Ben Hogan ’s life history in golf was a saga of overcoming , one that is legendary in its proportion .
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Hogan grow up in hard fiscal fortune , and more significantly had to populate with the calamity of his father ’s suicide .
A basic swing defect carry him years to overcome . When he plant the solution , he lost more time serve in the armed forces .
Then , Hogan barely survived a devastating main road chance event from which he suffered strong-arm painful sensation the relief of his life . But Hogan hang on to become one of golf game ’s all - sentence great genius , not to mention one of the game ’s most intriguing personality .
As a teenager , Hogan clearly had enough innate power to consider a future as a golfer , but it did not come easily . Extremely individual , he did not socialize well , which kept him from the networking that helps start out life history and move them ahead .
Also , being minor of stature , Hogan develop an extended golf golf stroke for create index . He achieved the magnate but at the disbursal of accuracy . Hogan ’s driving , in particular , boast a wild hook that for the first eight age of his professional career ( he turned pro at geezerhood 18 ) kept him on the periphery of the tourney lap .
Hogan conclude in subsequent years that the most important shot on any golf hole is the first one , the private road , and he eventually became exceptionally accurate off the golf tee while retaining sufficient power . What ’s more , he add to that a stunningly accurate approach - shot game that made up for a life-time of relatively ordinary putting skill .
Hogan often say he figured out the golf swing by himself – " dug it out of the dirt , " as he liked to put it . He took the estimation of praxis to an sinful level for golf player of his earned run average .
While this sure enough was an important element in his succeeder , he was also an inquisitive student of the golf game jive who plunk up melodic theme on proficiency from many rootage , one of which wasHenry Picard , a Masters and PGA champion in the 1930s who would become one of golf ’s best teachers .
Picard convinced Hogan that to outsmart his hook , he had to " weaken " his left - hand clutches by turning the helping hand more to the left . ostensibly overnight , Hogan ’s basic snap became a left - to - right power fade , a flight that came to be known as the " Hogan Fade . " The flight pattern would influence how the game would be played from then on .
In early 1940 , Picard ’s example make home . Hogan won his first professional tournament separately , the much prized North and South Open . ( In 1938 , he had shared victory with partner Vic Ghezzi in the Hershey Four - Ball . )
The next week , Hogan advance the Greater Greensboro Open , and after in this " do out " season he won twice more . After nine class of battle , during which he more than once had to leave the tournament tour for want of funds , Hogan was at last carry out his hope .
From 1940 - 42 , he pull ahead 15 tournament , and in each yr he was the Tour ’s leading money victor . All that was neglect on his increasingly telling résumé was a major title .
Hogan was primed for this find , but it was put on hold with the advent of World War II . The Tour was stop in 1943 , and that yr Hogan was inducted into theU.S. Armyand then assigned to the Air Corps .
Like most celebrated athlete serving military duty , Hogan did not see combat . He trained pilot for a time but , for most of his hindrance , played exhibitions to evoke money for the war effort , play casual golf with luxuriously - ranking officer , exercise on his own , and entered the occasional Tour issue when the electric circuit begin again in 1944 . Still , he was forth from unfaltering , gamey - level competitive golf for 3 - 1/2 years .
When Hogan bring back full - time to the tournament circuit , he made up for lost time with characteristic pertinacity . In his first outing after his discharge , in the declivity of 1945 , Hogan won the Portland Invitational with a record - position 72 - jam score of 261 – 27 - under - par .
From 1946 through other 1949 , playing what he would later describe as the best golf game of his animation , he won 32 tournaments , include his first and second major – the 1946 PGA Championship and 1948 U.S. Open .
Then , after wager four events on the 1949 wintertime circuit and advance twice , Hogan along with his married woman , Valerie , about lost their lives . On a foggy two - lane highway outside Van Horn , Texas , a Greyhound autobus traveling in the opposite direction moved out to transcend a behind - moving truck and collided foreland - on with Hogan ’s car .
When Hogan saw the accident come , he instinctively stretch across the front stern to protect his wife . He saved her from serious injury , and saved his living , for at impact the steering newspaper column of his automobile was rammed into the driver ’s posterior .
Nevertheless , Hogan ’s left over clavicle was fractured , his left ankle joint was rupture , and many of his interior organs were badly damaged . His font was bankrupt into the dashboard , which make the vision in his left eye to step by step belittle .
Hogan would intimate , after he retired , that he had essentially played the last three or four years of his militant golf career with sight in only one eye .
Furthermore , during his convalescence prison term , Hogan ’s life was again seriously threatened by a blood clot . A dextrous operation relieve him , but his legs were leave in a permanent DoS of helplessness and disrepair .
That he live at all was a wonder . That he would , within a year , return to private-enterprise golf was beyond anyone ’s farthest consideration . But it happened , and in a most dramatic style . In January 1950 , Hogan entered his first competition following the accident , the Los Angeles Open , and nearly come through it ; he lost toSam Sneadin a playoff .
The most astounding second came in June 1950 . In the U.S. Open , which at the time conclude with a 36 - hole final sidereal day , Hogan barely held on to draw George Fazio andLloyd Mangrumwith a par on the last hole . In the 18 - kettle of fish playoff the next day , Hogan win the statute title .
Had he never make for competitive golf game again , Hogan ’s extraordinary counter in 1950 would have been enough to secure his place forever in golf chronological record . But he would expand on it , and mightily .
Cutting back his playing schedule to preserve his strong point , Hogan entered an average of only six tournaments a year from 1951 - 53 , most of them the major league except for the PGA , which was then a physically grueling match - sport event requiring as much as two full round a day .
withal , during that time period Hogan come through eight times , five of them majors – two more U.S. Opens , two Masters , and one British Open in his only attempt for that crown . In 1953 alone , he won what might be called golf ’s Triple Crown – the U.S. and British Opens and the Masters .
He would also play on the U.S. Ryder Cup squad , captain the team for a third meter , produce an especially influential instructional book – The Modern Fundamentals of Golf – and detect a golf equipment fabrication company in his own name .
Hogan get ahead his last tournament in 1959 , the Colonial Invitational . In 1960 , at years 48 and essentially retired from competitive golf , he had enough leave to be in a office through 71 hole to gain his 5th U.S. Open . That he lose did nothing to tarnish a reputation for golf skill and a will to stand out that will live through the ages .
