That sentence is the lead statement in Ben Hogan's classic, Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf.
Hogan is acknowledged by most writers to be at the top rank of shotmakers, a golfer who achieved still unparalleled success (such as five wins -- including the three majors that he could enter that year -- in six starts) because of his ability to control the trajectory of his full shots. Those shots were not the longest of his contemporaries; Sam Snead was notably longer with every club. Hogan's success came as a result of a highly disciplined and sophisticated approach to playing the game. His goal was to score as low as possible on every round. That meant two things: taking advantage of the holes that were set up advantageously for him, and avoiding high scores on those holes that didn't suit his game. For example, he said of #11 at Augusta, "If you ever see me on that green in two, you'll know I made a mistake".
Hogan devoted the entire first lesson of five to setting out every detail of his grip. Yet today very few players, even among the pros, use it. That very few might well be none, because as Hogan stated, if a little part of the grip is not right, the whole grip is wrong.
Hogan was not a large man, standing well under six feet tall. He fought against a hook, learned to play a fade, a shot which is hit with a face that is open to the path of the clubhead, which usually produces a weak, high shot. But his fade was low and strong.
While Hogan could play the ball high and low, fade and draw, his aim was to use one shot -- the low, strong fade -- as often as possible.
No one, not even Hogan, hits every shot the way it's planned. But most of the deviation from plan of Hogan's shots was due to judgment or circumstances beyond his control...taking the wrong club, dealing with a gust of wind or the sudden lack thereof, a margin lie. And rarely was the deviation very large.
So why is it that no modern pro uses Hogan's grip?
My answer is that Hogan's method was -- and is -- extremely demanding. I said he fought a hook. Dave Hill stated that Hogan set up -- beginning with the grip -- in such a way that he couldn't hook the ball, and then employed a hook swing.
So, rather than developing a stroke in which everything is consistent -- a "neutral" grip and a "neutral" swing path -- Hogan used a grip that would cause most people to hit a weak slice, then employed a swing that would cause most people to hook the ball violently.
Think of it this way. If Hogan was walking though a five-foot wide tunnel and wanted to stay in the middle, he'd have his right hand on the wall on his right and his left hand on the wall on his left. He'd be pressing equally hard with each hand, and he could stay in the middle with his eyes closed.
The conventional way of walking a straight line through a tunnel is to look straight ahead and let your eyes guide you. It's easier...as long as there's enough light to see where you're going. And as long as the tunnel doesn't curve, or ascend, or drop, or get narrower or wider.
We can think of Tournament Pressure as a factor which makes it harder to see where you're going. In fact, anything that takes your attention away from making your characteristic stroke will have a negative effect on your ability to score. Hogan's secret, ultimately, is that he chose to discipline himself to play boring, one-shot fits all, golf. He famously refused to lose his focus. He rarely talked with playing partners, gabbed with the gallery, and was frosty with the press. He went to work, did his job, got paid and went home.
And when he went home, he practiced. Every day. 50 balls with each of thirteen clubs -- 650 balls -- in the morning, then a snack and four or five more hours of just hitting balls with the clubs that hadn't worked so well in the morning. Easily 1,200 balls/day, 300 days of the year, for ten years before World War II and 25 more years after it, retiring from active competition in 1971, That's 1,200 x 300 x 35...12,600,000. TWELVE POINT SIX MILLION balls in practice alone after he turned pro at 20!
According to one man who caddied for him at an exhibition in Detroit in the 1940s, Hogan knew that he couldn't expect to play well in a tournament round unless he had hit 50-100 balls before the round, and unless he had won the tournament, he'd hit another 100 or so after each round. I'm not going to estimate how many more balls that would add up to; I mention it only so that you, the reader, will understand what it took for Hogan to be the ultimate ballstriker that he was.
Playing a round, given the gruelling conditions of practice, was a pleasant respite, a relief from the drudgery of beating balls.
12.6 million! Let's say that Hogan hit about 100 balls an hour. That's 126,000 hours. 5,250 days at 24 hrs/day. That's 14.4 years!
Now, if a recreational golfer hits balls at Hogan's rate, and puts in 2 hours/week for half a year, he could reach Hogan's practice-ball total in a mere 2,423 years.
I don't know how many recreational golfers put in 52 hours of solid ballstriking practice/year, but I'm sure it's fewer than half of them.
So, that's the answer to understanding Hogan's game. Hard work, and lots of it.
One of the more famous Hogan quotes was this: he was talking to a young pro who had just come out on Tour, and he asked how much time that pro spent practicing every day. When he heard the answer, he said simply, "Double it."
He had this conversation with many young pros. And they say he wasn't a friendly, helpful guy!
