount of hip opening at impact compared to mr Hogan on the right.