Hogans Horizontal Hinge

[Daryl]

Videos of Ben Hogan demonstrating the Back and Forth motion as each of his elbows bend through Release, belies the fact that the Horizontal Hinge was part of his overall Swing. Hogans Left Hand Thumb position lends credible evidence of his Horizontal Hinge.

Hogan placed his Thumb on-top of the Grip. So, by following the motion of his Thumb, we can better understand the Alignment of his Flat Left Wrist through Impact.

In the above illustration, pictures #1&2 show his Thumb to be On Plane during Release. Picture #3 is midway of his Sequenced Release Roll. Picture #4 is inches before Impact and his Left Thumb is On Top and above the Grip and His Left Wrist is Vertical to the Ground (the Ground, in this case, is the "Associated Horizontal Plane").

Pictures #5 illustrates that his Left Thumb remains "above" his Clubs Grip through Impact and Follow-Through. This corrects the misinterpretation that Hogan continuously Swiveled his Left Wrist through Impact as his video demonstrations leads one to interpret. Hogans Left Wrist remains Perpendicular to the Horizontal Plane at least until Both Arms Straight at the End of Follow-Through. That defines the "Horizontal Hinge".

Questions remain. Because he entered the Release area with a Bent Left Wrist, "Did he purposefully Arch his Left Wrist" to prevent a continuous Roll which thereby allowed the Horizontal Hinge?



(High Resolution scan from "Five Lessons", page 102)

[12 piece bucket]

Videos of Ben Hogan demonstrating the Back and Forth motion as each of his elbows bend through Release, belies the fact that the Horizontal Hinge was part of his overall Swing. Hogans Left Hand Thumb position lends credible evidence of his Horizontal Hinge.

Hogan placed his Thumb on-top of the Grip. So, by following the motion of his Thumb, we can better understand the Alignment of his Flat Left Wrist through Impact.

In the above illustration, pictures #1&2 show his Thumb to be On Plane during Release. Picture #3 is midway of his Sequenced Release Roll. Picture #4 is inches before Impact and his Left Thumb is On Top and above the Grip and His Left Wrist is Vertical to the Ground (the Ground, in this case, is the "Associated Horizontal Plane").

Pictures #5 illustrates that his Left Thumb remains "above" his Clubs Grip through Impact and Follow-Through. This corrects the misinterpretation that Hogan continuously Swiveled his Left Wrist through Impact as his video demonstrations leads one to interpret. Hogans Left Wrist remains Perpendicular to the Horizontal Plane at least until Both Arms Straight at the End of Follow-Through. That defines the "Horizontal Hinge".

Questions remain. Because he entered the Release area with a Bent Left Wrist, "Did he purposefully Arch his Left Wrist" to prevent a continuous Roll which thereby allowed the Horizontal Hinge?



(High Resolution scan from "Five Lessons", page 102)

Do you think Hogan was archy prior to his "change" when he was terrorizing field mice? I haven't done the analysis but it'd be interesting to see his Top wrist alignments comparitively. You can clearly see in this drawing that he is going from "cupped" Bent to Arched "supinated" Palmer Flexed or whatever the heck you wanna call it. It'd also be interesting to know what kind of lie angles his clubs had prior to the "change" . . . everybody says that his clubs were like 6 flat and bent open.










CLEARLY NOT DOING THE AMOUNT OF TURNING PER 5 LESSONS . . . AT LEAST EARLY . . . . BACKING INTO THE BALL

[12 piece bucket]

here's the ultimate cuppy pic . . .

[O.B.Left]

And another question..........did he arch it for iron shots only?

Its a horizontal hand motion, but the opposite to the usual one, a reverse bend to the left wrist. A little bit of "insurance" against Throwaway and a closing clubface. Given a weak left hand grip you need to arch it to get the hands ahead at impact. You dont need to "turn it down" if you have a neutral to strong left hand grip.

Is the Arch a "compensation" then? Hmmm


D, are you saying you cant roll continuously and Horizontal Hinge? You saying the arch is a little hold off move to a roll? It could be.

[12 piece bucket]

And another question..........did he arch it for iron shots only?

Its a horizontal hand motion, but the opposite to the usual one, a reverse bend to the left wrist. A little bit of "insurance" against Throwaway and a closing clubface. Given a weak left hand grip you need to arch it to get the hands ahead at impact. You dont need to "turn it down" if you have a neutral to strong left hand grip.

Is the Arch a "compensation" then? Hmmm

sorta ARCHY with driver . . . .here anyway . . . .



But if he actually gripped it like this with the shaft looking pretty much vertical . . . he'd be archy if he had any shaft lean at all . . .

[Daryl]

Do you think Hogan was archy prior to his "change" when he was terrorizing field mice? I haven't done the analysis but it'd be interesting to see his Top wrist alignments comparitively. You can clearly see in this drawing that he is going from "cupped" Bent to Arched "supinated" Palmer Flexed or whatever the heck you wanna call it. It'd also be interesting to know what kind of lie angles his clubs had prior to the "change" . . . everybody says that his clubs were like 6 flat and bent open.

I think that his good fortune began when he aligned his left wrist to the Clubface - 10-2-B. The Vertical Left Wrist came first, then he added the cupped left wrist. He claims the Key was the cupping. The key to what? Their are two ways to cup the Left Wrist at the Top of the Swing. One way is to simply go to the Top and Bend the Wrist. The other way is to Turn your Left Wrist at the Top until the Clubshaft is pointing to the Target. The Second way steepens the Plane and readies the Clubshaft for a more vertical Startdown. I have argued that the cupped left wrist is necessary to anyone that transitions to the Elbow Plane for Release. I think that Swiveling from a cupped Left Wrist also causes the Arched Left Wrist at Impact.

The lie angle of his clubs needed to be adjusted to his flatter elbow plane and since he was 5'-8" tall, he would need to adjust them flatter. He adjusted his clubs lie angle to accommodate a clean pick off whether the ball was above or below his feet. There are some Golf Guru's (Witchdoctors) that recommend players Flatten their Clubs and then learn to swing that way. That's witchdoctor mumble-jumbo black magic stuff.

Many Pro's today have their clubs opened up a degree or two. That's between the Pro, his club maker and the center of gravity of the Clubhead. Any more than that is most likely a compensation.

[drewitgolf]

I just come here for the cool pictures.

[Daryl]

And another question..........did he arch it for iron shots only?

Its a horizontal hand motion, but the opposite to the usual one, a reverse bend to the left wrist. A little bit of "insurance" against Throwaway and a closing clubface. Given a weak left hand grip you need to arch it to get the hands ahead at impact. You dont need to "turn it down" if you have a neutral to strong left hand grip.

Is the Arch a "compensation" then? Hmmm


D, are you saying you cant roll continuously and Horizontal Hinge? You saying the arch is a little hold off move to a roll? It could be.

Yes, the Arch is a little hold off move to a roll. It results naturally from his swivel and allows him to Horizontal Hinge.

The Left Wrist must remain Vertical to the associated Horizontal Plane through Impact to achieve a Closing Only alignment through the Impact. Rolling through Impact would Impart a Hooding motion through Impact and would work well if you set up to strike the ball at low-point because it would additionally supply the downward blow to sustain the line of compression. However, in a normal procedure, the Clubhead is moving Down and Out and is responsible for those two elements of a three dimensional Impact. Horizontal Hinging is responsible to turn the Line of Compression during the three dimensional Impact, to sustain the line of compression through the Impact until separation. The Hookface design of the Clubhead diverts the Ball from a Circular path to a Straight Path.

[12 piece bucket]

whatever he did . . . thinks he did . . . wanted to do . . . he did this better than anybody ever has . . .



These pics got the shaft pretty much in a vertical to the ground adjusted address alignment . . . . if he moves the handle forward at all the left wrist ARCHES . . . period end of story.







Here's the Power Golf grip . . . Clearly different left hand alignment . . . .





I know we don't like to discuss degrees and all . . . .but you got a significant amount of roll in the "new" grip . . . with the old grip if he used the same hand action (archy roll) . . . he's gonna have a difficult time hitting his start line . . . more likely to start the ball left. Because one thing Hogan did was hit the ball with an inside out impact . . . with the old grip he'd be more inclined to make mistakes with the face vector left . . .

So I'd say the "cupping" as Hogan said was more insurance to hit his startline rather than the arch being "insurance" . . . with that grip and the shaft vertical . . . he's gonna have arch if he leans the shaft on the ball.

[Daryl]

The Picture below (supplied from Buckets unlimited archive) shows the clubhead slightly overtaking his hands after Impact. But this I believe to be acceptable when a solid Hinge Action is used because of the speed of the clubhead. Anyone would need a continuous swivel to stay in perfect Rhythm as far as it concerns the "endless belt" Pulley. So, I would call this a perfect Horizontal Hinge.

Undoubtedly, BH was and remains the best of the best. The Heart of the Golfing Machine is to control and sustain the line of compression. It matters less how it was achieved. That it was achieved, made him into the greatest golfer who ever played.