Ben Hogan: An American Life [Paperback]

James Dodson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 3, 2005

Authorized, intimate, and definitive, Ben Hogan: A Life is the long-awaited biography of one of golf’s greatest, most enigmatic legends, narrated with the unique eloquence that has made author James Dodson a critically acclaimed national bestseller.

One man is often credited with shaping the landscape of modern golf. Ben Hogan was a short, trim, impeccably dressed Texan whose fierce work ethic, legendary steel nerves, and astonishing triumph over personal disaster earned him not only an army of adoring fans, but one of the finest careers in the history of the sport. Hogan captured a record-tying four U.S. Opens, won five of six major tournaments in a single season, and inspired future generations of professional golfers from Palmer to Norman to Woods.

Yet for all his brilliance, Ben Hogan was an enigma. He was an American hero whose personal life, inner motivation, and famed “secret” were the source of great public mystery. As Hogan grew into a giant on the pro tour, the combination of his cool outward demeanor and invincible, laser-guided accuracy on the golf course froze formidable opponents in their tracks. In 1949, at the peak of his career, Hogan’s mystique was reinforced by a catastrophic automobile accident in which he and his wife, Valerie, were nearly killed after being hit head-on by a Greyhound bus. Doctors predicted Hogan might never walk again – let alone set foot on another golf course. But his miraculous three-year recovery and comeback led to one of the greatest performances in golf history when in 1953 he won the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open (something that’s never been repeated).

In this first-ever family-authorized biography, renowned author James Dodson expertly and emotionally reconstructs Hogan’s complicated life. He discovers an intensely honest man handicapped by self-doubt, buoyed by the determination to prove his own abilities, and unable to escape a long-buried childhood tragedy – the core of the Hogan “secret.” Dodson also reveals both the legendary devotion and eventual strain in Hogan’s sixty-two-year marriage, and a Hogan rarely seen by the public: a warm, jovial man whose charitable spirit and sharp business sense enabled him to build the powerful golf equipment company bearing his name to this day. Ben Hogan: A Life is the authoritative inside portrait golf fans have long awaited.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ben Hogan is widely credited with ushering in the modern era of golf. His legendary practice sessions, intense perfectionism and iron determination helped turn a lazy gentleman's game into a high-stakes, competitive sport. Yet Hogan's unprecedented achievements on the golf course were often overshadowed by his fierce demeanor and public reticence, which fueled wild speculations about every aspect of his guarded life and gave birth to countless myths and misrepresentations. Dodson (Final Rounds) resurrects the flesh-and-blood man from the ashes of apocrypha, providing the most intimate and richly textured portrait of the famous golfer to date. Although reverential, Dodson doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of the Hogan story, exposing a vulnerable and pathologically obsessive man whose dogged resolve and incomparable success were matched only by his hidden shame and self-doubt. Reared in Depression-era Texas, nine-year-old Hogan witnessed his father's suicide, a formative event that Dodson believes spurred Hogan's prodigious ambition and drive, as well as his compulsive tendencies and extreme need for privacy. All the mesmerizing stories-including Hogan's near-miraculous comeback and triumph at the 1950 U.S. Open after a debilitating car crash, and his record-setting 1953 season in which he won the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open-are related in lush and loving detail, without overlooking anecdotes about the era's other great players and colorful personalities, such as Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Jimmy Demaret. As much about the game as about Hogan himself, Dodson's nuanced and engrossing biography adds new depth to a figure who has been excessively scrutinized but rarely understood.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In contrast to the reverence now accorded him, the real Ben Hogan's brusqueness fostered antipathy from the sportswriters of the 1940s. Then came the most shocking nongolf event in the history of golf, the 1949 car-bus smashup that almost killed Hogan and his wife. Hogan's return from death's door to dominate golf is an integral inspirational element in the several extant biographies (most recently, Curt Sampson's Hogan in 1996). With authorized access to Hogan's papers, Dodson, author of the well-received Final Rounds (2002), brings new information and a new interpretation to the question of Hogan's personality, both before and after the accident. While noting the golfer's modest mellowing following the collision, Dodson considers the key to Hogan's taciturn attitude to be a secret he guarded his entire life: the witnessing at age nine of his father's suicide. Although no proof of Hogan's presence at the scene of his father's death exists, Dodson makes a good circumstantial case. In addition to probing his subject's personality, Dodson ably dramatizes the best remembered of Hogan's on-course heroics, although he avoids the kind of numbing, shot-by-shot detail that rarely holds the interest of even fanatical fans. This is the first Hogan biography to do justice to an enigmatic and complex sports hero, and as such, it becomes the instant standard. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908635
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908634
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( H ) > Hogan, Ben

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Extraordinary Biography That Anyone Can Savor May 16, 2004

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

During the 1977 U.S. Open at Southern Hills in Oklahoma, sportswriter Dave Anderson asked golfer Tommy Bolt to compare the careers of Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan, two golfers who dominated previous decades of professional golf. Bolt's response was immediate. "Well," he drawled, "I've seen Nicklaus watch Hogan practice. I've never seen Hogan watch Nicklaus practice. Thus is the mystique of golfing legend Ben Hogan. He was the golfer's golfer, the man who other golfers sought to emulate. To capture the essence of a great man's life is a difficult task. BEN HOGAN: An American Life by James Dodson accomplishes that task in superb fashion. The biography is a homage to a man who overcame incredible obstacles to become the greatest golfer of his generation. It captures the essence and spirit of the sphinx-like man known to many as the Garbo of golf. Like all great biographies it builds on the life of its subject by allowing the reader to live in the Hogan era; to experience his accomplishments and share the disappointments of his life.

Those with even the slightest knowledge of golf history are familiar with the defining event in the life of Ben Hogan. In 1949, after having achieved stardom on the professional golf circuit, Hogan was nearly killed in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus on a foggy two-lane Texas highway. Doctors feared for Hogan's life and doubted that he would ever walk again if he survived. Hogan not only recovered, but in 1950 he won the U.S. Open at Merion, a grueling physical feat that required Hogan to walk and play 36 holes of golf on the final Saturday of the tournament. Hogan's triumphant comeback was a story that Hollywood producers would reject as one that audiences would never believe.

Hogan's physical recovery in 1950 was not the first time that he overcame travail to achieve success in the golfing world. Dobson recounts several events that affected the bantam Texas golfer as he sought to achieve his goal of professional achievement and acceptance. As a young boy Hogan suffered a dark and terrifying event when his father committed suicide before his eyes. In today's Oprah confession society, Hogan would probably share such an event with a national audience. But in the post-depression era Hogan stoically kept the details of the incident to himself. Even his wife Valerie was unaware of the true facts concerning the death of Hogan's father until they had been married for many years.

Hogan was also required to overcome professional doubt as he attempted to succeed on the fledgling professional golf tour. It was not until his third attempt that he began to win with any regularity. Even though he won many tournaments, the goal of a victory in a major championship still eluded him. Three times he came to the final hole of a major event needing only to make a birdie putt for victory. Each time, he three-putted the final green to snatch defeat from potential victory. Through it all, the grim but dogged Hogan silently plodded onward, determined to become the greatest golfer in America. That he finally reached his goal was a tribute to his unremitting work ethic and self-reliance.

Any great biography is more than a story of one person's life. It must also be the story of those who touched the subject's life and the times in which the subject lived. BEN HOGAN: An American Life has all of these elements, and more. It is the story of Hogan and his wife Valerie, a woman as determined as her husband and perhaps equally as shy. She would travel with her husband to each tournament but could not bear to watch him on the course. She was with him in his car on the day of the accident, and his movement to shield her from the collision probably saved his life. She was his life partner who shared in his success.

James Dodson has also captured the essence of the early era of professional golf. The legends of golf in the 1930s and '40s all appear. Sam Snead and Byron Nelson who, in the public's eye, were everything Hogan was not, are an integral part of the story. Hogan's major championship victories, from the Masters to the British Open at Carnoustie, are recounted in detail. The reader is with Hogan for every critical shot and, like bantam Ben, probably reaches for a cigarette at a tense moment.

There is so much more of the life of Ben Hogan to experience in this extraordinary biography. Hogan was a unique and enigmatic man. Dodson has captured the true Hogan in this epic work. BEN HOGAN: An American Life is a book that golfers and non-golfers can savor. It is a must addition to any golfer's library and an inspirational saga of an American icon.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Consider Yourself A Golfer - This is Required Reading January 10, 2005

By John R. Linnell

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have to admit three things in the interest of full disclosure. One - I am an unabashed James Dodson fan - I have read everything he has written and have enjoyed them all. Two - If anyone other than James Dodson had written this book, I would have never read it. Three - I am now an unabashed Ben Hogan person, because I now know the story of his life which has been told in a truthful and powerful manner. I wish I had seen more of him and I wish that when I did see him on television that I would have appreciated what I was looking at.

James Dodson has written several books about his own personal experiences which have been well received and rightly so, especially the book, Final Rounds, which put him on the literary map. He was also Arnold Palmer's "co-author" for his auto-biography, a pleasant book and which achieved Jim's goal of having the reader feel that he had the chance to sit down and have a few Scotches with "The King."

In this book, he is working without a net. He has accepted the challange and the honor of being the family authorized biogapher of one of the greatest golfers of all time. In recreating "An American Life" he has devoted at least three years of his life to the research necessary to marshall the facts. Then he had to take the results of his research and do justice to the lives of Ben and Valerie Hogan. No easy chore.

In judging how succesful he was I have to only look at my perception of Hogan before I read the book. He was basicallly a name from the past. (I am 66) His greatest accomplishments were not on TV. He was said to be aloof. A loner. A perfectionist.

When he finally made it to TV, he was past his prime, but still playing well enough. He was a ghost hanging around in the early days of Palmer, Nicklaus and Player. He was a "black and white guy" in the early days of color TV.

James Dodson peels that all away and exposes the heart and soul of the man. He does it honestly. Warts and all. But the image that is left with the reader is one of wishing that you could have met him and if not that, watched him play at the height of his career and if not that, been able to share a lunch and a "see-through" with him at Shady Oaks.

If you consider yourself a golfer, you owe it to yourself to read this book. And you owe it to Ben Hogan.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Specatular Biography May 31, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

I have read other Biographies on Ben Hogan but none are even in the same league. A subject with this much substance needed a more detailed view and this book delivers in a big way. I would rank this in-depth look into what some believe to be the best golfer ever to be one of the best stories ever told. With apologies to Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, I now believe that Ben Hogan is the best golfer of all time...read the book, see what he went through, and decide for yourself.
Hogan was (and remains) one of the most enigmatic sports figures ever but the reader should come away with a different opinion of the man after reading the book. The level of detail is fabulous but the book is easily readable. I enjoyed this book more than I have enjoyed reading anything in years. I would never usually consider reading a book twice but this will probably change with this one. I would recommend this book to anyone, regardless of whether or not you are a golf fan but I know that any fan of golf will devour the book. This is a great American story...the epitome of what one can accomplish with an exhaustive work ethic and incredible perserverance...Hogan literally built an incredible career, became a permanent American icon, and ruled his sport like nobody had ever done...from scratch, out of the dirt. There are some great lessons in this book about the price to be paid to make it big. Read this book!