I’ve already highlighted in previous posts how people claiming to emulate Ben Hogan’s swing are so far from the goal, they’re not even in the stadium, first and foremost being the way Hogan set himself up to the ball with his various clubs.

We know that Hogan placed the ball on the exact same line from Driver to wedge, and that he adjusted his stance to angle himself from closed with the feet to wide open with the wedge, something that no one you have seen every does.

See here:

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Second, I’ve talked about Hogan’s shift off the ball on the pivot and his shift back into the ball on the down swing, something that made timing so crucial that he had to hit balls every day, for hours, to keep his swing grooved.

This fully face-on swing I found online will show you exactly why you don’t want to swing exactly like Hogan did and why you should only copy his hip and leg pivot action:

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If you look at where Hogan was at the setup, it was close to Nicklaus’ face-on, but for the closed stance with his feet that he would have had with the driver:

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Less “Leaning A” with the spine tilt, and the head closer to center of stance, but still the proper setup with regards to spine tilt and head position.

But here is where everything just makes swinging like him a fool’s errand:

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If you look at how far Hogan’s shifted off the ball before shifting back in on the down swing, it would be madness to try shifting this much during a swing.

But Hogan hit balls for hours, every single day that he was able to (he would even hit balls in the rain under a tarp shelter), so he could do this.

Incredibly, once he finished his shift (which everyone takes for a squat action, but it was a shift while transferring weight back to the leading foot), his head was absolutely stable coming down and through impact:

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That, my friends, is why it took him ten years to begin to win on Tour – so if you want to spend ten years trying to emulate the swing of a man who was blessed with hand-eye coordination and timing above the average person’s, go ahead with that, and good luck.

The pivot was gold.

The swing was a personal creation that we probably won’t ever see again, however much the charlatans online claim that so-and-so “swings like Hogan.”

Only Hogan swung like Hogan.

No one else.

But the pivot action was completely sound and can be copied, for a great swing action.