I like many others, want to just fix it myself, especially when it comes to the golf swing. With the abundant bounty that is youtube, sometimes we forget that the classics were made long before video was at our finger tips. In this case I am referring to Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons.

Who was Ben Hogan?

Ben Hogan is widely regarded as one of the best ball strikers of all time. He played on the PGA Tour from 1932 until he retired in 1959. Mind you this was before all the enhancements in club design, I can only imagine his strike with today’s technology.

The Book – TLDR;

The book is an in-depth look by Hogan at his own swing. He takes a painstaking approach to discovering what he believes to be the true fundamentals of a repeatable golf swing. He himself admits that there is a lot of room for personal touches from one player to the next based on their body type, musculature, and any number of other factors, but his argument is that the fundamental movements he describes are shared among all the greats. It comes down to about 8 things, starting with grip, then the movements of the backswing, and then the downswing and follow through. Inside each of these main topics he finds the key movements or feelings for what makes a great repeating swing.

Does it still apply?

I am in the process of using Hogan’s Five Lessons to build myself a repeating swing. He describes all these moves as Fundamentals, and from all my research including countless hours on Youtube, I can say that these lessons are still widely regarded as such. I will point out that the language, and the explanations do take a bit to get your head around. Considering the book is old enough to have grandchildren, there are terms and references that more or less fly over the readers head. What doesn’t get lost is the lessons themselves. The pictures included allowed me to visualize things that otherwise I wouldn’t have known, for instance, a spectator stick (can you still buy these?) and he in depth explanation around the grip is greatly improved by the visuals.

Results

While I had picked up the book last year and gave it a once over, it wasn’t until recently that I decided to really test it out in depth. I have been at it now for a few weeks and I can say without a doubt that I am seeing improvement. There are some parts that I have had to work on, take notes, and revisit, as so much of it is not coming naturally to me. I can say that yesterday I cranked my best drive so far, 293 yards, center of the fairway.

I recommend taking notes on your phone (or pen and paper if you are old school and don’t mind them blowing away with each gust of wind). I found that describing in detail my own feelings of each phase was helpful. Hogan mentions in the book that he himself would write things down, and work with them, discard them if they proved incorrect or unable to perform under pressure. By doing this its easier to see what you have worked on, remind yourself what to look for, and if nothing else, you can cross something off the list of “been there – done that” when you finally sign up for lessons.