“I always outworked everybody. Work never bothered me like it bothers some people. You can outwork the best player in the world.” ~Ben Hogan
Ben Hogan was the epitome of work ethic. He practically invented the idea of treating golf as a job. Like any successful entrepreneur, he was always practicing and looking for better results. He was the first to map courses and play his clubs for a specific distance.
He believed you could have anything you were willing to work for, even a miracle.
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He believed that experimentation and competition were the keys to improvement. And work. He didn’t believe you were born to greatness, he believed you worked for it. When Jack Nicklaus (arguably the greatest golfer ever) was asked if Tiger Woods was the greatest ball-striker he had ever seen, Jack replied with no hesitation “No, Ben Hogan was the best ball striker I have ever seen.” This wasn’t because Ben was a “natural,” he said many times that no one was a natural at golf. It was due to endless hours of training and practicing different tweaks to his grip, stance, back-swing, hand position at different points in the swing. In essence he became his own coach, always striving for improvement, never being satisfied or resting on his laurels.
He believed you could have anything you were willing to work for, even a miracle.
He went pro just before his 18th birthday in 1930. It took a decade for him to win his first tournament. He kept working, and he kept playing golf.
He served in the Army from 1943 to 1945. Then in February 1949 his golf career was interrupted again. This time by a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus. Doctors told him he wasn’t likely to ever walk again. Let alone play competitive golf. In November of that same year he was back on the golf course, and he returned to the PGA tour at the start of the 1950 season. He got his miracle, because he worked for it.
“Golf was my life. I didn’t want to give it up. So I went to work!”
Today, 17 years after his death, Ben is still widely recognized as one of golf’s greatest legacy players.
When I’m tempted to throw up my hands and say “What’s the use?” or when it seems like what I want is going to require a miracle, I think about Ben’s determination and belief in his ability to outwork the odds.
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AP Photo