Wed, Mar 03, 2004 page20

• New book claims to reveal Hogan's secret golf swing

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  Secrets are rare in sports, but Ben Hogan's golf-swing "secret" has endured, which only enhanced his and its mystique. A half-century ago, at the peak of his popularity, Hogan supposedly disclosed his secret in a Life magazine article, but many analysts didn't consider it full disclosure. About a decade ago he offered his secret's missing link to Golf Digest for a hefty US$100,000 fee that the magazine deemed too hefty.

  Before and after Hogan, the golfer the Scots called "the Wee Ice Mon" died in 1997, his disciples always preferred his remark that "the secret is in the dirt," meaning the dirt of the practice range. But now the secret is out, or at least one man's version of it.

  In a charming memoir, Afternoons with Mr. Hogan (Gotham Books, 2004), Jody Vasquez, a Texas oil-and-gas executive, writes of being told the secret during his four summers of shagging Hogan's private practice shots several days a week while working for US$0.95 an hour as a bag-room boy at Shady Oaks Country Club in Fort Worth.

  Vasquez justifies himself as a Hogan historian with his detailed recollections of the practice habits and the often piercing words of Hogan, a four-time US Open champion and the only golfer to have won the Masters, the US Open and the British Open in the same year, 1953.

  "Mr. Hogan enjoyed practicing alone, out on the course," Vasquez writes. "Another reason was that he preferred hitting his own balls. The driving-range balls were [and still are] rock hard and designed more for durability than performance. The most critical reason Mr. Hogan avoided the range, however, was wind direction. He always hit balls with the wind blowing right to left as he stood over the ball. He wanted the wind hitting him in the chest."

  Depending on the wind, Hogan hit balls toward Vasquez from the area to the right of Shady Oaks' 11th green, or from the area between the 17th tee and the 18th fairway.

  "Mr. Hogan's objective was to hit me, and mine was to make sure he didn't," Vasquez recalls. "Amazingly enough, after hitting thousands and thousands of golf balls in my direction, he never once hit me, but I know exactly what a golf ball sounds like as it passes by your ear. The ball makes a bee-like, zinging sound and you have this `wow' feeling after it goes by you."

  Cemented there even more solidly is the memory of a day in 1967 when, after a practice session, Hogan "decided to reveal to me his mysterious `swing secret.' The one many thought he never told anyone. He told me." This is how Vasquez summarized it:

  "The Secret is the correct functioning of the right leg, with emphasis on maintaining the angle of the right knee on the back and forward swings. Combined with a slight cupping of the left wrist, it produces optimum balance and control, and allows you to apply as much speed and power as you wish."

  Vasquez uses 12 pages for his explanation and Paul Lipps' illustrations to dissect the secret, too much to repeat here. But when Vasquez asked why the right-knee angle was not emphasized in Hogan's instructional books, Hogan barked, "I'm not telling them this!"

  To Vasquez, "them" meant the other touring pros. At the end of their conversation that day, Hogan said, "Don't tell anybody I told you this." Vasquez confesses that he told the secret only to Nick Faldo, the English pro who won three Masters and three British Opens and who once asked Hogan, "How do you win the US Open?"

  "Shoot the lowest score," Hogan said.
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