Ben Hogan · Low 70 Golf ⛳️"Navy SEALS" ⛳️

Ben Hogan

"I used Five Lessons and an old seven iron to retool my swing after retiring in 2007.

The first discovery I made when emulating Hogan’s hand positions at address, top of swing and impact was that at the top and impact the range of travel in several aspects of both hands were being maxed out. At the top he fully extended his lead wrist locking it back towards forearm to bring the club parallel with swing line but by impact he rolled the lead hand into maxed-out flexion and rolled the arm so palm of hand was supinated also locking up the wrist. That locking up of the wrists made impact much more solid because along with the way he gripped the club in the air with bent elbows and lowered it my arms felt like twisted steel cables welded together. There is no “give” in the hands and arms when swinging like Hogan, thus no loss of power. My shots started flying further with more spin and straighter due to the way the grip at impact locked up the face.

Something I realized about Hogan’s “waggle” he stressed the importance of was it was a rehearsal for how he snapped his hands down and face closed just before impact with the ball. I discovered that standing over a ball and doing nothing more than waggle the club up with wrist and letting the club come back down into the ball into his impact hand position that locked up the wrist joints very consistently hit the ball dead straight every time. But only if the face was open at impact and struck the inside of the ball! I recognized the wrist action and squaring of the face as feeling similar to hammering nails, swinging a axe to buck a log, casting a fishing rod and cracking a whip.

It differed from the conventional swing than keeps the trail wrist in extension to lag the club behind hands. The waggle action CAN pull the hands down into maxed out unlar deviation in a golf swing at impact as they are in those other swinging actions IF THE GOLFER LETS THE CLUB WHIP FREELY AROUND THE HANDS AND SNAPS THE CLUB HEAD DOWN AT THE BALL LIKE CRACKING A WHIP!

What causes a whip to crack? That the tip of it breaking the sound barrier. That’s how much potential the “waggle” move has to accelerate the club head in a very short swing arc distance. Why? Because it is done with radial-to-ulnar deviation movement in the wrists which can be done very rapidly if the golfer keeps light pressure on the handle of the club with the last three fingers. Combine that with a grip that locks up one or more other aspects of the wrist travel — (extension/flexion) and (pronation/supination via forearm rotation) — and it is possible to hit dead straight shots 20-30-40 yards with just a slow rise of the club head with the wrist action then snapping it back down at the ball like a hammer or axe which is what I realized Hogan must have been doing after watching his videos frame by frame.

If you try and observe the waggle action you will see it opens and shuts the club face 45° very quickly. So quickly you need to pick up the ball very much more inside of center (relative to target line) with a more open face than in a conventional sweeping swing without that wrist action. It is necessary to really tuck in the trail elbow into the body WITH SIDE BENDING OF THE SPINE to create the tight inside-out swing arc to do that and it is the side bending to tuck the trail arm in which creates the shallower swing arc.

What you will also observe if you whack balls with just the waggle with Hogan’s hand positions at impact is that the swing force turns the hands over and closes the club face much sooner than in the conventional swing. That explains why Hogan seemed to either hit the ball dead straight (by locking face to target as ball released) or hooked — unless intentionally setting up for a cut shot.

Trying to duplicate the goofy looking swing of Frankenberg I discovered his lead hand position at impact which was the opposite of Hogan’s did the same thing: lock up the wrists just as the face came square to the target producing dead straight shots every time. His wrist action produced the same snapping down “waggle” action as Hogan’s. Moe Norman accomplished the same consistent squaring of the club because of the way his unconventional grip started with both hands pulled down and locked in ulnar deviation.

All you need to do to hit the ball dead straight with his swing style is to align the face of the club square to the target not in back of the ball, where the face will be relative to the ground when the compressed ball releases off the face. When I started to intentionally lock my wrists to square the face I realized that slows the club down causes the compressed ball to decompress off the face a faster rate than when picked up and carried on a club moving 80+ mph in a conventional swing.

*****Hammering down at the ball and stopping the hammer abruptly as the club gets pulled straight with the arm results is faster ball speeds off the face which can be seen, felt and heard— ball strikes sound crisper.*****

What makes the move invisible is the way side bending and raising the back foot in the downswing keeps the locked up hands moving forward while locked. Because the hands turn over so quickly after release of the ball turning toe of the club forward the club follows the mass of the toe up on a much higher finish plane than in the conventional lagging sweep where the wrist lock and turn over well into the finish. That explained the higher finish plane of Frankenberg, Norman and Hogan.

7 comments

Ben Hogan