Why was Ben Hogan so amazing at drivinggolf balls? In this article, Mike Maves, ( aka SEVAM in the golf forums ) the author of €œThe Secret is in the Dirt€ analyzes Ben Hogan ' s golf swing and helps us use Ben Hogan ' s lifetime golf skills to take honor off our golf game
Ben Hogan is indeed quoted as saying things like €œI dug it out of the dirt. € or €œThe secret is in the dirt€. It ' s been re - quoted many different ways as well. Most of us just sufferance it at that and figure that he was just saying €œGo out and practice your ass off and you just might get it. €
SEVAM thinks that there is a lot more to this. Other people since Hogan have worked just as hard and have had access to better equipment and instruction than Hogan had at his disposal and presently no one has gotten to that level of maxim in ball - striking with the possible exception of Moe Norman. SEVAM completed that there must have been something more to it.
Hogan was a natural prodigy and it showed in a lifetime of achievement. Many of the phrases he much used were purposefully loaded with cryptic and / or paired meanings. If you think about it, it was a way thatHogan could tell you the secret without really telling you by sort of handing it over in disguise€ฆ. a good way for an individual frank and honest person to designate a secret. It takes some diligent studying to grasp those secrets
Part of this research involves looking at what he spoken about the golf swing and what he did in his golf swing, by studying photos and video, and also the thoughts of his contemporaries to discover what they may have logic or noticed about Hogan. What did Hogan have that we all want?
What We Know
First, civility that Hogan swung the club flat on the back swing. By €˜flat ', we stingy the position of the arms relative to the angle the shoulders are turning on. In his prime the club went ultimately right across his chest on the back swing and little got over the plane of his shoulders.
Part of this was just dictated by the depth of the arm swing. Hogan ' s arm swing had wideness but stayed a good distance from the body. The arms did not collapse in and lift. His hands went back on a wide arc but a very shallow back swing plane and ultimately never got much higher the right ear on the back swing.
Hogan had no cease in transition. In actuality Hogan looked like he began to bend the body and slide the hips back to the target long before he had finished his back swing. The body bend achieved the plane shift he talked about in 5 Lessons. Some have wrongly suggested that he had a reverse weight shift, but that is completely defective. Hogan used a back shift to accomplish the look we scrutinize in the pictures. Bobby Jones and many others used a kindred transition ploy, but Hogan ' s back shift was a little different and I will talk about it more sequential.
Hogan had a weak bummed out hand grip and importantly advocated use of a modified Vardon ( overlap ) style grip.
There was very little difference between Hogan ' s back swing plane and forward swing plane.
There were two planes, but they were very similarly inclined with the downswing plane pointing slightly to the right of the target line just as he outlined in 5 Lessons.
Hogan used heavy clubs with flat lies and swung very fast and very flat without a loop in transition and the reversal or transition of the swing initiated early ( i. e. long before the hands and gang had crowning their trip on the back swing ). His swing was characterized also by a vertical bound or body compression in transition ( a ethos also of Sam Snead and Moe Norman ).
The class weight, flattish polished and cupped secluded wrist resulted in what looked like a freakishly contemptible aspect between the unsocial arm and assortment hilt in transition. Part of the appearance of this aspect was real ( that is, it was a underground attribute ), but part of it was also miscalculation created by the low hands at the top temperament relative to the camera aspect he was oftentimes photographed from.
This beneath angled appearance diverse infinitely when compared to most of his contemporaries who of course were filmed from the same demeanor. If photographed from elder, however, I accept that this attribute would have looked inmost more natural.
By all accounts at directions it appeared that the undertaking was finally done. It appeared as if once Hogan ' s co-op was complete the swing would automate and time itself. This is the key knowing that has serious my analysis. What fundamentalthings did Hogan build into his address that could have automated his response and eliminated the need to time elements of the swing?
Hogan used eversion of the right foot meaning the end releases targetwardthrough influence as unalike to just turning and lifting up. He also used inversion of the unsocial foot as he piqued into the lonesome leg to the adjust.
Hogan claimed that he matty the circle unlocked on the back swing and rotated it like a baseball bat. ( Nick Seitz interview 1985 )
The secret revealed in Life Magazine was Hogan ' s method to hit a wilt and eliminate a hook. Cup the wrist on the back swing. ( Life Magazine August 8, 1955 )
Hogan used empty arm pronation on the back swing to change the club to the top of the swing without a loop. He used a combination of supination and cupping of the destitute wrist through collision. ( Five Lessons )
The right foot was square to the line at inscription and the outcast foot was flared and he insisted on these issues as fundamentals with the same force that he advocated the Vardon grip as the best at the time he wrote Five Lessons.
When speaking of Hogan we also have to investigate why he felt responsible to have extra spikes fresh to his custom Maxwell shoes and in particular under the ball of the right foot. We need to also perceive the slip at the 18th at Olympic - The smoking peep that pointed to the importance of right foot traction in Hogan ' s swing!
So in a nutshell these are some key things we can take from Ben Hogan ' s lifetime of winning golf. Try it out. Download a couple of free chapters or the Secret in the Dirt primer for free and gape what bounteous we can discover from Ben Hogan, Moe Norman as told by Mike Maves, or €˜SEVAM ' on the internet!
When eminence start falling from your score like leaves in the fall,, excogitate getting SEVAM ' s book, €œThe Secret ' s in the Dirt€. SEVAM combines video and text to splash you how secrets from Ben Hogan, Moe Norman and others will take presently more plum off your game.
