My Swing (Hogan Project)

[Tiger90]

I actually couldn't read all the above comments, too long and not enough time on my hands.

I dont really know why you would try to do this, but thats irrelevant at this point.  Even if you never get an exact duplicate of Hogan's swing, at least you will be practicing a lot and probably get better in the end.

[sk golf]

Originally Posted by Hogan Project

I don't know much about Moe Norman, but the guy here looks close.

I can just hear a doubter saying "Moe Norman was the best ball striker EVER. Nobody can or will ever get close to swinging like him."

Why not the same for the Hogan swing?? Now where the heck is Hogan's best pupil hiding??

Here is a clip of VJ Trolio, He teaches at Old Waverly in West Point MS.

[Hogan Project]

Quote:

I actually couldn't read all the above comments, too long and not enough time on my hands.

I dont really know why you would try to do this, but thats irrelevant at this point.  Even if you never get an exact duplicate of Hogan's swing, at least you will be practicing a lot and probably get better in the end.

Trust me....it's really not worth reading...It's nothing but a swing journal.

I get the same questions all the time regarding "why" I'm doing this. Here's my reply from another forum:

Is your primary goal to have a swing that visually replicates Hogan's as closely as possible or to improve your game ? Yes, visual replication is the goal, and if I am able to get the visual down, then that has to, in some way, give an indirect ballstriking result. And by visually, I mean putting my swing vs Hogans, side-by-side on a screen, and step through it frame-by-frame. If the positions are close, then I am making progress. I think game improvement will be an indirect, but automatic occurance.

How long have you been playing golf ? Picked up my first club in 2007 at a company outing. I was a competetive softball player back then. One of my coworkers bet me that I couldn't hit the ball 100yds into the fairway. Said I could use any club I wanted to. I picked the driver cause it was the biggest lol. Had no idea about loft and side spin and grooves. Gave me 10 chances at it. 1st ball went about 200yds but had a small steering wheel attached to it; turned hard right. Ball #10 sliced two fairways over; after that day, I was hooked!

How often do you play ? March thru October, about once per week. One thing I puposefully do on the course that probably seems strange: I take no practice swings.....ever. Not even when putting. I have a reason for this.

What do you usually shoot ? All-time low this year is a 92. Avg score the past few years has been 101-108. Putting avg is approx 1.7.

How will you measure the success of your experiment ? For this phase of the project, Visually. For future projects, Better scores and Better ball striking.

Do you find your experiment more satisfying than playing a round of golf ? Sorry, don't know yet. havent finished the expriment yet. But, I can say, that there is not much satisfaction hitting balls 13yds in my basement swing lab lol!

Other thoughts.....why did I chose to use Hogan as my example? Because I like the way the swing looks, and I've never seen any other ordinary person have a swing that looked aesthetically as his. It's the most eye-appealing to me. If I had to pick a player of today, it would be Rory McIlroy, but again, this is not based on wins or performance or driving distance or any of that kind of stuff.....only the aesthetics.

Another question I get a lot.....why don't you just put all the effort into the "swing you were born with," rather than focus on trying to change your "natural swing" into someone elses? I am confused as to how people come up with the definition of "natrual swing." To me, there is no natural swing that you are born with. Just as there is no speaking accent that you are born with. If a Korean child, born to Korean parents, in Korea, is put on a plane, and flown to a farm in South Georgia, and is raised from age 0 to 15 by a surrounding of people that speak with a southern accent, this Korean child will have a southern accent. Just because they are born to Korean-speaking, Korean-looking parents, does not mean that they will "naturally" speak the same as them.

Same for the golf swing......you weren't born with any type of predisposed "golf swing" built into your DNA. You learned it. If you grew up never ever seeing anyone speaking of, or playing golf, and someone handed you a club, you would just stare at it, and have no idea what it is for. You would either have to have someone tell you how to use it, or observe it being used. If they told you that you swing the club by squatting your butt all the way to the ground, then jump up and spin around in two circles, this would be your "natural" swing. And if you practiced the heck out of it, and burned it into muscle-memory, you could play golf with it.

There are natural ROM's for each of us, but not a specific golf swing.

Regarding the "effort" queston, I do think I could tweek the "natural" swing I have developed over the past 4 years into scratch. But, I have decided that I don't like the swing "accent", and now want to change it. Naaaah, let me reword that.....I don't see anything wrong with my original swing accent, but now I want to see if it is at all possible to learn a new one.

[Hogan Project]

Is this really Hogan swinging here??

[Hogan Project]

Still experimenting with lots of things. Haven't put together a solid training plan yet. Won't do that till I can get a basic understanding of a few more things. Only felt like doing some 3/4 swings today. My lower back has been giving me a tough time for the past few days; probably from me doing sort of a backwards lean as I swing through. Kim says I should give it up cause I'm tearing my body down. I say "no way....I'm in too deep and have learned too much." If it gets torn down to the point of needing a back transplant, I'll just work towards the Hogan in the Mr. Rogers yellow sweater. Until then........ONWARD MEN....ummmmm and women........C H A R G E !!!!

I am getting soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo stinkin tired of this basement. My daughter, the family artist, offered to paint a golf course mural on the white sheet I'm hitting into. :)

If the weather is good this weekend, I'm gonna get out in the front yard yard and hit some of those birdieballs onto the neighbors roof. Just hope I don't get that urge to tee up a ProV1 to see if I can fade it around the two houses at the cul de sac.

0:48 5-metal
2:57 Sam Snead 1-wood
3:46 Taylormade Driver 450cc (ball on mat no tee)
4:21 McGregor 5-wood (grip is hard as a rock and feels like plastic. Ball ricocheted up into the girders. Probably hit top of club cause it rotates in my palm from lack of tacky grip.)
5:01 3-metal
5:33 5-metal
6:65 Sam Snead 1-wood slo mo

[Shorty]

Some freeze frames might look similar, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that's the entire swing at normal speed.

To me, the waggle is ungainly and very unnatural and particularly unathletic.

The posture at takeaway and at the end of the follow through might look reasonably close, but from the top of the swing, at least to me, it seems totally out of control and I'm imagining a lot of very weak duck hooks.

[Hogan Project]

Quote:

Some freeze frames might look similar, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that's the entire swing at normal speed.

To me, the waggle is ungainly and very unnatural and particularly unathletic.

The posture at takeaway and at the end of the follow through might look reasonably close, but from the top of the swing, at least to me, it seems totally out of control and I'm imagining a lot of very weak duck hooks.

Agreed. I have no idea what I am doing. Hopefully, I'll have some kind of understanding by Take 100. I'm averaging about 4 Takes a month, so thats approx 21.5 months to go.

Hmmmm, I've never really noticed the waggle. Haven't broken it down yet. I'm looking at something totally different in these vids....only my right leg at the top. The rest of it is still my old swing.

[cortsongolf]

I teach what Hogan's only pupil, John Schlee taught me.  The pic above is from your video just past impact.  You are using your upper body to throw your hands at the ball.  You would do better to think of dragging the club head through.  Think of throwing a bucket of water at someone's face who is standing on your target line.

[Hogan Project]

Quote:

I teach what Hogan's only pupil, John Schlee taught me.  The pic above is from your video just past impact.  You are using your upper body to throw your hands at the ball.  You would do better to think of dragging the club head through.  Think of throwing a bucket of water at someone's face who is standing on your target line.

Thanks for the info Mr. Cortson. You definitely know what you are talking about if John Schlee taught you. I do agree that in the "Take 1" video you are referring to, I am throwing my hands/arms at the ball. This is the original swing that I was taught by people on the driving range. I shot "Take 1" in July, when I first saw and heard of Hogan. Over the past few months, I've been trying to gain an understanding of how the golf swing works......or actually, how Hogan's works.

I'm on "Take 14" now. I've made a few changes, and it feels like I'm making some slight progress, but as you can see, it is going veeeeeeeeery slow.

What do you see happening in my "Take 14" vid?

And regarding Hogan's only pupil, John Schlee, I'd love to take a look at his swing. Where can his videos be found?

[Hogan Project]

Made it to the course on Friday afternoon, but not to play. I watched Bruce and my Dad battle each other for December bragging rights. Too perfect a day for them to pass it up. 69-70 degrees with very little wind. They were a little baffled by my choice not to play. They know about my swing reconstruction goal and only tried to talk me into it about 100 times. But luckily, I didn't even bring my clubs, cause I'm not ready to focus on ball flight/course management yet. But I did need to get out of the solitary basement atmosphere to smell the green grass and listen to some fiendly trash talking.

They only played the front nine. After 8 holes, they were tied. My Dad won on the 9th hole by 1 stroke, after Bruce's 2nd shot pin-balled off a pine tree. Didn't bother me not playing cause I got to do lots of caddying and swing analysis. I've put so much time into looking at swing video the past few months that I'm starting to get an understand of what I am looking at, and how to pick out the things that are fundamentally good and bad. I'm definitely not a swing instructor, but one of my main goals, besides the Hogan duplication attempt, is to help my Dad with his golf game. He is 67 years old, freshly retired, and shoots in the 95-101 range. He has fun playing the game, but what I see now in his swing is absolutely no weight shift. He swings off his back foot, which makes him very armsy. He is working is butt off swinging with all upper body. I don't know how he makes it through 18 holes without being tired and drained.

He said he saw my Take 14 video and that my swing looks different, but that I will probably not be able to transition it from the basement to the course. Says he's working on his game too, and that he will be giving us extra strokes to keep things competitive. We'll see.......

[Hogan Project]

I reluctantly hung out with Kim on Saturday; I don't mind spending quality time with her, but I do mind SHOPPING NONSTOP FOR 8 STINKIN HOURS!

I swallowed the above rant because when she stopped by a goodwill/thrift store, I got a chance to browse the "thrifty" golf area. There were a few used, off-brand clubs and bags that had been abandonded by their owners.

I stumbled across the following:

a Ben Hogan AMF 1-wood (cracked hozel area),
a Ben Hogan AMF 1-wood, (good)
a Ben Hogan AMF 3-wood, (good)
a Ben Hogan AMF 4-wood (missing screw in sole)

All appear to have the original AMF grip, based on the "exclusive Hogan AMF design" stamped on the end of the grip. I'm not sure if these are men's or women's clubs.

The 4-wood feels just like my TaylorMade 5-metal.

[The Tin Man]

Not shopping...."Hunting Gathering". You tracked down some Hogans.

Nothing wrong with AMF.  They gave Hogan the money to build his company, and kept Harley Davidson alive. If it wasn't for AMF we wouldn't have all those dirt cheap Hogans on E-bay.

PS: I think the shaft number on the woman's clubs was a 1.  2=senior and  3=regular. (5=re-shaft)

[Hogan Project]

Originally Posted by The Tin Man

Not shopping...."Hunting Gathering". You tracked down some Hogans.

Nothing wrong with AMF.  They gave Hogan the money to build his company, and kept Harley Davidson alive. If it wasn't for AMF we wouldn't have all those dirt cheap Hogans on E-bay.

PS: I think the shaft number on the woman's clubs was a 1.  2=senior and  3=regular. (5=re-shaft)

These are all #3. Thanks for the info!

[Hogan Project]

I've been reviewing my share of Hogan videos and have yet to see a full swing of him with his left heel planted.

Has anyone seen any full-swing vid of Hogan where his left heel DOESN'T raise as he gets to the top?

[uttexas]

I see that Blake Burleson has his Hogan book available on amazon (there also appears to be a new updated version)--considering your project, could be worth looking at. [URL]http://www.amazon.com/One-Plane-Cut-Swing-Hogans/dp/1438973225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid;=1325020808&sr;=8-1[/URL] here's another book available that could provide some insight. [URL]http://www.amazon.com/Final-Missing-Hogans-Secret-Puzzle/dp/0979363500/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie;=UTF8&qid;=1325021184&sr;=1-1[/URL]

[Hogan Project]

Quote:

I've been reviewing my share of Hogan videos and have yet to see a full swing of him with his left heel planted.

Has anyone seen any full-swing vid of Hogan where his left heel DOESN'T raise as he gets to the top?

Even in his 3/4 swings, left heel is coming up, then slamming back down like he's stomping a bug. Veeeeeewy intwesting. Then next question is, why don't today's players stomp the bug?

[Hogan Project]

Quote:

Quote:

Even in his 3/4 swings, left heel is coming up, then slamming back down like he's stomping a bug. Veeeeeewy intwesting. Then next question is, why don't today's players stomp the bug?

When comparing players of the 50's, 60's, 70's, & 80's, vs todays guys, there is a definite difference in left heel/foot movement. My theory on Hogan and the other old schoolers is that they were just using observational learning, or were taught to use the left foot; maybe to gain extra turn or leverage, or power.

Hogan may have said he "didn't pay any attention to what his left heel did during the swing" because it's something that was ""normal"" to him. If we were to walk up to random people at different driving ranges today and ask them why they don't raise their left heel they would most likely respond with " I don't pay any attention to what my left heel does during the swing. I haven't payed any attention to it." But not because they don't pay attention to it, but because they never saw anyone else doing this and never made it a part of the swing.

I can imaging that today, if the top 5 money leaders on tour all of a sudden started to lift their left heel, the same swing mechanic would roll downhill to local driving ranges.

My main reason for being curious about the left heel is:

Why did old-schoolers do it?
(my guess is cause they saw the guy next to them doing it, and when he did do it, his ball went further)

Did it make a difference in distance/accuracy?
(my guess would be increased distance/decreased accuracy)

At what point in golf history did it become more popular to not raise it?
(I have no guess, but I would think it would have something to do with whoever the hottest player was at the time that didn't do it, and consistently won more than the guys that did it)

My other reason for wanting to experiment/add this to my swing is cause Hogan did it. Has nothing to do with distance or accuracy in my case.

[Hogan Project]

I think I'm finished with all the general experimenting now. I have a basic idea of what is happening in the swing, and am ready to put together an actual training plan.

Based on my Take14 vid, I thought I was making pretty ok progress, but after re-analyzing Hogan's concentration drills, a lot more is starting to make sense. And when I say "make sense," I'm talking about how I translate what I see vs what I feel that I am doing physically.

I have had my biggest breakthru this week while analyzing the concentration drills from Coleman video, and Fr. Keller video. I've now made major changes in the setup of my feet, leg position, and weight distribution. From the address to the top, real vs concentration are veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery close in mechanical nature. This tells me I can now focus on concentration movements, because they closely match the real swing.

I did an analysis a few months ago of the Coleman DTL vid that shows the likeness.

Tonite, I have just finished putting together the same type of analysis of the Fr. Keller video; a comparison of real vs concentration. I tried putting audio on it. Still converting it and trying to load onto youtube.

I will also be doing the same 'real vs concentration' comparison of the Coleman FO view this weekend.

What do these vids tell me? That it should be absolutely no excuse for not mastering the takeaway/upswing/the top. (Boy, I hope I don't eat those words.)