Chapter 4
Stance and Posture: The Foundation of Balance and Power
The stance is far more than just lining up toward your target-it's the foundation that enables proper balance, fluid muscle action, and maximum power channeled with precision. Watch a skilled golfer settling into position and you'll notice small adjustments before the swing begins. These aren't nervous habits but careful calibrations ensuring everything feels poised for action, like a diver finding perfect balance before leaping from the platform.
For a standard five-iron, set your feet shoulder-width apart, adjusting slightly closer for lofted clubs and wider for long irons and woods. Most golfers take too narrow a stance; Hogan advocates a wider foundation for better traction, balance, and shoulder freedom. Your right foot should be at a right angle to the target line while the left foot turns out approximately 22 degrees. This proper stance makes initiating the swing easier, governs hip rotation perfectly, and allows complete energy release through impact.
During the swing, one arm must always be fully extended to maintain maximum arc length, allowing greater club acceleration and distance. The left arm stays straight throughout the backswing while the right folds; on the downswing, the left remains extended while the right gradually straightens. Both arms reach full extension only at the moment just past impact when clubhead speed peaks.
A critical but often overlooked aspect of the stance is keeping your upper arms pressed tightly against your chest. Hogan describes building such strong adhesion that it would take tremendous force to separate them. Tuck your elbows in, not out, with the left elbow pointing at the left hipbone and right at the right hipbone. This positioning creates a repeating, machine-like action where arms and club form one firm unit.
Pure relaxation is neither attainable nor desirable in golf. What you need is active relaxation-having live tension in the muscles that will perform the work. Like musicians tuning instruments before a performance, great golfers prepare by positioning their muscular system correctly. Above all, knees must be properly flexed with supple legs maintaining live tension. When knees flex correctly, hip and shoulder movements become easier and more integrated.
Proper posture requires lowering your body from its normal erect position into a sturdier, balanced stance. Bend your knees from the thighs down without using your hips. The upper trunk remains naturally erect as when sitting down-imagine lowering yourself about two inches onto a spectator-sports-stick. In this semi-sitting position, you should feel balanced both laterally and back-to-front with a sense of heaviness in your buttocks. Your lower legs should feel springy and strong with weight more on heels than balls of feet.
During the golf swing, knees work "toward each other," so start them pointing slightly inward. The right knee should break slightly more inward than the left, helping brace the right leg during the backswing to prevent lateral body sway. This also positions it correctly for the downswing when power is released toward the target. The left knee pointing slightly inward ensures proper left-leg action on both backswing and downswing.
Remember, learning golf fundamentals requires patience like practicing scales when learning piano. The goal isn't developing a swing with superficial good looks but one that functions correctly. Your swing needn't duplicate Hogan's exactly-your build and muscular arrangement will create natural differences. What matters is executing fundamentals properly so your swing works as intended.
Chapter 5
The Backswing: Creating Stored Energy for Power
The backswing requires some instinct, organization, thought and muscular control, but is less complex than it appears-just a few clear movements to execute properly. With correctly positioned body, legs and arms at setup, any golfer with average physical ability can learn these movements. This emphasizes why correct grip and stance are essential foundations, as the golf swing is an accumulative process with all actions linked together.
The waggle bridges address and backswing-not merely a tension-reliever but a crucial miniature practice swing. As you waggle, you're previewing the shot's path, making balance adjustments, and synchronizing your body's rhythm. The left hand controls while the right works alongside, with the right elbow hitting the front of the right hip during each back-waggle. The upper arms remain anchored against the chest with no shoulder turn during this preparation phase.
Through this purposeful motion, you're alerting each body part to its upcoming role. The waggle's tempo should match your intended shot-slower for soft, high shots; brisker for powerful drives. When done properly, you might even feel you've already hit the shot before starting your backswing, creating a sense of inevitability about the motion to follow.
Unlike the waggle, the backswing incorporates shoulder turn from the beginning. The movement sequence is critical: hands, arms, shoulders, hips-with hands starting a split second before arms, which precede shoulders. The shoulders turn immediately while hips delay until pulled by the turning shoulders just before hands reach hip level.
This timing creates essential muscle tension between shoulders and hips-the power source for the downswing. Most golfers fail to complete their shoulder turn, breaking their left arm instead. A proper turn places your chin against your left shoulder at the top, with your back squarely facing the target.
Turning hips too soon or too far destroys power. Restraining hip rotation until pulled by the shoulders creates crucial tension in the mid-section muscles-the key to the downswing. This stored tension automatically helps pull you down into the ball as hips initiate the downswing by turning left, unwinding the upper body in sequence. The difference between shoulder turn and hip turn creates this power-generating torsion.
As hips turn, they pull the left leg inward. The left knee breaks right, the left foot rolls onto its inside, and weight shifts to the inside ball of the foot. Don't lift the left heel more than an inch-let your body and leg action determine its movement. The right leg must maintain its address position throughout the backswing, with knee pointed slightly inward to prevent swaying. This stable right leg is a critical checkpoint during practice and play.
The backswing plane-an angle running from ball to shoulders determined by shoulder height and distance from the ball-serves as a three-dimensional roadmap. When staying on plane, your forces are pre-grouped so each component works correctly with others on the downswing. Energy releases in perfect sequence-hips, shoulders, arms, hands-creating maximum power and accuracy without desperate compensations.
The plane isn't standard for all golfers; it depends on body proportions. Visualize it as a pane of glass resting on your shoulders and inclining upward from the ball. Your arms should travel parallel to this plane, with your left arm extended at the exact same angle at the top. While swinging slightly below plane isn't disastrous, lifting arms above it is catastrophic-creating a pretzel-like position impossible to correct during the downswing.
Chapter 6
The Downswing: Unleashing Power in Sequence
Nothing compares to the distinctive "sweet feeling" that surges through your arms and entire body when contacting the ball flush and correctly. Though golf is essentially "a game of misses," a sound swing ensures even your misses remain serviceable shots. This crucial phase-from downswing initiation through follow-through-determines whether everything you've done pays off.
The downswing occurs on a slightly different plane than the backswing-less steeply inclined and oriented differently to the ball. This shift happens naturally when turning the hips left to start the downswing, moving the body left and lowering the right shoulder. This repositions our imaginary glass pane with its lateral axis pointing slightly right of target and its leading edge raised. This correct plane forces you to hit from inside-out, generating maximum strength and clubhead speed without compensations.
The hips initiate the downswing as the pivotal element in the chain action. Turn your hips back to the left with enough lateral motion forward to transfer weight to the left foot. The downswing hip path should be slightly wider than on the backswing, with more lateral motion and eventual rotation. This turning is activated by multiple muscle groups working together-left hip and thigh muscles spinning the hip around while right hip and thigh muscles move forward.
These muscles must be stretched taut with tension during the backswing, like an elastic band ready to snap. The faster the hips move, the better-they can't move too fast. This hip movement triggers a chain of powerful actions: the left leg breaks back, the left knee turns toward the target, weight flows to the left leg, and the right knee breaks inward.
Each element multiplies the speed generated by this cohesive movement, increasing the golfer's power tenfold. The shoulders and upper body conduct this multiplying power into the arms, which multiply it again and pass it to the hands, resulting in incredible clubhead speed through impact. Starting the downswing with the hands instead of hips destroys this machinery, forcing the upper body outside the proper line and typically causing slices or pulls.
The hands do nothing active until the arms have moved to just above hip level, carried down by hip movement. At this position, arms and hands should feel loaded with power. After initiating the downswing with the hips, focus solely on hitting the ball-hard on full drives, appropriately controlled on other shots. The hitting motion should be one unbroken thrust from downswing to follow-through.
During the climactic part of the swing, the left wrist begins to supinate slightly-turning from palm-down toward palm-up-continuing throughout the swing. At impact, the back of the left hand faces the target with the wrist bone raised and pointing forward. This position prevents checking clubhead speed and stops the right hand from overpowering the left.
Supination effectively strengthens your club by reducing loft at impact, turning a five-iron into a four-iron for increased distance. Every good golfer supinates; Jimmy Demaret emphasized this action most pronouncedly, explaining his longevity as a first-class player and ability to control the ball in windy conditions. This action enables maximum grip and backspin, creating that impressive low-flying wedge that bites immediately on the green.
Most golfers mistakenly believe both arms should be fully straightened at impact. In reality, the right arm remains slightly bent at impact, gradually straightening until the clubhead is two feet past the ball-the only point where both arms are fully extended and maximum clubhead speed is achieved. After this, the left arm begins folding at the elbow while the right arm remains straight through the finish.
Throughout the downswing, the hips lead the shoulders, with the belt buckle pointing left of the target at completion. The left leg should not remain straight during follow-through as many believe; it must break resiliently to the left, allowing full hip turn and complete power transfer. When practicing, don't fear swinging too hard-Hogan proved you can hit straighter when hitting hard and full, as muscles fully extended provide more uniformity than those with varying tension.
Chapter 7
The Chain Reaction: Eight Fundamental Movements
The entire golf swing consists of just eight key fundamental movements that build upon each other in chain action. To achieve a correct finish position, you need no specific new actions-proper chain-action movement carries you through naturally. For correct positioning at impact, you must: 1) initiate the downswing by turning hips left, 2) hit through in one cohesive movement with hips, shoulders, arms and hands in that order, and 3) supinate your left wrist just before impact.
To reach the correct position at the top of backswing: 1) waggle properly, 2) start back with hands, arms, and shoulders letting shoulders turn hips, and 3) stay on plane throughout. All this builds from the foundation of correct address position-proper stance, posture and grip. When troubleshooting your swing, always think in terms of cause rather than result-focus on the fundamental movement that's causing the problem rather than its visible effect.
Hogan began learning golf seriously at thirteen while caddying for Ed Stewart at Glen Garden club in Fort Worth. By studying Stewart's swing and comparing it to his own, he made his first important correction-fixing his left knee action that used to shoot straight out instead of breaking right. He practiced relentlessly, even turning neighborhood errands into practice opportunities.
Throughout his career, Hogan discovered fundamental elements at different stages-learning proper waggling from Johnny Revolta in 1932, correct hip-turn from newsreel footage in the mid-1930s, and the concept of the swing plane in 1938. Despite tournament success, he never felt genuinely confident until 1946, when he realized he only needed to groove the fundamental movements rather than trying to perfect countless difficult techniques.
The same fundamental swing works for every shot, with only minor adjustments for different clubs. For shorter irons (six-iron to wedge), position the right foot slightly nearer the ball at address to open the left hip slightly, sacrificing some distance for greater accuracy. This subtle adjustment helps create the precise control needed for approach shots without fundamentally changing the swing mechanics.
Chapter 8
The Hawk: Perfection Through Perseverance
Ben Crenshaw reflects that there's something uniquely fascinating about Ben Hogan that commands deep respect among all true golfers. Photographer Jules Alexander captured renowned photos of Hogan at the 1959 U.S. Open, drawn to something magnetic about the conservatively dressed man in his distinctive white cap. Born in 1912 alongside contemporaries Byron Nelson and Sam Snead in America's "Great Triumvirate," Hogan overcame early hardship after becoming fatherless at nine when his father committed suicide-a tragedy that profoundly shaped his reserved personality.
His caddie experience at Glen Garden Club sparked his passion for golf and began a lifelong friendship with Byron Nelson. Despite early struggles as a professional that saw him go broke twice while battling a devastating hook, Hogan's iron will, analytical mind, and tireless practice ethic transformed him into "The Hawk"-a master strategist and perhaps the finest ball-striker ever. His distinctive swing combined perfect balance with extraordinary power, producing a unique "buzzing" sound as his shots bore through the air with incredible backspin.
In 1949, at the height of his powers, Hogan nearly lost his life in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus. He survived only by throwing himself across his wife Valerie to protect her, suffering multiple fractures and permanent circulatory damage. Doctors doubted he would ever walk normally again, let alone play competitive golf. Yet sixteen months later, he achieved what Red Smith called "an absolute triumph of the will" by winning the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion.
His greatest season came in 1953 when, despite playing a limited schedule due to his injuries, he won five of six tournaments including the "Triple Crown" of majors-the Masters, U.S. Open, and British Open-a feat no other golfer has matched in a single season. At Carnoustie, having never played links golf before, he adapted brilliantly with progressively better rounds of 73-71-70-68 to claim the Claret Jug.
Hogan's conservative appearance, unwavering integrity, and meticulous approach to the game reflected his deep respect for golf as a profession. He examined golf balls through a magnifying glass before using them and would spend hours on the practice range perfecting a single aspect of his swing. As Tommy Bolt observed, "I've seen Nicklaus watch Hogan practice, but I've never seen Hogan watch Nicklaus practice."
Even in his later years, Hogan's passion for improvement never waned. Club pro Mike Wright witnessed an elderly Hogan, after cancer surgery and long absence, hit three perfect drives at Shady Oaks Country Club-each shot slightly better than the previous-before collecting his balls and departing. As Wright noted with reverence, "As far as anyone knows, Ben Hogan never hit another golf shot."
In a rare 1983 interview with Ken Venturi, Hogan revealed his deep love for practice, describing how it provided him "great satisfaction" daily and allowed him to forget everything else. He explained the universal joy of improvement in golf, whether shooting 87 instead of 90 or 69 instead of 70, calling this pursuit "the greatest pleasure in the whole world." When asked if he ever dreamed of his future success when turning professional at nineteen, Hogan responded simply: "Never. Never. It's a God's gift, really."
Chapter 9
The Legacy: More Than a Method
Ben Hogan's "Five Lessons" represents far more than just another instructional manual-it's the distillation of a lifetime's obsessive pursuit of golf perfection. The book's creation took approximately ten months, though not in continuous work. The process unfolded in stages: first establishing content and presentation format, then a period of review while Anthony Ravielli created sketches and rough text drafts were written, followed by four intense months finalizing the series.
During this final stretch, Ravielli worked tirelessly on his anatomically precise drawings while Hogan meticulously checked every illustration and phrase for accuracy. This painstaking attention to detail contributed to the series' considerable success, which prompted its publication in book form after initially appearing in Sports Illustrated.
The question of authorship in "Five Lessons" reveals an interesting collaboration. Herbert Warren Wind, a legendary golf writer known for his lengthy, literary pieces, functioned primarily as an interviewer and editor, taping hours of Hogan speaking extemporaneously. Despite being a tenth-grade dropout, Hogan possessed surprising writing skills and a precise way of expressing technical concepts. Historian Curt Sampson believes the book authentically represents Hogan's voice, and Hogan himself told Golf Digest years later he "would write it the same way" if given the chance.
The book's impact has been immense-golfers everywhere have studied it religiously for decades. Its influence extends from weekend hackers to major champions, with modern players like Jonathan Byrd displaying Hogan's swing sequences rather than those of major winners like Nicklaus or Woods. Teaching pros still reference Hogan as "the ultimate warrior-worker" and his principles form the foundation of countless modern teaching methods.
What makes Hogan's approach timeless is that it combines scientific precision with practical application. Unlike many instructional systems that work only for certain body types or swing tendencies, Hogan's fundamentals can be adapted to any golfer while maintaining their core principles. As Hogan himself noted, your swing needn't duplicate his exactly-your build and muscular arrangement will create natural differences. What matters is executing fundamentals properly so your swing functions correctly.
Perhaps most importantly, Hogan's book conveys not just technique but philosophy-the idea that golf mastery comes through diligent practice, analytical thinking, and unwavering commitment to fundamentals. His famous quote that "the secret is in the dirt" reminds us that no book, no matter how brilliant, can replace the hours of practice required to ingrain these movements into muscle memory.
As Michael Bamberger observed on what would have been Hogan's 100th birthday in 2012, the golf legend remains omnipresent in the sport's consciousness decades after his death. His methods permeate golf culture, from YouTube swing analyses to modern instructional texts that still reference his principles. Like all truly transformative works, "Five Lessons" doesn't just teach you how to swing a golf club-it changes how you think about the game itself.
