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Cameron Champ, Sergio Garcia, and Ben Hogan are prime examples. To improve your swing, try to emulate the common moves of these silky swings. 

Instruction

Here are three similarities between their swings (hold your breath). First, they keep their trailing elbows close to their torso. Second, their shafts are just inches from their trailing shoulders on the way through, removing any casting motion. Third, their shafts lean forward at impact, keeping the face more closed to compensate. 

Just writing this, my mind was completely scrambled. Trying to keep these swing thoughts in my mind while actually hitting a ball is virtually impossible. 

Lucky enough, there is one training aid that can help you make all three swing adjustments subconsciously. 

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Lag Shot makes three clubs with weighted club heads and hyper-flexible shafts (54° wedge, 7-iron, and 10.5° driver). The only way to hit a ball straight with this training aid is to follow the three-part, Hogan-esque swing guide. On the downswing, keeping your elbow tucked and shaft close to your shoulder allows you to “load the club”. 

At the start, I couldn’t keep the ball from going right. But once my tempo and timing improved with the trainer, making smooth swings with a normal club felt so much easier. I had more lag, better rotation, and a more compact downswing.

To purchase a Lag Shot club and make these improvements yourself, click the link below (save $88 when you purchase the triple threat combo). 

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The post Would Ben Hogan have been as good today? Everyone seems to have an opinion. appeared first on Golf.

The post Would Ben Hogan have been as good today? Everyone seems to have an opinion. appeared first on Golf.

Is there a God?

What’s the meaning of life?

How good would Ben Hogan be today?

That last one is a topic my friend, Hayes, and I have debated off and on for decades.

Hayes is a member of the Church of Hogan, a true believer, convinced that the man walked on water hazards, never missed a green in regulation and would dominate the modern game.

I am a Hogan skeptic. Though I’m sure that he’d have a fine career today, I don’t buy the notion that he’d reign supreme. A top 20 guy is how I see him, with a handful of wins and probably a major — something of a sepia-toned Corey Pavin.

That our argument is unresolvable is what makes it entertaining.

Hayes trots out his ”evidence,” while branding me as a benighted upstart. And I fire back with mine, while casting him as a blue-blazered Archie Bunker, a tweedy dinosaur, romanticizing the past.

It has dragged on in this way for roughly three decades, each of us biased, neither budging. Like a pair of academics in a heated dispute, we care so much because the stakes are so small.

But at least we laugh about it, which is more than I can say about some partisans in this unwinnable fight.

I had my first encounter with one of their kind at a backyard cookout in the summer of 2000. Only weeks before, Tiger Woods had made a blood bath out Pebble Beach, bludgeoning the field in the U.S. Open for a record-smashing 15-shot win. Around the grill that afternoon, a bunch of us got talking golf and Tiger, everyone gushing in agreement that the game had never seen his likes before and probably never would again. Everyone, that is, but a graybeard in the group. He looked in his early 70s, and he stood at the outskirts of our circle, saying nothing but shaking his head as we spilled superlatives over Woods.

Finally, he spoke.

No disrespect to Tiger, he said, but he’d been watching golf since the Howdy Doody era. Allow him to serve up some perspective.

There was a hint of condescension in his voice, and a tinge of pity on his face, the patronizing look that older people often wear when informing younger people of the many wondrous things they missed.

Woods was great no doubt, Ol’ Hickory Sticks went on. But stop kidding yourself, kids. Ben Hogan would have wiped the floor with him.

I can’t remember if I chuckled, but I might as well have.

What I said was something in this spirit: “Hogan? Shrimpy fella with the putting problems who played in an era when four guys had a chance of winning? Yeah, right.”

Harmless cheekiness, I figured. Standard sports-fan swordplay. I figured wrong. Hickory Sticks grew visibly upset, face reddening, eyes widening. He took a half-step toward me. How dare you, he huffed. It wasn’t a question.

The depth of his umbrage was unsettling. I worried for a moment that we were on the brink of a Bob Barker vs. Happy Gilmore brawl.

An extreme example? Sure. And yet instructive. Touchy subject, Hogan. Little had I realized that Hayes and I were treading on such fraught terrain.

Generational debates about athletic greatness are as old as the ancients. The Iliad is peppered with comparisons of warriors past and present, and you can bet that when Homer sang of “swift-footed” Achilles, he heard it from the pro-Hercules crowd.

People get worked up over their heroes. That has always been the case. But I maintain that no band of sports-world loyalists has ever been more rabid — or defensive or prone to exaggeration — than the hardest of hardcore Hogan devotees.

Just more than a half-century has passed since their idol played in his last professional event, limping off the course at a tournament now known as the Houston Open, legs aching, short game shot. His most notable achievements are beyond dispute: the up-from-nothing rise; the nine major titles and 64 Tour wins in a career interrupted by a world war and a car wreck; the magical 1953 season, when he claimed three quarters of the modern Grand Slam.

Any Hoganist can regale you with those facts. Some go farther, though, bubbling forth with tales of exploits that verge on folklore. These people don’t do banter. They brook no disagreement. They are easy — and tempting — to provoke.

A reminder of this came a few weeks back, when I asked Google for its thoughts about Hogan’s contemporary prospects, a search that led me through a labyrinth of golf-related chat rooms.

“Who else agrees with me that Ben Hogan would be irrelevant on today’s PGA Tour?” a commenter posting as Vijay4Life had written.

The Hogan faithful were there to take the bait.

“Irrelevant? C’mon man, you cannot be serious with that drivel.”

“It wasn’t uncommon for Hogan to hit 18/18 GIR, the guy was that good.”

“If he had today’s technology, he wouldn’t miss a green in regulation for like 6 months.”

“Dude, why all the Hogan hate?”

Vijay4Life seemed gleeful at the outrage.

“If you want to believe in fairy tales about golfers of olden times, go right ahead. You’re welcome to believe in things like God, tooth fairies, and that Ben Hogan could knock it stiff from 175 every time.”

“He just wants to incite,” a Hoganist warned.

Someone else posted a “butt hurt” meme.

Probably my buddy, Hayes.

Anyway, you get the gist.

It was a juvenile thread that I also found depressingly familiar. Clicking through it, I heard echoes of my own adolescent sniping over Hogan, and I recognized my kinship to an internet troll, spouting loosely formed opinions but mostly just trying get a rise.

Never mind that certain Hoganists were borderline deluded. Who was I to mock them? I was no better. It was time for me grow up and ditch the wisecracks, or at least make a stab at more substantive remarks. I was long past due to take up the discussion with mature and measured sources, established voices who, unlike me and Hayes and Vijay4Life, weren’t speaking sideways out of their hurt butts.

“He’d be just as good or better today than he was back then, and just as Tiger made his peers look like also-rans in his prime, he’d make Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson etc look inept.”

That was the reply I received from NBC/Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee when I first put the question to him over text.

Chamblee, a native Texan, is a Hoganist of the highest order, but he’s too clear-eyed to be lumped in with the cultists. True to reputation, he’d assembled a scaffolding of yellow notepads to support his claims.

Hogan would make them look . . . inept? I asked, in a follow-up Zoom call.

Now, now, Chamblee explained. He wasn’t trying to denigrate today’s Tour stars. He was simply out to underscore the rarity of Hogan’s gifts, a marriage of intellect, intensity, and athleticism whose only modern analog he saw in Tiger Woods.

Instruction

Where I’d always pictured Hogan as a pipsqueak who’d be physically outmatched in the modern era, Chamblee presented a different image. He likened Hogan’s build to Rory McIlroy’s, and cited estimates suggesting that his clubhead speed today would be right there with McIlroy’s as well, upward of 122 miles per hour.

Distance would not be a deterrent for him.

In fact, Chamblee said, because Hogan swung without resisting — no hanging on, no holding off — he would likely blast it farther than a guy like DJ.

In Chamblee’s view, modern equipment would augment Hogan, further separating him from his competition. So would modern information.

“Guys these days play a round with Bryson and walk down the fairway like they’re talking to Einstein,” he said. “I give credit to Bryson for being curious but. . . “

Hogan was a brainiac of a different order. As backup, Chamblee told the story of the Hogan acolyte, Gardner Dickinson, surreptitiously slipping Hogan IQ questions over the course of many rounds together, yielding a guesstimated score that marked Hogan as a genius. Maybe he really was. Maybe he wasn’t. Either way, the takeaway was this: imagine what a man who found answers in the dirt could do with a Trackman in his hands.

Now, as then, Chamblee said, Hogan’s “feral mind” would make him a pioneering tinkerer and thinker. His smarts would also help him see through the “chicanery” that often masquerades these days as sound instruction. Unlike Tiger, Chamblee added, Hogan would not have turned his swing over to others. It was not in his makeup to “subjugate his talents to someone else’s ideas.”

Oh, and about that glitchy flatstick: the heebie-jeebies, Chamblee said, only struck Hogan late in his career (some have suggested they were brought on by depth-perception issues caused by the car crash). Before that, he was a boss of the moss, praised by no less than the short-game wizard Bobby Locke as the finest putter in the game.

In conclusion, Chamblee said, “Hogan would lay waste to fields today.”

Got it? 
Good.

Now, brace for a rebuttal.

Mark Rolfing did a stint on Tour in the early 1970s, shortly after Hogan hung up his spikes, before shifting to a different role inside the ropes. As an on-course reporter and analyst for NBC/Golf Channel for more than three decades, he has had a closer view than most of a game in evolution. The changes have been massive, and several, Rolfing told me, would not favor Hogan. They’d neutralize advantages he once enjoyed.

Take driving accuracy, one of his legendary strengths.

“Its relevance in today’s game is not a major factor,” Rolfing told me. Check out the stats. The most accurate drivers “rarely end at the top of the FedEx Cup rankings.”

Course management, too. Hogan was a master. It matters much less now than it did then.

“Today’s players basically come up with a plan for a round of golf and that’s it,” he said. “Once they get into it, there’s not a lot of variances. They hit it far, find it, and then grab the next club.”

Ball-striking has become “so condensed,” he added, “that hot putting weeks are what win tournaments now.”

News

Rolfing said he didn’t doubt that Hogan would still be a star today. He just wouldn’t be the alpha. That’s not how it works in the post-Tiger era. The days of solo rule in golf are done. “I don’t think we’ll even have a Big Three again,” Rolfing said.

The talent pool is too deep and level. For proof, look no farther than the betting lines.

Most any week on Tour, you can find a wager that pits the field against the top nine players. The odds are usually close to even. If this were Hogan’s era, that wouldn’t be the case. “You would take the top nine players every time and win,” Rolfing said.

This brings up a point that’s pretty much impossible for Hoganists to counter. In Hogan’s prime, golf was a parochial pursuit compared to the global game it is today. There are many ways to measure this. Here is one. At the 1953 U.S. Open, where he won the second-to-last of his major titles, Hogan beat a field composed entirely of players representing the United States. Last year, at Torrey Pines, competitors from 23 different countries came up short against the Spaniard Jon Rahm. As Team USA has learned in basketball, globalization makes winning harder. It swells the population of legitimate contenders. I don’t believe it’s trolling to tell a Hoganist: Your man had it easier that way.

You might even get an interesting response. When I offered this perspective to the World Golf Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins, a friend and frequent playing partner of Hogan’s, he didn’t just refute it. He turned it on its head.

Tougher nowadays? Wadkins scoffed. The contemporary Tour may have players from all over, but it is also a comparative cakewalk, the purses extravagantly fatter, the equipment comically more forgiving.

“Tell you what, let’s take (today’s pros) back and play with the wooden drivers and spinny balls we used and see how they do,” Wadkins said. “We had to hit all kinds of shots. We played with much more imagination.”


More desperation, too, Wadkins said. Miss the cut, and you might not make the rent. The stingy climate produced a rough-edged breed.

“Guys like me and Hale Irwin and Raymond Floyd, we were mean, we were junkyard dogs,” he said.

Hogan even more so. The Ice Mon moniker was not for nothing. Transported to the present, you would not find him posting selfies or spring-breaking with Jordan Spieth.

Sharp and focused, he would cut through contemporary fields like butter.

“It’s different now,” Wadkins said. “Guys are soft.”

I might have argued, but I was scared that he might throttle me over the phone.

There is, of course, no metric for tabulating “softness.” Nor is there enough data of any kind to bring credible closure to the GOAT debate. If he knew of any, the golf-stats guru Mark Broadie would be happy to share.

“Even with something like the 100-meter dash in the Olympics, where you’re competing at the same distance over time, it’s difficult enough to make comparisons,” Broadie said.

Good luck, then, with golf, which brings a universe of variables into play. Different training and equipment. Different courses and conditions. Different levels of competition.

“We just don’t have a way of measuring those things across generations,” Broadie said.

Not that people haven’t tried.

In “The Hole Truth: Determining the Greatest Players in Golf Using Sabermetrics”, the journalist Bill Felber aims to make good on the promise of his book’s subtitle. Central to his calculations is a stat known as a z-score, which measures, in numbers of standard deviations, how a player’s score in an event compares to that of the field average. It is, in essence, a cousin of strokes gained. To arrive at his rankings, Felber tallies z-scores into career totals. Along the way, he tries to minimize margins of error by eliminating outlier scores.

What he doesn’t do is fill a gaping hole in his analysis. At no point does he grapple with the fact that you can’t rank z-scores across generations without also quantifying differences in strength of field from one era to the next. And you can’t quantify those differences in strength of field because, well, you can’t.

You can only make assumptions.

Did Rahm face far stiffer competition at the 2021 U.S. Open than what Hogan faced at the national championship in 1953? 
I think he did. But I can’t prove it.

Neither could Felber if he wanted to, but he glosses over that.

If you’re an ardent Hoganist, you may be glad to hear of the flaw in Felber’s system since Hogan doesn’t fare so well in Felber’s rankings. He comes in 10th on the all-time career roster, behind Jack Nicklaus, Walter Hagen, Patty Berg, Tiger Woods, Sam Snead, Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright, Annika Sorenstam and Gene Sazaren.

Of course, even if those rankings were airtight, I doubt that they’d do much to sway opinions. In this debate, it’s not the numbers but the narrative that carries weight.

Hogan’s resonates uniquely. Of multiple biographies, my favorite is Jim Dodson’s “Ben Hogan: An American Life.” It was certainly that. The organizing themes of Hogan’s story — the hardscrabble beginnings and unlikely ascent; the resilience, self-reliance and resourcefulness, grinding past calamity to conquest — are the underlying themes of the “American story.” The gritty underdog. The cowboy going it alone. People love that yarn. They’re protective of it. They’ll defend every thread of it, whether fact or fable. Adulation for Hogan the golfer is tied up with worship for Hogan the archetype, and longing for the era that produced him — the good old days when the game required more artistry and players weren’t so soft and needy. It’s an outlook rooted in both truth and fiction. Nostalgia might not be a river in Egypt, but it’s still a form of denial.

The beauty of Dodson’s book is the way it humanizes Hogan, giving him dimension, fleshing him out in all his strengths and flaws. It’s the same portrait the author sketched when I asked him how he thought his subject would stack up today. Dodson said he thought that Hogan would more than hold his own. But, he added, his greatest asset wouldn’t be his driver or his irons. It would be his insecurity. “Nothing motivated him more than his fear of being seen as a loser,” Dodson said.

The man Dodson depicts sounds relatable and likable. It’s fair game to admire him. It’s also fair game to poke holes in the myth.

Over the years, I’ve stopped counting the tales I’ve heard of Hogan on the range, hitting ball after ball, hour after hour, with such precision that his caddie never once had to move more than a half-step to collect them. The laws of physics work heavily against this. Some accounts have even had Hogan one-hopping dozens of consecutive drives into a small basket more than 250 yards away. While I have no doubt his practice sessions were stripe shows, I retain my right to note that these are things that Iron Byron couldn’t do. I feel the same about such stories as I do toward reports of Sasquatch sightings. Incredible! Amazing! Where can I see the footage?

I’m not trying to be flippant, at least not as I was at that cookout years ago when I nearly got a beat-down from a crotchety golf fan twice my age. The Hogan debate is not a hill I’m prepared to die on or even take a punch on. What’s more, I don’t think I have much to add to it. I’ve come to realize that when most of us weigh in on Hogan, we reveal less about the man than we do about ourselves.

On that note, I should also say I that I have indeed matured. Once a snarky Hogan skeptic, I’m drifting toward the status of contented agnostic. I’m comfortable not knowing. If I’d really cared about a resolution, I would have poured my energies into the only project that could ever provide it. I would have got with Hayes and built a time machine.

Zipping through the decades, we could have settled matters once and for all, and then started bickering over Louise Suggs.

Josh Sens welcomes your feedback at josh.sens@golf.com.

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Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when, while casually flipping through an August 1975 edition of GOLF Magazine, I read about Hogan espousing the importance of the opposite.

The article is titled “Ben Hogan Remembers,” and features a wide-ranging interview from a then 62-year-old Ben Hogan about the best year of his career: his iconic 1953 season, when he won all three majors he entered.

This particular insight came during a conversation about his putting. Saying that he was a good-if-unspectacular putter, Hogan said the true key to good golf (and indeed, his success in ’53) wasn’t the product of his putter, or even in the quality of his best shots. But, rather, in his misses.

“The greatest thing in golf is to be able to save shots,” Hogan says. “Anybody is going to make a lot of pars and birdies. The trick is to save shots when you miss. You don’t play 72 holes without missing some shots.”

That’s a nice idea, Mr. Hogan, but how can we actually accomplish that?

Know your distances

Hogan says it comes down to distance control, and the ability to know how far you hit each of your clubs.

“It’s just as bad to hit a ball too far or too short as it is to hook or slice,” he says. “You don’t have to be the world’s greatest golfer if you can manage your game. You need to organize yourself, mentally and physically. The first tee is a good place to organize. That tee shot is just as vital as the putt on the 72nd hole. You can lose the tournament right there.”

It’s some good advice from one of the greats. Organize yourself, starting with knowing how far you hit each of your clubs. It doesn’t matter how far you hit your clubs, but it does matter that you know how far you hit your clubs. If you avoid the classic high-handicap error of overestimating your distances and missing short as a result, you’ll start playing your best golf.

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The post Copy these 6 moves from Tour pros to get the most out of your swing appeared first on Golf.

1. Sam Snead’s sequencing

All great drivers follow a sequence using what I call the “dance move.” Sam Snead may have done it best. Make a big turn on the backswing, plant yourself on the ground, then rotate hard with very little lateral movement. As part of this transition, your right knee will kick in, your right heel will begin to lift and your lead hip will stay well inside your lead heel — just like The Slammer. Boom!

2. Jack Nicklaus’ internal turn

Certainly you’ve been told to “turn” on your backswing, but what does that really mean?

Your swing has an “engine” — your middle. How you move your middle — pelvis, hips and upper legs — ultimately decides the quality of your turn. Check out how the great Jack Nicklaus is turning his pelvis clockwise in the photo above. Also notice how his right hip has remained inside the heel of his right shoe. This is important, because turning your right hip internally like this gives you a full range of motion (and Jack is certainly “ranging” here). Too much side-to-side sliding restricts your backswing turn and costs you power.

Copy Jack to properly keep the middle of your swing centered while maximizing your turn. Nicklaus’ hallmark front-heel lift happens because he’s turning freely, with no hint of tension, but his middle always stays centered.

3. John Daly’s long, free-flowing backswing

Just like a plane uses a lengthy runway to build speed before taking off, a longer backswing increases swing speed and adds power to your drives. It’s really that simple. Here we see a young John Daly, one of the longest hitters in history, ready to let one loose. Not only is his backswing long, it’s way past parallel, something that even Ben Hogan proved was perfectly suited for the power game a generation prior.

The idea that a shorter, more “controlled” backswing is better isn’t what we see from the world’s best — not in this generation or the past. Some say it may improve your accuracy in the short term, but it robs you of distance. And if you swing hard from a shortened backswing, you’ll risk an injury. A full, unrestricted turn with a long backswing is better for your drives — and for your body.

4. Bubba Watson’s “no-slide” transition

Just as in the backswing, sliding too much on the downswing limits your ability to rotate through the ball and create enough clubhead speed. If you look at long drivers throughout history, such as Sam Snead, Justin Thomas or Bubba Watson, you’ll see how their front hip remains well inside their front foot as they swing through impact. If you slide and move your front hip over or outside your front foot, your turn will stall — and your swing speed will plummet.

Do this: As you start your downswing, shift your weight slightly forward, but as you near impact, favor your rear side as Bubba’s doing here. It’s this “backward” shift near the moment of impact that allows you to continue to rotate and hit up on the ball with maximum velocity.

5. Tiger Woods’ AOA

Most of today’s big bombers — McIlroy, DeChambeau, Rahm and even Tiger Woods — optimize launch angle off the tee. One of the ways to do this is to purposely hit up on the ball, or increase your AOA (angle of attack). Modern drivers are built to encourage an increase in AOA without adding too much spin, producing a high launch that maxes out carry. For decades the goal for any elite player was to get the ball on the ground and running quickly. Not any more. Some pros swing up as much as 4 degrees. That’s taking serious advantage of the modern driver design. Tee it high, picture the clubhead moving up on the ball and watch it fly

6. Ben Hogan’s perfect tempo

We know the best and most dominant golfers of all time swing fast. An overlooked component of swinging fast is tempo. What is tempo? In a word, it’s the pace or speed of the swing measured in time. A good way to think of the tempo of your swing is to look at the ratio of backswing time to down – swing time. According to Tour Tempo, the magic ratio is 3:1, meaning that your backswing should be three times longer than your downswing. In other words, if your backswing takes three seconds, your downswing should take just one second.

Try it yourself and you’ll realize that 3:1 is fast! But none other than Ben Hogan and a young Nicklaus instinctively applied this ratio. The key here is to make sure your backswing isn’t too slow — a lot of rec players I see swing more like 4:1 or even 5:1. Low and slow won’t cut it. Add a little speed to your backswing and see if you don’t see a bump in accuracy and distance.

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Ben Hogan Precision Milled

Our take: In 2019, Hogan made its grand reintroduction to the putting game with a brand-new line of forged putters — the company’s first flatsticks in almost 15 years. The superstar of that first Hogan line was the M01, a traditional mallet made using a complex forging process. In 2021, Hogan is back with the M02, an updated version of the popular model from two years ago. “Nice solid but not heavy feel,” one tester said. “Frames the ball well in the address position. Picking up the ball is a really nice feature that I didn’t know I needed.” We like the scooper too, particularly when we’re picking up our initial rolls inside gimme range.

Ben Hogan Precision Milled Putters

$195

A multi-step forging process strengthens and purifies the molecular structure of the metal, tightening the grain structure so as to maximize consistency throughout the putter face.

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The details: A multi-step forging process strengthens and purifies the molecular structure of the metal, tightening the grain structure so as to maximize consistency throughout the putter face. After the forging process is complete, each putter is sent for CNC milling to ensure perfect flatness and uniform pattern across the face. The last step in the putter-creation process is a patented Diamond Black Metal finish to eliminate glare and provide more contrast with the putting surface for better alignment.

Where to buy it: Click here. Or better yet, get fit for the putter by the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

See the Ben Hogan Precision Milled putter from every angle…

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Ben Hogan VKTR

18°, 22°, 26°

Our take: Hogan’s VKTR hybrids have been on the market for nearly a half-decade now, and while the manufacturer has made major strides to increase forgiveness and playability they’ve managed to do so while remaining true to their initial goal: versatility. The newest VKTR (a new design reimagined for 2021) was an absolute favorite in the hybrids category during ClubTest, particularly for its design. “Doesn’t feel like a hybrid, just a bigger iron,” said one tester. “Nice thin look. Surprisingly amazing!” In a lot of ways, the VKTR hybrid is a perfect metaphor for Hogan himself: quietly brilliant.

Ben Hogan VKTR Hybrid

$140

OUR TAKE: Hogan’s VKTR hybrids have been on the market for nearly a half-decade now, and while the manufacturer has made major strides to increase forgiveness and playability, they’ve managed to do so while remaining true to their initial goal: versatility. The newest VKTR (a new design reimagined for 2021) was an absolute favorite in the hybrids category during ClubTest, particularly for its design. “Doesn’t feel like a hybrid, just a bigger iron,” said one tester. “Nice thin look. Surprisingly amazing!” In a lot of ways, the VKTR hybrid is a perfect metaphor for Hogan himself: quietly brilliant.  THE DETAILS: The VKTR hybrid is built from two pieces of steel with minimal offset and a slightly larger clubhead size for added forgiveness. A bulge clubface with variable face thickness works in concert with the above to improve launch characteristics of each shot. The face is forged for a purer feel, while the high toe position gives the appearance of a club that’s more iron-than-wood. The crown aesthetics are simple and muted, a favorite among testers, and fixed weight in the rear helps to lower the CG and improve the club’s overall playability. Check out 150+ reviews from our gear experts in the ClubTest 2021 collection.

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The details: The VKTR hybrid is built from two pieces of steel with minimal offset and a slightly larger clubhead size for added forgiveness. A bulge clubface with variable face thickness works in concert with the above to improve the launch characteristics of each shot. The face is forged for a purer feel while the high toe position gives the appearance of a club that’s more iron than wood. The crown aesthetics are simple and muted, a favorite among testers, and fixed weight in the rear helps to lower the CG and improve the club’s overall playability.

Where to buy it: Click here. Or better yet, get fit by the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

See the Ben Hogan VKTR hybrid from every angle…

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Ben Hogan Icon

4-PW

Our take: If you’ve seen Ben Hogan irons before, you won’t be surprised by the Icon’s look; if you’ve ever played Hogan irons, you’ll recognize that their design hasn’t changed much either over the years. “It’s classic Hogan through and through,” one tester said. “Old-school look with a validating feel at impact. Could play these all day.” These clean-cut muscle-backs are designed to bridge the gap between gorgeous design and top-tier performance — a better player’s iron for sure.

Ben Hogan Icon Irons

$800

With minimal offset, a compact head and thin topline, the Icon has all the trappings you’d expect from a traditional blade. The Icon comes in two finishes — chrome-nickel and black metal — for a simple look.

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The details: If you were to search the dictionary for the definition of “forged blade,” you just might find a photo of the Icon. Progressive weighting keeps the CG low in long irons (for control) and high in the scoring irons (for maximum precision). With minimal offset, a compact head and thin topline, the Icon has all the trappings you’d expect from a traditional blade. The Icon comes in two finishes — chrome-nickel and black metal — for a simple look (as in simply brilliant).

Where to buy it: Click here. Or better yet, get fit for the irons by the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

See the Ben Hogan Icon irons from every angle…

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The post ClubTest 2021: Ben Hogan GS53 drivers appeared first on Golf.

The post ClubTest 2021: Ben Hogan GS53 drivers appeared first on Golf.

Ben Hogan GS53, GS53 Max

9°, 10.5°

Our take: In 1953, Ben Hogan conquered the golf world with wins at the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. A half-century later, it’s only fitting that the GS53 (named in honor of Hogan’s famed ’53 campaign) carried a similar swagger into ClubTest. “It’s no nonsense, all the way through,” said one tester. “It’s simple, feels good, goes a long way. It’s not a hard choice.” You might not find flash among the GS53’s top benefits, but you’ll have no problem finding fairways.

Ben Hogan GS53 Driver

$320

You won’t find any surprises with the GS53, particularly on the crown. The true innovation is on the inside, where engineers adjusted a higher, more forwardly positioned CG for better clubhead speeds and penetrating trajectories.

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The details: A driver as it should be. The 445cc, titanium-bodied longstick is built with a forged clubface with variable thickness to ensure consistency from heel to toe. The Hogan team’s insistence on a “traditional” driver design means you won’t find any surprises with the GS53, particularly on the crown. Rather, the true innovation is on the inside, where engineers adjusted a higher, more forwardly positioned CG for better clubhead speeds and penetrating trajectories.

Where to buy it: Click here. Or better yet, get fit for the driver by the experts at our sister company, True Spec Golf.

See the Ben Hogan GS53 from every angle…

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The post ClubTest 2021: Ben Hogan GS53 drivers appeared first on Golf.

The post Deal of the week: We love these Linksoul T-shirts featuring Ben Hogan appeared first on Golf.

The post Deal of the week: We love these Linksoul T-shirts featuring Ben Hogan appeared first on Golf.

Linksoul has created fun, fresh T-shirts for golf lovers for years, and there are few better legends to feature on the front of some of these tees than the iconic Ben Hogan.

Two of them in GOLF’s Pro Shop are currently selling for $17.50 (half the original price) in select sizes: The Lagger and The Turn. The cotton/polyester combos are comfortable and great conversation starters for any golf fan you might come across. (One thing to remember, though, is that customer reviews on Linksoul’s website says these run a little big, so keep that in mind when selecting the size right for you.) Check them out below.

Linksoul The Lagger

$17.5

Nobody likes a lagger but everybody likes Linksoul’s Lagger tee. This crew neck t-shirt features a unique graphic print at the front and is machine washable with durable fabric.

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Linksoul The Turn

$17.5

It’s time to make The Turn toward a better golf wardrobe, and what better way to do so than with this sweet tee from Linksoul? The Turn is a neck t-shirt that features a graphic print at the front and offers natural breathability to reduce sweat build up. The tee is machine washable.

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The post Deal of the week: We love these Linksoul T-shirts featuring Ben Hogan appeared first on Golf.

The post The great escape: Soldiers turning to golf amid WWII provides a lesson in playing through tough times appeared first on Golf.

The post The great escape: Soldiers turning to golf amid WWII provides a lesson in playing through tough times appeared first on Golf.

The last time golf was shut down on such a scale was during World War II. Now we are clashing with an “invisible enemy,” to use the favored parlance of certain politicians. Golf was one of the many early casualties, with the PGA Tour put on hold and a needed form of recreation widely unavailable. By Memorial Day, the game had morphed into an acceptable form of outdoor therapy. Every state had reopened golf courses (with new social-distancing protocols), offering blessed sunshine, exercise, competition and camaraderie for those who had been holed up at home. A pair of made-for-TV exhibition matches gave fans some desperately needed live sports, with the promise of more action on the way soon.

Still, those two months without the game felt like an eternity and it was hard not to wonder how on earth did golf, and golfers, survive the long, dark years of World War II? Looking back at that unique epoch tells us much about golf ’s role in the American experiment. It also offers some valuable context as the game grapples with its place in the new reality of life with the coronavirus. Most of all, the World War II era proves that golf and golfers will always find a way, whether it’s American POWs building their own course or the likes of Bobby Jones and Lloyd Mangrum moving seamlessly from the course to the battlefield.

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Golf has been woven into the collective memory of World War II since the very first moments when the U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor. The commander in chief of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, the memorably named Husband E. Kimmel, was an ardent golfer, and he was getting dressed for his regular Sunday-morning game at the Fort Shafter golf course when the first bombs began raining down upon Pearl Harbor. Kimmel’s flat-footed response would become part of the lore of the Day of Infamy, and the 2001 film Pearl Harbor took the liberty of placing the admiral on the golf course — in swanky saddle shoes and a plaid vest, no less — as the attack unfolds. It was the ultimate indictment.

As the U.S. immediately plunged into war, golf ’s stewards carefully framed the sport as a kind of patriotism. Shaping policy was John Kelly, the assistant director of civilian defense in charge of physical fitness and, felicitously, a member of Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia, known for his breakneck pace of play. In a letter to the USGA days after Pearl Harbor, Kelly wrote, “Eight million people will be going into the armed forces. My job is to look after the 124 million who won’t or can’t go. They can keep fit by playing golf. France was the most physically inactive country in the world and look what happened to them.”

The Office of Civilian Defense was a branch of the federal government. Kelly created a new position — golf deputy — and named to the post Fred Corcoran, the manager of the PGA Tournament Bureau (the precursor to the modern PGA Tour) and a natural-born salesman. Together they proposed a series of fundraisers to be called the Hale America tournaments. Seventeen days after Pearl Harbor, on December 24, 1941, Kelly sent a letter to state and national golf associations and newspapermen who covered the game. It read, in part, “This is the time when golf really must score for the physical and mental conditioning of American citizens under wartime pressure. Golf’s strong attraction as a sport in which more than 2 1/4 million of our citizens exercise regularly in the open air qualifies the game for national service of a vital character. Therefore we are urging the golf clubs and organizations of America to exert themselves to meet the requirements of individual and collective physical fitness.”

As John Strege writes in his excellent history of the era, When War Played Through (2005), “There it was, a direct order to play on, and to do so with a newfound sense of purpose, no doubt to the chagrin of the nation’s golf widows. Their husbands had become empowered to argue honestly that their Saturday golf games were government sanctioned. It may have been the most important endorsement the game ever received, a government seal of approval, framed in red, white and blue.”

Seven decades later, Kelly’s letter was cited in some quarters as the debate raged as to whether or not golf courses should stay open amidst shelter-in-place orders. And the past is always prologue: Just as modern Americans hoarded toilet paper in the face of Covid-19, duffers at the dawn of World War II made a run on golf balls, knowing they were sure to become scarce. On December 17, 1941, the federal Office of Price Administrations announced a rationing plan for civilian use of rubber products. The next morning, the Abercrombie & Fitch store in New York City was cleaned out of 24,000 balls — its entire inventory — and across the nation golfers similarly stocked up on the most precious of commodities. Factory-refurbished used balls became such a thing that Gene Sarazen used one in the second round of the 1942 Masters.

As America plunged into war, professional golfers were eager to do their part, beginning with the living legend Bobby Jones. He came out of retirement to compete in the 1942 Hale America Open, a fundraiser for war relief. The day after the tournament ended, this married father of three reported for active duty in the Army Air Corps as a captain helping to oversee the Aircraft Warning Service, which employed thousands of volunteers monitoring the Eastern seaboard for enemy planes. Jones pressed to be on the front lines, and against the misgivings of superior officers he was assigned to the Army Air Corps Intelligence school in Harrisburg, Pa., where he received training in prisoner interrogation, which made sense for a man holding a law degree. Maj. Jones arrived in London in January 1944, assigned to the 84th Fighter Wing of the Ninth Tactical Air Command. His unit was converted to infantry, and the day after D-Day they were sent into the fray to secure an airfield 20 miles inland. Strege writes in his book that Jones “found himself engaged in combat, under intense enemy fire for two days.” Jones’s wish had come true. Two months later he was sent home, by way of Warton Air Base, which was close to Royal Lytham & St. Annes, where he had won the 1926 Open Championship. When Emperor Jones swung by for a visit, the members insisted he walk them out to a sand hill left of the 17th fairway so they could install a plaque on the exact spot where he had hit the famous mashie that helped secure his victory.

Lloyd Mangrum’s service had a more bittersweet ending. In 1942, the young Texan won three times during the PGA’s aborted season, earning the nickname “The Icicle” for his cool demeanor. When Mangrum enlisted in the Army, he was offered the cushy position of head pro of the course at Fort Meade, but he, too, was spoiling for combat. “I’m in the Army to fight for my country, not to play golf,” Mangrum growled. He wound up in the second wave that stormed Omaha Beach on D-Day. As the earth shook from the fighting, Mangrum’s jeep overturned and he sustained a broken arm. When he healed, Mangrum was shipped to Frankfurt to help chase the retreating German army. During a firefight at the Battle of the Bulge, Mangrum was shot in the shoulder and leg. He would ultimately be awarded two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars and two Silver Stars. Medals and trophies of a different sort would have to wait.

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Throughout the war, golf was played in the most unexpected places, as Strege details in his book. Sgt. Dugan Aycock, a one-time club pro from North Carolina, sneaked golf gear into Northern Africa among the kitchen utensils, in his role as a special services director for his Army unit. Redirected to Italy, Aycock put together in March 1945 the Rome Open, recruiting golfers from among American, British and South African soldiers and Italian pros. Pvt. Tommy Bolt, still an amateur and member of the Army Corps of Engineers, was one of the competitors. (Bolt would go on to win the 1958 U.S. Open.)

An electrician in the Navy created his own five-hole course on an atoll on Tarawa, a chain of coral islets between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea. He fashioned a club out of a radio antenna and the wreckage of a landing craft and somehow scrounged a handful of actual golf balls. Elsewhere in the South Pacific, the Navy Seabee construction crew built a nine-hole course that was christened the Yankee Bee Country Club. The sailors built their own golf clubs using pickax handles for shafts and melting scrap metal into clubheads. A lone goat was used for course maintenance. Eventually, 45 men ponied up 50 cents apiece for a club championship, which drew the attention of a Marine Corps correspondent, who wrote in a dispatch, “Stateside tournaments find the gallery heading for the clubhouse at the outbreak of a rainstorm. Here, an occasional bombing from the [Japanese] adds to the many hazards, sending player and spectators scampering into the many foxholes nestled about the course.” This echoed the temporary local rules at Richmond Golf Course in London, which included, “A player whose stroke is affected by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb may play another ball. Penalty one stroke.” Those last three words tell you everything you need to know about the game, and it puts into perspective the inconvenience of having to wear a face mask in the pro shop during our current moment.

Golfers will clearly play anywhere, any way, but the most extreme example occurred 100 miles southeast of Berlin, in the village of Sagan. There the Germans maintained Stalag Luft III, a POW camp for British and American officers. The prisoners were allowed to play golf, and they took it to the illogical extreme, building a nine-hole course of roughly 850 yards with sand greens and discarded metal cans serving as recessed holes. They made their own balls, wrapping a solid wooden core with thin slices of rubber taken from gym shoes they received in clothing parcels from home. Club shafts were made from strips of wood and clubheads forged from the foil of cigarette packs, which were melted using rendered margarine as fuel. (Clearly, prisoners of war have plenty of time to be creative.) The guards supplied two white coats that the POWs would don to retrieve balls misplayed into “forbidden zones”; the jackets were a signal to the sharpshooters in the guard towers that these wayward golfers were not trying to escape.

Eventually a club championship was organized and a Royal Air Force POW named Patrick Ward-Thomas wrote up a lively account that he mailed to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. The R&A responded by sending some real clubs and balls to the prisoners, and Bernard Darwin typed up an account of golf at Stalag Luft for Country Life magazine. Of course, the prisoners at Stalag Luft III came to be known for a different kind of ingenuity, as they dug a 336-foot tunnel under the camp, and, in March 1944, 76 of them sneaked away in what would be celebrated as “the Great Escape.” Alas, all but three were captured and 50 of them executed under orders of the führer. The rest of the POWs played on, with golf their only means of escaping the harsh realities of the camp.

Of course, it took a golfer to end the war. While planning the invasion of North Africa and then Operation Overlord, Maj. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was stationed in London. His weekend retreat abutted the 13th hole at Coombe Hill Golf Club, which counted Winston Churchill among its members and King Edward VIII as a regular. Ike rarely had time for a full 18, so he devised his own whiskey route, playing holes 14-15-11-12-13, giving himself an hour or so to clear his head. On May 8, 1945, the U.S. and Great Britain declared V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. The war was over, and that afternoon Ike walked out of his cottage straight onto Coombe Hill to enjoy a little taste of victory. One of the major general’s lasting rewards was a lifetime honorary membership to the R&A.

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Dwight Eisenhower would later be invited to become a member at Augusta National Golf Club, which, because of the war, was shuttered shortly after the 1942 Masters but reopened in December 1944 with the help of 42 German POWs being held at nearby Camp Gordon. The Germans, who ANGC brought in as laborers, were an engineering crew that had served under Rommel in North Africa, building bridges for tanks, so constructing a footbridge over Rae’s Creek near the 13th tee box was a piece of cake.

The 1946 Masters was the first big tournament of postwar life and featured five players who had earned a Purple Heart. The surprise winner was Herman Keiser, a sailor who spent 31 months aboard the USS Cincinnati. A few months later Lloyd Mangrum won the U.S. Open, an incredible comeback from his war injuries and a victory that enraptured the nation. “I don’t suppose that any of the pro or amateur golfers who were combat soldiers, marines or sailors will soon be able to think of a three-putt green as one of the really bad troubles in life,” Mangrum said. He would go on to 36 career victories and a spot in the Hall of Fame.

Ben Hogan — who served more than two years in the Army Air Corps, reaching the rank of captain — won the ensuing PGA Championship, beginning his ascent into the game’s most galvanizing figure since Bobby Jones. (Byron Nelson had single-handedly kept golf on the sports pages during the war, winning 11 straight tournaments in 1945, but Lord Byron retired to his ranch in ’46.) Arnie Palmer followed Hogan and, along with Eisenhower, became a massive popularizing force for golf. Among the mythmakers who chronicled Palmer’s exploits was Pat Ward-Thomas, the Royal Air Force POW at Stalag Luft III who went on to become a celebrated golf writer.

Many had fretted that the game would die during the war, but the Greatest Generation embraced the greatest game, taking golf to new heights. Now we face another collective inflection point: Where does golf fit into this trying time? The answer can be found in a letter Bobby Jones sent at the outbreak of World War II to the newspaperman O.B. Keeler, his friend and biographer. Americans “need breathing spells in their thinking as much as workmen need rest for their hands,” Jones wrote. “The best way for them to get exercise, fresh air and mental relaxation at the same time is to play golf. They can’t do much worrying on a golf course. I think the judicious use of the game can prevent a lot of jitters and nervous breakdowns. I wish you would check this angle with some of your psychologist friends. It might be a sale you ought to make.”

The post The great escape: Soldiers turning to golf amid WWII provides a lesson in playing through tough times appeared first on Golf.