William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997) was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game.

[3][4][5] Hogan's nine career professional major championships tie him with Gary Player for fourth all-time, trailing only Jack Nicklaus (18), Tiger Woods (15) and Walter Hagen (11).

By some accounts, Chester committed suicide in front of him, which some (including Hogan biographer James Dodson) have cited as the cause of his introverted personality in later years.

[7] The family incurred financial difficulties after his father's suicide, and the children took jobs to help their seamstress mother make ends meet.

A tip from a friend led him to caddying at age eleven at Glen Garden Country Club, a nine-hole course located three miles out of town.

Club rules did not allow caddies age 16 and older, so after August 1928, Hogan took his game to three scrubby daily-fee courses: Katy Lake, Worth Hills, and Z-Boaz.

Hogan met Valerie Fox in Sunday school in Fort Worth in the mid-1920s, and they reacquainted in 1932 when he landed a low-paying club-pro job in Cleburne, where her family had moved.

[11][12] Although it took a decade for Hogan to secure his first victory, his wife Valerie believed in him, and this helped see him through the tough years when he battled a hook that he later cured.

During Hogan's prime years of 1938 through 1959, he won 63 professional golf tournaments despite the interruption of his career by World War II and a near-fatal car accident.

Hogan served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from March 1943 to June 1945; he was stationed locally at Fort Worth and became a utility pilot with the rank of lieutenant.

Driving home to Fort Worth after a Monday playoff loss at the 1949 Phoenix Open,[13] Hogan and his wife Valerie survived a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus east of Van Horn, Texas.

On the morning of Wednesday, February 2, Hogan had reduced his speed in the limited visibility ground fog; the bus was attempting to pass another vehicle on a narrow bridge, which left no place to avoid the crash.

While Hogan was in the hospital in El Paso, his life was endangered by a blood clot problem that led doctors to tie off the vena cava.

He returned to the PGA Tour to start the 1950 season at the Los Angeles Open, where he tied with Sam Snead over 72 holes, but lost the 18-hole playoff, held over a week later (due to course conditions).

[18][19] The win at Carnoustie was only a part of Hogan's watershed 1953 season, a year in which he won five of the six tournaments he entered, including three major championships (a feat known as the Triple Crown of Golf).

After the win at Carnoustie, Hogan and his wife Valerie were passengers on the SS United States westbound to New York City, where he received a ticker tape parade down Broadway on July 21.

[25] Jacobs alleges that Byron Nelson told him this information, and furthermore that Hogan developed and used the "strong" grip as a boy to be able to hit the ball as far as bigger, stronger contemporaries.

This ball flight was the result of his using a "draw" type swing in conjunction with a "weak" grip, a combination that all but negated the chance of hitting a hook.

[26] In May 1967, the editor of Cary Middlecoff's 1974 book The Golf Swing watched every shot that 54-year-old Hogan hit in the Colonial National Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas.

In "The Search for the Perfect Golf Swing", researchers Cochran and Stobbs held the opinion that a left-handed person playing right-handed would be prone to hook the ball.

Hy Peskin, a staff photographer for Sports Illustrated, took a famous photo of Ben Hogan playing a 1-iron shot to the green at the 72nd hole of the 1950 U.S.

"[32] "To gain a real acquaintance with this preparatory guide to correct gripping, I would suggest practicing it five or 10 minutes a day for a week until it begins to become second nature.

Hogan's ball striking has also been described as being of near miraculous caliber by other very knowledgeable observers such as Jack Nicklaus, who only saw him play some years after his prime.

"The Hawk" possessed fierce determination and an iron will, which combined with his unquestionable golf skills, formed an aura that could intimidate opponents into competitive submission.

[35] It is a reference to his steely and seemingly nerveless demeanor, itself a product of a golf swing he had built that was designed to perform better the more pressure he put it under.

While he suffered from the "yips" in his later years,[36] Hogan was known as an effective putter from mid to short range on quick, U.S. Open style surfaces at times during his career.

Hogan went on to achieve what is perhaps the greatest sporting accomplishment in history, limping to twelve more PGA Tour wins (including six majors) before retiring.

His 14-under par at the 1953 Masters set a record that stood for a dozen years; as of 2018, he remains one of just twelve (Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Ben Crenshaw, Tiger Woods, David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Charl Schwartzel, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, and Patrick Reed) to have recorded such a low score in the tournament.

The record stood until 1998, when it was broken by John Huston (it has since been surpassed by nine others, including most recently Phil Mickelson's 28-under in the 2013 Waste Management Phoenix Open).

The only player of that level who did not play was Sam Snead, but the field did also include Bobby Jones who had competed in his own Masters event in April of that year.