The Man Who Casts The Longest Shadow

Following the accident, Hogan could no longer permit himself the luxury of the evening conviviality. He had to husband all his strength, and he had to nurse his aching legs. After a round of golf he and Valerie would go back to their hotel room, usually eating there alone. By now a new generation of golfers was joining the tour, and they, of course, had not known Ben in his blander days. They never got to know him.

On the practice tee, where much of the socializing goes on among tournament players, Hogan was and is all business. He never hits a practice shot without a purpose, and he has no time or use for the casual conversations and experimentations that are part of the general hobnobbing that takes place among the pros.

But Hogan actually is not a true loner. He has always liked to be with people who are amusing and have the gift of laughter, even though he himself is a listener rather than a talker. Demaret, one of the most gregarious of pro golfers, has always been a favorite of Ben's, and so has Tommy Bolt, who is as different from Hogan as Li'l Abner is from Hamlet. When Ben was lying helpless in the hospital after his accident, Demaret visited him. "Gee, Ben," Demaret said, "if I'd known you were going to be so upset that you would take on a Greyhound bus, I would have let you win the playoff in Phoenix." Ben enjoyed that.

It is only natural that with the grim necessity for victory no longer compelling him, Hogan has mellowed. Even so, it sometimes seems as if an invisible caliper is measuring the precision of his every act. Whether it is for business or sport, he dresses impeccably in clothes of perfect fit and taste. He says what he means, and he does what he says. He knows where he is going, literally and figuratively. He is no man's man but his own, a fact that is abundantly clear to anyone who has been examined by his unblinking blue eyes.

In recent years Hogan has found much of his companionship in the kind of society to which his achievements and earnings have quite logically led him, with the prominent and prosperous citizens of Fort Worth and certain other cities to which his business and pleasure regularly take him. As a child he had been forced to make it on his own. His father died when he was 9, and his mother brought him and his older sister and brother to Fort Worth, where they lived in a rather poor section on the east side of town. Ben sold newspapers until he discovered he could make more money as a caddie. When he was eventually able to afford it, he and Valerie rented an apartment in the fashionable western part of the city. Later they bought a home there, and within the past few years they have built what Hogan describes as a "French" house in suburban Fort Worth.

As befits the wife of one of the city's leading businessmen and its most famous celebrity, Valerie is active on committees for local charities. Together the Hogans enjoy their position, their friends and success. If Ben's public had seen him throw sugar on the floor and go into a soft-shoe act at a large Fort Worth affair one night they would surely know that he has lost some of his reserve. Ben belongs to Shady Oaks, the most posh of Fort Worth golf clubs, although he used to play mainly at Colonial, which is considerably larger and less exclusive. Both courses were built by Marvin Leonard, who ranks among the richest of Fort Worth's oil millionaires. Leonard was one of Ben's early backers. He has advised Ben for many years, and he helped him organize the Ben Hogan Company when Ben decided that he was ready to give up tournament golf and start a business that would take him through life.

Most mornings when Hogan is in Fort Worth he is down at his plant, where he occupies a large office meticulously furnished with handsome and functional antiques, some fine old golf prints and several pictures of himself with President Eisenhower. Since he and Valerie became engrossed in furnishing their new house Ben has taken an interest in antiques, and it is characteristic of him that he refuses to put anything into the office that is not exactly what is right and appropriate.

Hogan has said that his name is the most valuable thing he owns. Ben has protected it jealously throughout his life, so that now, in his middle age, it is one of the most prized assets in the world of golf. The name Ben Hogan on the golf equipment that Ben's company manufactures is its warranty of quality. When the first Hogan clubs came out of the factory in 1954 Ben looked them over and decided they were just not good enough to carry his name. He ordered them junked. One of his original backers, a man who owned 25% of the company, balked at this expensive decision, so Ben immediately borrowed money and bought him out. The company lost some $80,000 because of Hogan's insistence on destroying the clubs, but there was never afterward any question in the minds of either the public or the golfing profession that Hogan was willing to put his reputation behind Hogan clubs.

The job of president of the Ben Hogan Company has not always been an unremitting joy to Ben. There were union troubles that once drove him to threaten to close down completely. In 1960 ownership of his company was acquired by American Machine and Foundry, then at the peak of its boom in sports-equipment manufacturing. It appeared at the time to be a deal that would produce a handsome capital-gains benefit and lifetime security for the Hogans, but AMF stock has since dropped considerably. Nonetheless, Ben's share of AMF amounts to a comfortable nest egg, and he receives a handsome salary as president of the Ben Hogan Company, which has been growing steadily.

There is not a machine in this complex factory that he does not know as intimately as his own driver. His biggest problem is the constant change of models. Planned obsolescence must be built into golf clubs—like Detroit automobiles—in order to get new models into the pro shops around the country each year. All the large manufacturers do this, and Hogan has no choice but to follow suit. This demands subtle changes in club design, and only Hogan has the authority to pass on such style changes. No club leaves the plant that fails to meet the rigid standards Ben has set.