After 55 years of playing golf I feel 'familiar' with Hogans swing. I am 72.5 shoot in the low 80's and practice Hogans swing every day. The body rotation to me, is key. Trust it and it will deliver. Thanks Mr. Hogan.

Great video Hogans book is the bible of golf, the greatest player ever in my view.

Jason is doing a great job explaining mr. Hogans ideas. But regarding the backswing, jason says that hogan turns his torso and doesnt do anything with his hands and arms. Actually in the book hogans says the order of the backswing is hands, arms, shoulder... i love this video and Jasons love for the book

I love that through updated interviews.....that Shell's match with Snead....heres the atom bomb (he was actually hitting draws all day).

Hogan had a great swing..for him. His physical traits and natural timing made it work for him. Teaching people his swing is like teaching someone how to shoot like larry bird. Ntm this guys game(and larry's) were mental. They NEEDED to be that good.

I worked through Five Lessons to understand Hogan’s swing. It is based on the concept of swinging into resistance created by feet and legs first mentioned in “Down To Scratch” by British golf instructor Abe Mitchell in 1933 [EDIT]. The way Hogan gripped the club in the arm with bent elbows and straightened arms as club was lowered to the ball counter-rotates the forearms and firms up the arm-shoulder triangle so much in the hips+shoulders together, club head down the line and low takeaway the hands stay in front of the body for the first 45° of shaft rotation back from the ball. It is only when the hips meet the resistance of the squared back foot and the hips lock at 45° closed that he allowed THE MOMENTUM that takeaway move create pull club head, hands, lead arm and shoulders the rest of the way up and around to the top. This action feels effortless and results in the back upper leg and buttocks wound-up around the squared back foot like a twisted rubber band. That hips+shoulders together takeaway fell out of favor in the 1960s and 1970s when golfers started imitating the swing of Jack Nicklaus who moves hand > shoulders > hips in the backswing. The club winds up in the same place at the top of the backswing but the sequence doesn’t create the same feeling of torque in the legs of the feeling that hips are really pulling the upper body through the ball you get with Hogan’s. The other significant difference in styles is seen in the separation of the back arm from body. Letting the elbow separate then tuck back down at the start of the downswing provides an initial burst of acceleration to the mass of the arms Hogan’s with the tucked-in arm at the top lacks but the coiling of the back leg in Hogan’s swing makes up for it, especially in less than full swing shots because Hogan fully loads the spring tension in the leg in the first 45° of rotation before the momentum meeting the resistance of the stable body mass forces the wrists to hinge and the club to whip up and back. A drill I do with others to illustrate how the outside the hands takeaway works is to have the golf swing the club to the point MOMENTUM pulls their lead arm straight and the shaft horizontal. Most beginners swing too far inside with the shaft angled back around the body too much and when I grab the club at the head and pull I am able to pull them off balance backwards easily. I then show them how to swing it back like Hogan did with the shaft angled out about 45° and club head well outside the hands still very near the target line and pull the club again. In that orientation it is VERY EASY to maintain balance because the direction of the feet relative to the unbalancing force of the club head at that point in the Hogan style swing and the ability to shift body mass and dig in the instep of the back foot to resist the pull with leverage from a straightened back leg. In Hogan’s swing the legs and pelvis work together like a piston and crankshaft in an engine. He started in a very wide stance A but as the club swings back the back leg becomes more vertical | \ and the front angles back in a reverse K via a lateral creates a feeling just before impact like swaying hips (and body mass) to the target but hitting a brick wall that stops them. It is that “hitting the wall” cause and effect plus the way Hogan gripped the club that triggers the massive acceleration of the the club head around the hands which bows the shaft of a metal or carbon fiber shaft forward and would snap the old Hickory shafted clubs off at the hosel. Watch the position of Hogan’s hands and the blur of the club shaft in videos of his swing. Also watch the timing of when he starts to lift his back heel. It is a very coordinated action in which you allow the hips and hands to “hit the wall” and slow down abruptly to trigger the club head to try to whip around the hands, bowing the shaft forward almost to the point of snapping the head off at the hosel, but then release the back heel and let that clubhead momentum pull hips and and hands (and body mass) through the ball. The key move in Hogan’s swing just before impact which added even more acceleration to the club head was his turning under of the wrist. Hogan altering his stance to compensate for shaft length is due to the fact he “hit the wall” to swing the club head around the hands. Opening and closing the stance affects where the hands are relative to his fixed ball position when the whipping action around the hands starts. Closing the stance causes it to start sooner in the downswing as hands reach the back legs giving the longer clubs time more time to swing around the hands to the ball near the front heel. Opening the stance allows the hands to swing much farther forward before that “hit the wall” dynamic whips the club around. Altering the stance allowed Hogan to keep ball position and timing of the swing the same for all clubs. Modern orthodoxy is to trigger the “hit the wall” dynamic at the same point in the swing for all clubs, which requires moving the ball back further in the stance as the club shafts get shorter. Its the same goal of whipping of club head around hands to accelerate the club head but two different strategies to achieve it. Which works better? You try and master both to find out. I found Hogan’s strategy to be far more consistent because it is easier to do consistently. Five Lessons describe the wrist position as “supination” (i.e., palm up rotation of the forearm ulna and radius) but his move also maxes out lead wrist flexion (slapping motion) and ULNAR DEVIATION (whip cracking thumb up / down action). What can’t be seen in the videos clearly is that the final squaring of the face of the club in the last few inches of the swing arc of Hogan’s swing is accomplished with the ulnar deviation (releasing thumbs down at ball like just like cracking a a whip or casting with a fishing pole). That move was one of Hogan’s “secrets’ behind his ability to compress the golf ball better than most and be so repeatably accurate in his swing. By maxing out travel in all three aspects of left wrist movement just before impact with the ball (supination - flexion - ulnar deviation) and also having maxed out extension and pronation in the right wrist Hogan eliminated all the variable most golfers have in their swings. The problem I discovered using that technique is it will result in a bad wrist sprain if the club hits any object like a root when hitting a recovery shot.

Now if Brad Faxon would write a book on putting...

great stuff. Except the music kind of drowns him out.

Mechanically Hogan’s swing, which I learned to emulate using Five Lessons in daily practice sessions, has the same underlying physics as a Trebuchet which flings a projectile around catapult-like lever arm with dual-lever action. The goal of keeping lead arm straight and pinning it across the chest in the backswing and start of the downswing is to load it like a spring to propel and accelerate the considerable mass of the lead arm off the chest towards the target, changing the force vector of the club head mass from tangential around the feet and hands to straight at the target. It is that changing of force vector of the club head mass created by the lead arm flying off and pulling the trail arm straight which made him renowned as straight ball striker. The acton that triggered the lead arm to fly off is how he kept his back foot grounded as he shifted his hips first laterally at the target the rotated them open until resistance from the grounded leads caused hips to be arrested 45° open slowing down the rotation. The underlying physic is affecting lead arm and club head mass is like the mass of an unbelted passenger in a car crash. Watch the movement of his hips, hands, club head and back foot and you’ll see the hands slow down as the fall down around his back leg just as the hips reach 45° open at which point the club shaft becomes a blur because stopping the hips, shoulders and hands causes the club head to whip down around the and hands and the lead arm to fly off the chest. He released nearly all the lag in his wrists before impact with the ball with his ‘waggle’ down action. If you waggle a club and observe the shaft and face angle you will see the angle changes 45° and the club head moves a foot or more, adding a last second burst of acceleration a sweeping swing with sustained wrist lag lacks. That is how he got better compression of the ball and a faster rate of decompression (more velocity off the face) than his contemporaries. Having learned to swing like that the feeling is more similar to swinging an axe to cut a V in a horizontal log or toe-nail a stud with a nail driven at a 45° angle than a sweep through the ball.

He actually says hands start the swing, then shoulders

Dufner… the perfect dude to advertise to a sloppy wipe

Hogan didn't write the book.

I think he’s regurgitating Chuck Cook and TGM and knows less about Hogan than people think. I think he has a Hoganesque ‘look’ but lacks the ‘work’.