Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons, (01) The Fundamentals, Notes

Post date: Aug 20, 2017 11:55:21 AM

Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons by Ben Hogan with Herbert Warren Wind

The Fundamentals

• • Practice the shot thousands of times. Develop a swing that the more pressure you put on it, the better it performs. Master the movements that will result in a repeating swing--a correct, powerful, repeating shot. It is impossible for a golfer to play good golf without a swing that will repeat.

  • Learn through laborious trial and error. Watch good players do things right, stumble across things and experiment. If it helps, adopt it. If it hinders, discard it. Whatever we use must be dependable in competition. Continue with new and old ideas with all manner of variation. Develop a set of fundamentals that prove to be right. We are all capable of building a repeatable swing and breaking 80. Fundamentals are all that are really needed. Stress learning the exact nature and feel of the properly executed swing. No fundamentals, no greatness.

  • Do not waste time on unproductive practice: practicing incorrect movements. As we go along we will only get worse and worse and bad habits become further and further ingrained. Go about it in a wise manner: focus and apply the fundamentals, reflect on every shot with some thought and our efforts will be much more fruitful. Focusing on constant improvement allows us to enjoy the game for our whole life.

  • Work on one or two fundamentals at a time to progressively build a sound foundation. The quality of our application of the fundamentals will determine our degree of improvement. Work to incorporate a small number of correct movements and to remove all manner of incorrect movement. We must be able to check our fundamentals so that we are able to correct. Leave nothing to guess or to imagination.

  • Teach in a manner that stresses the exact nature and feel of the movements necessary to achieve the results we want. The actions that cause the results are the true fundamentals. To be a great player master the fundamentals. It is as simple as that.

  • The fundamentals of golf fall into four natural groupings:

    • Grip

    • Stance and posture

    • First part of the swing (address to the top of the backswing)

    • Second part of the swing (start of the downswing to the finish of the follow-through)