Let’s get something straight: golf is thirsting for another iconic superstar. There was Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. There was Tiger Woods. And for the time being, there’s Jordan Spieth. It could be Rory McIlroy, but Rors is still a little too inconsistent. The guy misses way too many cuts for someone of his caliber. Rickie Fowler could be a star, but he’s just now coming into his own at age 26.
So when you start seeing articles comparing Spieth to the immoral Ben Hogan, it looks and sounds blasphemous. Hogan is the last man to win the year’s first three majors. That was back in 1953, some 62 years ago, when Hogan arrived by boat a week before The Open at Carnoustie. This is an article worth reading. Try to keep an open mind.
Spieth, Hogan Share Similar Golfing Traits
By Gene Wojciechowski
ESPN.com
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Ben Hogan shouldn’t have won the 1953 Open. Or the U.S. Open a month earlier. Or the Masters two months before that.
He should have been dead.
This is the man, and the legacy, that Jordan Spieth pursues this week at the Old Course. Because before you can win the four majors that comprise the modern Grand Slam, you must first win three. And only Hogan won the first three.
By then Hogan was 40, though his body must have felt decades older. He was held together by bandages and the sheer will of a man who had survived a head-on collision between his Cadillac and a 10-ton Greyhound bus on a fog-filled Texas road four years earlier.
He came to Carnoustie in 1953 to prove a point — not to us, but to himself. It turned out to be the ninth and final major championship win of his career.
“I think of his golf swing,” Spieth said. “I think of him being the guy that would head to the right side of the range so his back is to everybody else, focused on his own game, focused on himself and how he’s playing the course … I’ve read a lot about Ben Hogan and certainly he’s one of the few guys that I idolize his game and his attitude on the golf course.”
Hogan was a golfing sumbitch, but in the best possible way. He was a perfectionist, a worker bee with an assassin’s heart. His mind convinced his battered, rickety legs that all things were possible, including a victory at the first, and only, Open he would ever play.
Walk down Greyfriars Garden toward Market Street from the Old Course, and you’ll pass a bookstore with Hogan’s famous “Five Lessons” golf bible in the front window. A half block away you’ll see a mobile in a storefront window featuring Spieth’s smiling face.
Hogan, who never visited St. Andrews, wasn’t much of a smiler when he played. He competed with a grim intensity that could, and often did, intimidate opponents. Smile? You could go an entire round without seeing Hogan’s teeth.
Spieth has been known to grin and laugh on the course, but not often. Those 18 holes are his personal business meeting. He takes it seriously. It isn’t just a profession to him; it’s a craft.
Hogan was 84 when he died on July 25, 1997. Spieth was born on July 27, 1993. They are separated by generations, but share more than you think, including, of course, their home state of Texas (Hogan was from Fort Worth, Spieth from Dallas).
“Ben would have been greatly impressed with Jordan Spieth,” said Hall of Fame sportswriter Dan Jenkins, who covered Hogan for decades and was one of the few allowed into Hogan’s inner circle. “He would admire his calm under pressure, his hidden confidence, his love of combat and certainly his putting stroke.
“Spieth has one other thing I can’t quite explain that reminds me of Hogan. Somewhere inside him he’s built an attitude of superiority because he knows how good he can be when he’s right, because he has confidence in his swing.”
That was Hogan personified, said Jenkins, who has covered more than 200 majors during his distinguished career. In Hogan’s mind, his scorecard was the standard in which all other scorecards should be judged.
“Often it was,” Jenkins said. “But sometimes it wasn’t, and Ben would accept that, too, as being part of the game and graciously congratulate the winner.”
Graciousness is a Spieth trait. Someone once asked him about his humility. Spieth responded that to talk about humility defeated the purpose of humility itself.
Who says something like that at age 21?
“[Hogan] would have approved, I think,” said author Curt Sampson, who wrote a wonderfully incisive bestseller on Hogan. “Not just the excellence of his striking and planning, but Jordan’s style, too. When Jordan Spieth pumps a fist, it’s a quiet gesture for himself and not for the fans. As you know, Hogan didn’t emote until they handed him the trophy. Self-containment was a big deal for Hogan, and Jordan Spieth has it.”
Spieth has it. He has the intangibles that separate very good players from major champions. He has a self-awareness that makes you want to check if his birth certificate has been notarized. He has an easy way about him that makes strangers feel important, even connected to him.
Last Sunday, when Spieth won the John Deere Classic in a playoff, he was whisked off the 18th green and past spectators lining the roped-off path to the clubhouse. He high-fived as many as he could, but in the post-victory media conference, Spieth took a moment to apologize to those fans for not stopping and signing autographs.
“He’s so damn nice and it comes natural,” Jenkins said. “Proper training in the home.”
Something has to give this week at St. Andrews, and perhaps it will be Spieth’s streak of major championship wins. But if the streak does end, it won’t be for long.
On this, Hogan would also approve.