I haven’t looked at Jim McLean’s description of Ben Hogan’s swing since I dissected it back in 2014, but today I ran across a shorter clip taken from the original and thought, “OK, my mental health is not too bad today, let’s have a quick peak…”

Bad idea, that.  It’s as bad as I remember it, perhaps even worse, after my having exhaustively gone through the Ben Hogan – How He Absolutely Didn’t Swing video from the 1960s.

It’s bad enough that McLean, when he performs his “Hogan” back pivot, becomes instantly disconnected re the kinetic chain because he keeps his leading heel nailed to the ground and has to lift his arms and the club to the top instead of using the hips and legs to achieve the shoulder turn:

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He then launches into an account of Hogan’s hip and leg action that should win the Nobel Prize in Fiction Literature, and I’ll transcribe it word for word, starting at 2:21 of the video:

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By putting your body in the correct position at address, it becomes quite easy to restrict your lower body coil, and Hogan definitely wanted that to happen.

That’s a big change he made from early in his career to later in his career, where he really restricted the lower body action, and as he did that, that built a lot of tension in here (pointing to right hip and thigh), something to release going forward.

An absolute load of donkey-doo, if you’ll pardon the expression.

What happened later in his career was a near-fatal crash with a bus that seriously injured him and caused him lower body pain, restricting him to 5-6 tournaments a year for the rest of his career.

So, he was older and had less lower body mobility than when he was younger:

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… but he never restricted or tried to restrict his lower body action when he was winning majors, even after the crash and recovery.

Here’s what I said was a problem in that 1960s video, and how it would be misconstrued by people watching and listening:

• Right off the bat, at 1:20 mark, the narrator states that “his right knee is positioned inward, bracing the swing from swaying the hips to the right, but allowing the upper body to turn freely on the back swing.”
• The narrator then at 1:30 goes completely off the rails, saying “the right knee stays put, but does flex somewhat on the back swing to accommodate the sitting position at the top of the swing.  His weight transfer is accomplished to the right side, by turning the upper body.” 

The first statement is very misleading, the second one is completely off, and I have said that this here is the origin of the X-Factor swing mythology. 

Back to Jim.

He obviously watched that video, and I guarantee you that Ben Hogan never in his life uttered the words, “I want to restrict my lower body coil.”

He would have said, “I want to use my right leg to brace against the hips swaying to the right on the back swing,” just the gentleman correctly said in the video before going seriously off the rails.

In my own pivot action, which I simply took from the great man himself, I also use my right leg to brace against my hips swaying to the right, but I certainly don’t restrict the lower body coil:

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As for “Later in his career” – let’s see Hogan late in his career (1953, if you consider the age of 41 late as he turned pro in his teens), the year he won his last major, and you tell me where Hogan is restricting his lower body coil:

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That is a very free and unrestricted lower body action, I’d say.

How about later again, 1956:

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And how about 10 years after his last major win, when he’s demonstrating his back pivot and the transition:

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If this:

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… is a restricted lower body coil, then I’m Tiger Woods.

No, really – I am Tiger Woods.

Now, you see how my saying something doesn’t make it true?

The same goes for Jim McLean and his ridiculous Ben Hogan swing “demonstration.”

I’ll leave him alone for now, I hope – but when you see the absolute fantasy in the modern golf world about how Ben Hogan swung and how one is supposed to swing, it should irritate you.

Also this: if Hogan was such a genius, as is said in just about every comment section of every swing clip of his, why isn’t the golf world copying his actual pivot move instead of completely mangling it and either getting it wrong or outright lying about it?

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Could it be… perhaps, that since the incorrect interpretation of Hogan is the basis for the Modern Golf Swing, it would destroy that lucrative industry overnight to have people actually swinging in the Ben Hogan style, which is a Classic Golf Swing motion?

Food for thought.