Ben Hogan's Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf (Definitive Edition) Hardcover – November 19, 2024

This is a classic in the game of golf and a must read for every golfer out there. Easy read and entertaining!

Originally got this book in the 80s. Fantastic and simple. Illustrations are SO helpful and easy to understand. Only 90+ pages. To the point and helpful.

Great for golfers.

This book is all any starting novice golfer will need for proper instructions on full swing. For short game, I will recommend Getting Up And Down by Tom Watson. I found numerous videos for tips in Youtube largely useless or misleading especially for the novice. To learn powerful and repeatable full swing, this book is best because it explains all the steps from the grip to downswing as one coherent system that is what Mr. Hogan refers to as chain actions. Having said that, this book elicits some questions, as well. For example, though Mr. Hogan devoted Chapter 2 to stance and posture, unexplicably he does not talk about how to address the ball in detail. In two other equally great books, Getting Up And Down by Tom Watson and Golf My Way by Jack Nicklaus, the authors emphasize address should reflect so called hitting geometry in which the hands are ahead of the ball location. The reader of this book can only guess what Mr. Hogan's thought might be on proper address from one of the illustrations in the book, where remarkably to me at least, the club is held almost perfectlly vertical (pg. 24)! I can confirm the same vertical address in numerous videos of him. Another example is the position of the grip at the top of backswing that he aptly refers to as the crossroad. He emphasizes in this book the left arm and grip should stay in the backswing plane which is a plane extending through the shoulders and the ball at address. This is a point I found very useful and follow. However, it is widely known that, as a player, his grip at the crossroad was far below this plane (shown in iconic Aug. 8, 1955 Life Magazine cover) and, as a matter of fact, one of the flattest of all PGA pros according to Jack Nicklaus. I wonder therefore whether his emphasis on supination (counter-clockwise rotation of the hands/wrists in the hitting area) is a way to compensate for his low top position. The starting golfers however should not mind this discrepancy. Instead they should focus on his teaching in the book to stay on the backswing plane and that will work nicely. All in all, I have no doubt this is the first book any starting golfers should read and refer to whenever questions arise as they practice full swing. They will benefit immeasurably.iP.S.Since I wrote my review two years ago, I have gained an additional insight on supination. I was baffled by the fact that some golfers did not underscore its impotance as much as Hogan did in this book and this is why. His grip, the famous Hogan grip, is essentially a fade grip and without conscious turn and control of his left hand, the face of the club will open at impact. If it is done properly however it will become a power source as the speed of the club head will increase by this turning. When it is combined with the right hand release, the result? Long and deadly straight ball to the target with slight fade at the end (Hogan's power fade) even for amateur golfers.

Ben Hogan was (arguably) the greatest ball striker of his era. He also had a very high IQ. Some say he was a genius. He invented the modern golf swing that we still see on tour today. This book is a must read for anyone looking to learn the basic fundamentals of the modern golf swing. I would give this book 5 stars if the illustrations were better or photos were used instead. My hardback copy looks like it is printed on recycled paper in a poor printer. A reissue is long overdue for such a valuable piece of instruction.

Fiance loves the book- huge golf fan and said that the book really helps!

I won't go into a summary of the 5 Lessons because, well, it hardly needs one. What I will say is that the notion that the average golfer would suffer by paying attention to what Mr. Hogan describes in this masterpiece is utterly ridiculous. The facts are the following:- This man's swing was/is envied by legions of golfers, prob for all time.- Everything he says about the swing, is not only true - it's the holy grail to great striking- This is not a complete picture of Ben Hogan's swing, it's a breakdown of how to implement/apply the fundamentals, not his exact swing. There are variations that come along with each fundamental - they are tweaks that work only in conjunction with other modifications - such is the golf swing; Mr Hogan took most of those to his grave, at least the explanations, that is. There are clues to *what* (not necessarily how) he did in the golf swing, they are out there - everywhere...- Claims that Ben Hogan had more physical ability than most people and that being the reason for his swing being nearly flawless are preposterous. He was an athletic man, but he was *just* a man, after all. No, what Hogan had was not physical, it was mental strength, heart, dedication, and most importantly, motivation - something Ben Hogan had droves of (if that's not a secret I don't know what is).- Anyone can develop a swing based on these fundamentals. Key word, CAN - not will*. Just like ANYONE can become a rocket scientist given the right motivation/circumstance/effort etc, the same holds true for any version of the golf swing, including variations of these techniques, and believe it or not - Ben Hogan's own variation(s). Also, theories about body types limiting these fundamentals are nonsensical, and over-stated.- An open club face, with the RIGHT path - will always produce a reliable shot, it's call a fade. You can even hit a hook with an open club face, given the correct alterations in the setup/path. The idea that this will just make you slice more is just silly, it's the chicken or the egg - if you're already a slicer, you likely swing out to in, which means you are destined to hit slices for life anyway - and a hook, much less a draw - is something you will never experience. Don't believe me? close the clubface and swing away, if you're a slicer, it'll still be a slice. Some argue that it is better to learn how to hook a ball first, and then adjust your grip - but in my mind (and more importantly Hogan's) - if you learn how to hit from the inside correctly, the difference between a weak grip and a strong one is obviously a fade and a draw.Well, a power fade is far more consistent than a draw and if you manage to do what Hogan did, which was hit a push fade - the loss of distance is negligible. After all, this is what Hogan battled for his whole career, a repeating fade that didn't lose distance as compared to a draw; he accomplished this.- The biggest thing to draw/learn from this book has nothing to do with "the secret" - at least not how people have historically described outside of this book (aka weak grip, cupped wrist). The real secret is to take everything Hogan says in his book as bible and follow it until you figure out what he's saying about swing path, ball positions, grip* etc. That's why they are called the 5 fundamentals...Hogan never said follow this book and have HIS swing - the amount of dedication required to develop a swing like Hogan's is something only experience will reveal.- Forget all this stuff about this book being too advanced for the avg golfer - this is the best Golf book of all time, and if you think there is a single Pro out there that hasn't figured out the majority of what Hogan is saying here, you're fooling yourself. Denying that fact is to deny yourself the chance of discovering your golf swing - you have zero chance, if you never try at all. Gotta be in it to win it.Happy Golfing!

The definitive pocket resource for grip and game. A must have for any aspiring golfer.