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A Golf Tip from Ben Hogan
A Career Highlight from Ernie Vossler
 I
remember the day I played a tournament round with the great Ben
Hogan.
I was raised in Fort Worth, Texas and played golf at Colonial Country
Club where Ben Hogan practiced and played. I was one of the lucky
ones who got to know him. He was my idol. I had the chance to play
a tournament practice round with Hogan for the 1959 US Open at Wingfoot
in New York. That golf course was respected for having narrow, deep
bunkers on the sides of several greens. With that in mind, I knew
I could leave myself with a shot we called “short-sided.”
In other words, if the pin was on the bunker side, I would be short-sided
in the bunker with no way to blast out and land close to the hole
so I asked Hogan how to play the golf course.
He said if I didn’t feel I could place the ball on the putting
surface, “just hit it up short because it’s pretty easy
to chip to these greens.” As luck would have it, I got paired
with Hogan for the first round of the tournament. The first hole
was a big long par 4 hole, and it had been raining all night. I
was out there, trying to hit a wood to the green, and Hogan’s
ball was up in front of mine. I thought, “I’m not going
to hit a wood; I’ll do what he told me to do.” I hit
a good 3 iron shot and left it about 10 yards short of the green.
Then I watched as Hogan pulled out a wood and hit it. Pow! The mud
and water really flew in the air. It took off; and wouldn’t
you know, it landed right in the middle of the green. I walked up
to Hogan and said, "I thought you told me to play the hole
short if there were long shots into a narrow green." I’ll
never forget Ben Hogan saying, "I was talking about your game,
not my game!"
He actually hit it past the pin, right out into the middle of the
green; he didn’t lay-up one time during that round. I must
have laid-up a half-a-dozen times. He did not win the tournament;
Billy Casper did. In fact, I beat Hogan in that week.
That was quite a thrill. I’ve got a picture of the final tournament
scoreboard. I finished 4th, and Ben Hogan and Sam Snead tied for
5th
It was a great experience, a career highlight…one I won’t
forget.
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