Ben Hogan Would Be Irrelevant Today

[bwdial]

Quote:

The only reason Hogan's ball striking has achieved mythical status is that no one could hit the ball back then.

Your entire line of thought is utterly irrelevant because of this statement right here.

[Vijay4LIFE]

It's not MY fault that all the old time heroes of Golf couldn't compete today. That's evolution. That's life. Sam Sneed, Byron Nelson, Hogan, Sarazon, all stood out when most of the field were professionals like lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, etc since only well to do professionals could even afford to play part time on the tours. The other guys were all golf bums.

modern golfer > old timers.

[iPutt]

[Vijay4LIFE]

Listen, seriously, if you guys want to believe in silliness, fine. That's your prerogative. You are absolutely entitled to believe that ben hogan would be the greatest player on the pga tour today, you can believe that he would be in the top 5, you can believe in supernatural events, ghosts, god, tooth fairies, vote for bush, etc. Everyone is entitled to do ridiculous things. But I'm not going to just sit here and they "oh, they're logical." It goes without saying that pretty much anyone who doesn't acknowledge that Tiger Woods is the greatest of all time is just a racist, and that's what most of the Hogan > Tiger people are doing.

[teamroper60]

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

It's not MY fault that all the old time heroes of Golf couldn't compete today.

You say you want to talk facts but you can't.   You can talk stats but again, those stats are skewed by the differences in equipment between then and now........   So once again, your argument is moot.

[Dave H]

I think Hogan would be fine if he played golf today. He could even be better with all the information and tools we have available. This argument reminds me of another one I've heard that says the leading rock musicians of the 60s are crap musicians compared to those of today. While technically that may be true - the kids of today can play the stuff they were playing back then in their sleep - those early guitar players were inventing new styles, techniques, and sounds that practically every rock guitar player of today utilizes. Because those guys were fantastic, creative musicians, if you started them over today they would probably be doing all the same things that other players today are. I would wager to say the same would go for Hogan.

[Harmonious]

OK, Vijay4Life, it's getting late, 8 posts and you are starting to get cranky. Time to turn your computer off and come up from the basement.  It's past your bedtime.

[teamroper60]

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

It goes without saying that pretty much anyone who doesn't acknowledge that Tiger Woods is the greatest of all time is just a racist, and that's what most of the Hogan > Tiger people are doing.

Now you are not only being pointless, you are being ridiculous..................   Not only do you start with a totally ludicrous argument, you follow it up with assumptions about how people vote and then top it off by throwing in racism..

You don't know me and likely never will, yet you just called me and everyone else who disagrees with you, a racist without anyone in this thread EXCEPT YOU having made even the slightest suggestion that race plays a part in the debate (which it does not). Frankly I am offended at your baseless supposition. YOU are the only one here concerned about race.

[Kapanda]

Without reading the OP, because this argument has been beaten to death in all sports, major or otherwise, .02:

Likelihood is players and the game have evolved immensely since Hogan's era. That's what tends to happen. So Hogan probably wouldn't be among the very best in golf today.

But, with that said, there's no way of telling what Hogan's natural abilities with today's knowledge and technology would do.

So yah, pointless.

[Rudyprimo]

It'd be nice to have an intelligent discussion about this, but Vijay4life doesn't want to have an intelligent discussion. He's just trying to incite. Hogan is one of the greatest golfers of all time. If you took some of today's players and placed them in Hogans era, Hogan would still beat them. If you took Hogan and put him in today's era, growing up with the equipment they have now, Hogan would still be a dominant golfer. I also don't agree with the ones saying that today's coaches would help Hogan with his game. Hogan knows way more about the swing than any of today's coaches. Do you really think Sean Foley or Hank Haney know more than Hogan about the golf swing? Ben Hogan didn't have any inadequacies. Just because a golfer is known for excelling in one area doesn't mean he's bad in the others. There have been several books, some recently like "Ben Hogans Short Game Simplified", that have been written about his short game from 120 yards and in. It covers all the shots he had like flop shots, bunker shots, spinning the ball, chipping, putting etc. There was nothing inadequate in his short game. Byron Nelson once said that the key to Hogan's when he was dominating was his putting. He used to make far more putts from 15-20 feet than the other players. The same key that Tiger had when he was dominating. He had length too when he needed it. When he was younger he used to compete in long drive contests. Golfers back then played a control game, shaping their shots. But when they wanted to they could hit 300 yards or more. And that's with the inferior equipment they had back then. I remember reading in Dr. Bob Rotella's book, "Golf is not a Game of Perfect", that when Sam Snead played the first hole of his pro career, he sliced his first two tee shots off the course and onto a nearby street. He was laying four and still on the tee. He hit his next drive onto the green, 340 yards away, and sank the putt for a six. Golfers from years ago could hit 300 yard drives when they wanted to. Harry Vardon could drive the ball 280 yards when he swung away, with a wooden shaft and a "Haskell" wound ball. Hogan had the length, a pretty good short game and could putt lights out when he was dominating. What inadequacies are you talking about? Old time golfers who were tough as nails mentally, like Hogan, Sneed and Vardon would chew up and spit out 99% of the golfers on tour today.

[x129]

I don't know what you count as ball striking but if you count it as the long game (shots longer than 100 yards), saying ball striking is irrelevant is not remotely true. Tiger gained ~2/3s of his strokes on the field from those shots during his decade of dominance. Vijay was even more biased gaining almost all of his strokes from there.  If you just look at the PGA's ball striking stat, you conclusion might be right but that stat really doesn't measure how good of ball striker someone is.

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

Detailed stats were NOT kept in Hogan's day. We have no reliable metric to determine how good Hogan's ball striking was. The truth of the matter is that we do now, and guess what? It turns out that in the group of elite ball strikers, the best DO NOT have a significant edge on each other. Guys like Sergio, Joe Durant, Prime Vijay, Prime Tiger, Nick Price, Nick Faldo, Prime Boo, all of the best modern ball strikers, now that we have stats on them, are not significantly better than one another. This means that ball striking, once you are at an elite level, is mostly IRRELEVANT.

[newtogolf]

First you say Tiger is just another modern ball striker then later you say he's the best of all time and accuse us of being racists if we disagree....you really are trolling.

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

Guys like Sergio, Joe Durant, Prime Vijay, Prime Tiger, Nick Price, Nick Faldo, Prime Boo, all of the best modern ball strikers, now that we have stats on them, are not significantly better than one another. This means that ball striking, once you are at an elite level, is mostly IRRELEVANT.

In conclusion, I think that the new breed like Rory Mc, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, etc are way ahead of Hogan. If Hogan competed today he would be about on the same level as a guy like David Toms or Zach Johnson. Those guys certainly aren't bad, but they're mostly irrelevant, that that's where Hogan would be.

[Kapanda]

Originally Posted by teamroper60

Now you are not only being pointless, you are being ridiculous..................   Not only do you start with a totally ludicrous argument, you follow it up with assumptions about how people vote and then top it off by throwing in racism..

You don't know me and likely never will, yet you just called me and everyone else who disagrees with you, a racist without anyone in this thread EXCEPT YOU having made even the slightest suggestion that race plays a part in the debate (which it does not). Frankly I am offended at your baseless supposition.   YOU are the only one here concerned about race.

He was trying to get an emotional response out of people. That's the whole point of trolling.

[Kapanda]

I see your butt-hurt meme, and raise you a

[Clambake]

Originally Posted by bwdial

Patrick?  Is that you?

LOL, that's exactly what I thought when I read the OP's original post!  The writing patterns, manner his position is stated, aggressive retorts.....the whole thing is like the Monty Python argument sketch just like all of Patrick's threads.   It's like deju vu all over again.     Mods, time for an IP check!

[caniac6]

Today he would be 100 years old. I guess it would be hard to be competitive at that age.

[zipazoid]

Call me gullible. I will actually entertain you with a post.

I think, at worst case, if Hogan were playing on today's tour, his career would be similar to the guy on your avatar - Vijay. Great ball-striker, mediocre putter. He would likely kick away some wins where he only had say a one-shot lead down the stretch over a few short misses. But there would also likely be tournaments where he'd be up a half dozen down the stretch & it wouldn't matter.

At best case, he would dominate. He was the hardest-working guy on the tour back then & I don't have much doubt he would be the same today. He would still be the last to leave the range - his pride would dictate that.

I watched this vid of Hogan the other day. Just look at the gleam in his eye when he talked about how much he practiced, especially about playing '36 holes a day' -

He wanted perfection. That was his goal.

So if hard work & desire means anything (it does, just ask Tiger), I would not bet against him if he were playing today.

[rossvanwyk]

This thread is pure troll. It has to be. Stupid pointless arguments unable to be proven. Either he's Patrick or just another rude douchebag not worthy of response.