Ben Hogan

Player-of-the-Year in 1948, 1950, 1951 & 1953. Winner Vardon Trophy in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1946 & 1948. Member of 1941 & 1951 Ryder Cup team. Captain of Ryder Cup team in 1947, 1949 & 1967.
William Benjamin Hogan is regarded, along with Jack Nicklaus, as the greatest player of the modern era. He is one of four players (Sarazen, Player and Nicklaus are the others) to have won all four of the world's major titles. Between World War II and 1960, Hogan dominated play at the Masters and the U.S. Open, finishing among the top 10 in both events every year but three (not in the top 10 at the Masters in 1957, '58 and '59). And yet, attaining greatness was no easy task for Hogan. He first felt tragedy at the age of nine when his father committed suicide. To bring money into the household, young Ben sold newspapers, then turned to caddying to earn his wages.
At the Glen Garden C.C. caddie yard, he met and began a rivalry with Byron Nelson. When Hogan and Nelson were 15, they tied for first place in the caddie championship, with Nelson holing an 18-foot putt for a par at the final hole of a nine-hole playoff to edge Hogan. Ben turned pro in 1931 and in his first attempt to to play in a U.S. Open that year, shot 165 over 36 holes and missed qualifying by 14 shots. As the 1930s wore on, it began to appear that Hogan lacked the potential to become a champion. But, with each failure, he drove himself harder. He would practice for hours at a time, only stopping when his hands were blistered and bleeding. Hogan's major problem was a wild hook that would appear at any time, especially when the pressure was on.
In 1935, Hogan married Valerie Fox and together they traveled the golf circuit. Finally, in January of 1938, Hogan got his first break. At the Oakland stop, with no money left in the kitty and the the couple subsisting on oranges, Hogan played himself into contention for first-place money. When he set off for the course the morning of the final round, Hogan found that the wheels had been stolen off his car during the night. When he finally made it to the first tee that day, Hogan knew he would have to play well or perhaps quit pro golf forever. He shot the round of his life, a 69, which placed him second behind Harry Cooper but earned him the $380 he needed to continue competing. It was enough to spark a run of solid play that left Hogan with the 15th-place ranking in prize money, at $4,150.
He showed improvement in 1939, finishing seventh in earnings, and in 1940 won his first tournament, the North and South at Pinehurst. Two weeks after his first win he got his second and third wins --at Greensboro and then in the Asheville Land of the Sky Open. He finished the year as the tour's leading money winner with earnings of $10,655. The following year, 1941, was even better. In 21 stroke-play tournaments, he was never lower than sixth, winning five events in all and again topping the money list, this time with $18,358. The only problem Hogan had was in trying to win a major. He finished fourth in the Masters, tied for third in the U.S. Open and lost to Byron Nelson in the quarterfinals of the PGA.
In 1942, Hogan won six events, even though the war was causing tournaments to be cancelled. At the Masters, he lost to Nelson in a playoff and in the PGA was beaten by Jim Turnesa, 2 and 1, at the quarter-final stage. The Open that year was cancelled, but the USGA, along with the PGA and the Chicago District Golf Association, decided to stage a tournament anyway, with the proceeds going to the Navy Relief Society and the USO. It was called the Hale American National Open and was held at the Ridgemoor C.C. in Chicago. The tournament drew a strong field, including the long-retired Bobby Jones, and Hogan ran away with the title, breaking par by 17 strokes to beat Jimmy Demaret and Mike Turnesa by three.
Hogan finished 1942 as the tour's leading money winner for the third year in a row, then spent the next two years in military. After World War II ended, Hogan picked up where he left off, winning everything in sight. He even won his first major, the 1946 PGA Championship, where he outplayed Ed Oliver 6 and 4 in the finals. He won the PGA again in 1948, whipping Mike Turnesa by 7 and 6 in the finals. The following month, he won the U.S. Open in Los Angeles. Hogan had his life and his golf game under total control. He had changed his swing to hit the ball from left to right and his motion was so precise that he was said to worry that his drive in the second round of a tournament might come to rest in the divot hole he had made the day before.
It seemed nothing would stop him from dominating his profession and winning wherever he played. But a 10-ton bus did the trick. In February of 1949, as Hogan and Valerie motored down a foggy Texas highway, a Greyhound bus travelling in the opposite direction attempted to passing the car in front of it. The bus barrelled straight into Hogan's Cadillac. Hogan avoided having the car's steering column driven through his chest because, on glimpsing the bus, he had instinctively tried to protect his wife by throwing himself in front of her. The golf legend was pronouced dead at the scene by police, but Valerie Hogan noticed that her husband was still breathing, barely. Hogan lay on the pavement for an hour and a half before an ambulance arrived and took him 150 miles to a hospital in El Paso. He had sustained devastating injuries but somehow remained alive. His doctors faced the question of whether Hogan would ever walk again, the idea of him every playing golf again was not even considered.
Astonishingly, Hogan not only walked but 10 months later almost won the Los Angeles Open. A few months later, Hogan capped his unthinkable comeback with a triumph in the 1950 U.S. Open, beating Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio in a playoff, even though he was suffering severe leg pains from the accident. A year later, Hogan won the U.S. Open again, this time at Oakland Hills.
Hogan's greatest year was to be 1953. He won the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open, three of the four majors. Hogan never won another major after his British Open triumph at Carnoustie (the only British Open he ever entered). He came close at the 1955 U.S. Open, but lost it in a playoff to the least likely of competitors, Jack Fleck.
Hogan's final gasp in championship play came at the 1960 U.S.Open. At the age of 48, he was tied for the lead in the final round but hit his third shot in the water on No. 17 and was finished.In a interview he did ten years ago for CBS Sports he said that hitting the ball into the water that day at Cherry Hills was his biggest disappointment in life and was still bothering him 25 years later. He never came close again to winning another tournament, even though he had one last great round at the 1967 Masters. He shot a third-round 66 at Augusta that year, which included a back-side 30 to get within two of the lead. The next day, in his last recorded round in a major, Hogan shot a 77 that would drop him to a tie for 10th place. Hogan made a few more starts in tournaments, but it wasn't the same. The man famous for the white cap, the cigarette poised on his stoic lips, and the cold stare, faded from golf completely.