Ben Hogan Would Be Irrelevant Today

[Shorty]

It just occurred to me that an early Bugatti would not dominate Formula 1 today, therefore it is an irrelevant piece of junk.

[dak4n6]

WELCOME BACK PATRICK!

NOW, PLEASE LEAVE!

[Kapanda]

Who the hell is this Patrick dude?!

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by Shorty

It just occurred to me that an early Bugatti would not dominate Formula 1 today, therefore it is an irrelevant piece of junk.

Since I can't point out any obvious holes in your argument, I'm just posting this instead.

[BuckeyeNut]

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

Who else agrees with me that Ben Hogan would be irrelevant on today's PGA Tour? He might be able to squeak into the top 30 or 25 in the world, and he'd probably be a major winner, but dominant? No way. The only advantage that Ben Hogan would have would be his mental game. Hogan probably had the best mental game of any golfer ever, that can't be denied. His course management and attitude was second to none. But physically he could not hang with today's top 30. So I am not a hater, I am giving him his props. Here are the FACTS:

Ben Hogan's "legacy" was developed during a time when golf instruction was in the dark ages. In my opinion we are still evolving and developing technique every day, Hogan just happened to be significantly ahead of his peers at the time. No one knew jack about the golf swing back then, Hogan didn't have any "secrets," it's just that everyone else was such an idiot. Who were the best golf instructors back then? Claude Harmon? LOL. Jackie Burke? LOL. Reading the advice in "It's Only a Game," made me cringe. Welcome to the 21st century. LOL

The only reason Hogan's ball striking has achieved mythical status is that no one could hit the ball back then. There are literally dozens of golfers who would be better ball strikers today than Ben Hogan. Go to the range at any NCAA event and you are bound to see a bunch of college kids that can hit it better than Hogan. more far, more accurate, period.

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.

Ben Hogan's putting was pitiful. Yeah yeah yeah, "Oh before his accident he was so good at putting before he went blind in the left eye!" LOL, excuses, whatever. The truth of the matter is that Hogan's putting will forever go down as his achilles heel. The truth of the matter is that to play golf at the highest level of the PGA tour, you have to have elite level putting and short game. While Hogan's short game was pretty good, it was never his strong point. So based on his putting and short game I don't think he would be able to crack the top 5 in world rankings.

And I'm going to have to finally mention the elephant in the room. Power. Despite everyone thinking Ben Hogan hammered it, the fact of the matter is that he didn't okay? Even Hank Haney stated in his Golf Digest "My Shot" interview that Hank Haney, Lee Trevino, and Moe Norman despite their great ball striking ability lacked today's raw power. Hogan just couldn't hang with the big dawgs on tour today, and that's a fact.

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.

This is the most insanely stupid post of the day.   Nothing more needs to be said........

[Jwat381]

I wish there was somewhere we could banish this entire thread topic. Some deep, far region of the internet.

[Kapanda]

Originally Posted by Jwat381

I wish there was somewhere we could banish this entire thread topic. Some deep, far region of the internet.

Why would you do that?? And miss out on the lulz?!

[Jwat381]

I stand corrected. It's not quite as lulz worthy tho, because the guy is serious, and just a dick. You know what is funny?

Two dweebs came to the driving range yesterday with the sole purpose of destroying a bucket of balls (or just the top of the balls ;) ) and the one kid, talking about all the cool golf equipment he had seen recently and the great prices they were being offered at, kept starting his sentences with "The other day I was looking at Dick's..." then he would go on to share some good price he saw for a fairway "wood" or something along those lines. The phrase was repeated a number of times, and it provided me with a good chuckle.

Originally Posted by Kapanda

Why would you do that?? And miss out on the lulz?!

[Kapanda]

Hahaha!!! Yeah that sounds funny as sh!t!!

"Welcome to Dicks, how may I help you?"

"How much is that wood?"

Hahahaha!!!

[misty_mountainhop]

Originally Posted by Chas

Since the BMW in-line six was what powered the best-performing aircraft of early 1918 (the Focker DVII iirc), the one that almost cleared the skies of those inferior British/French/Belgium birds, the only car to own these days is .... you guessed it .... a beemer with an in-line six under the hood.

Fact.

Except the SPAD and the SE/5 made many a mess of the DVII...

[caniac6]

Originally Posted by Kapanda

Hahaha!!! Yeah that sounds funny as sh!t!!

"Welcome to Dicks, how may I help you?"

"How much is that wood?"

Hahahaha!!!

A guy at a local golf shop wanted to use "We're not Dick's" as their moto.

[Clambake]

Originally Posted by Chas

Since the BMW in-line six was what powered the best-performing aircraft of early 1918 (the Focker DVII iirc), the one that almost cleared the skies of those inferior British/French/Belgium birds, the only car to own these days is .... you guessed it .... a beemer with an in-line six under the hood.

Fact.

Chas, I agree with you it's a great engine (it is in 2 of the cars in my garage), but unfortunately you're wrong on one count:  "Beemer" is a BMW motorcycle, and "Bimmer" is the car.     Unless you're referring to putting the 3 liter turbo six into your bike!

[Jwat381]

Love it haha

Originally Posted by caniac6

A guy at a local golf shop wanted to use "We're not Dick's" as their moto.

[Chanceman]

Have you seen the greens those guys played on? Rough as guts. Today we have these manicured carpets masquerading as natural greens.Even Augusta looks like a muni back in 1953 - and by the way check out the Augusta national video clip of Mr Hogan slotting chips from 30 yards on cue.  And most guys on the seniors tour hit it longer than they did on tour which reduces reliance on short game. Nutrition, fitness, you name it - we know a lot more than they did in 1953. you are really just saying todays guys are better because they are better which relatively they are not. suck another lemon.

[bwdial]

Originally Posted by Vijay4LIFE

I've reported your post. I don't find that particularly humorous.

Maybe you find racism to give you the LOLs but I find it just absolutely repugnant that an otherwise very serious and constructive discussion confirming Hogan's irrelevance in the modern game of golf would be reduced to racism.

Unbelievable.

You're the ignorant jackass that injected race into the whole issue.  You obviously wanted people to jump in and say "Hogan is better than Woods", and when no one did, you did it yourself.

I nominate you for troll of the year.

[Gas Hawg]

The OP has an extremely narrow minded view of people and / or human nature. Seeing as how, in his era, Hogan worked to become the best player he could, it stands to reason that if he were of this era he would still do the same. I believe that if he needed to hit the gym daily to compete and win at the highest level so he could drive a ball 300 yards, he would do just that. Professional athletes work hard to beat their competition. Your argument is only valid if Hogan were to be completely satisfied with being a weekend hack like me. I am neither a Hogan follower nor a true follower of any modern day golfer. But for the OP to definitively say Hogan would be a poor golfer in today's golf world is crazy. People who are champions rise to that level by working hard to out-gun the competition. It appears he is one of those folks we come across in life that will argue for the sake of arguing. Right or wrong my 2 cents.....

[The Tin Man]

Forget trying to bring Hogan into the future, that's not possible.

But, we can take a modern player back to the past.

No jets, broken down car, hungry wife, $500 top prize.

No product endorsements, giving lessons between tournaments to eat, sharing flea bag motel rooms................

[Apoc81]

So OP, I suppose Nicklaus was a hack, too.