BEN HOGAN
Golfer
On a foggy night near Van Horn, Texas, in February 1949, Ben Hogan and his wife Valerie were driving home from the Phoenix Open. Coming the other way a Greyhound bus driver, running behind schedule, attempted to overtake a truck but instead collided head-on with Hogan’s car. Hogan threw himself in front of his wife—a reaction that is thought to have saved both their lives—and suffered horrible injuries as the front of his car was crushed into his left side.
Hogan suffered a double fracture to his pelvis and fractures to his collarbone, left ankle and ribs. Then in hospital that night a blood clot brought the Grim Reaper bedside, before a surgeon from New Orleans was flown in by the US Air Force and saved Hogan’s life. That night the news wires first reported that Hogan had been killed.
Doctors speculated Hogan might not walk again, let alone play golf, but Hogan was the golfer who famously “dug [his game] out of the dirt”. He was the first golfer to return to the practice ground after a good round, his work ethic relentless. Arnold Palmer would later describe Hogan as “an icy monarch” ruling over the game.
Hogan had secured three career major titles by the time of the car crash and he somehow recovered to return to tour action a year later. Then at the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion—16 months after the crash and despite battling debilitating pain in his legs—Hogan won the title he would cherish most, but only after he had endured an 18-hole play-off to defeat Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio. They called it the “Miracle at Merion”.
Hogan would limit his playing schedule for the rest of his career, yet still win a further five majors, including a 1953 hat-trick of the Masters, U.S.
Open and [British] Open.
After six weeks in a hospital bed Hogan was assisted to a wheelchair and brought into the El Paso sun. In isolation, many pelvic fractures require three months before a patient can put weight on the legs. Compounding this was the ankle fracture and associated compromised circulation, which slowed recovery. Then multiple rib fractures and a collarbone fracture limit the ability to support oneself with a walker, further inhibiting Hogan’s recovery.
Assuming Hogan was able to stand at the earliest in June 1949, he then took only 12 months to learn to walk, build upper and lower body strength and regain flexibility and mobility to play golf. To swing a golf club effectively, the entire body must work in concert to simultaneously provide lower body stability, in order to allow the upper body to rotate, loading the back leg to generate enough torque through the hips, ultimately pulling the upper body and torso through the ball to contact and follow through. Any stiffness, weakness or deficiency in the ankles, knees, hips, pelvis, spine, shoulders, elbows, or wrists would inhibit the swing.
Hogan’s swing at the 1950 U.S. Open demonstrates none of this, only 14 months after the crash. Perhaps it was good medicine, but more likely it was Hogan’s resolve. Medicine and surgery can treat the body and the body can heal, but recovery demands struggle, pain and persistence. Remarkable about Hogan’s recovery was that he regained such precise, fluid function in such a short amount of time.