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Ben Hogan Stance Setup

Ludin

Ludin

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Came across a video in my YouTube feed for AliTaylorGolf and he had a video explaining Ben Hogan's stance setup and the reasoning for it. Thinkin through my misses this made a ton of sense and feel like this would absolutely minimize my current misses across the board. I currently setup square to all my shots with the ball in varying spots between my feet depending on the club. Ben Hogan takes a different view on this which is shown in the picture below and explained in the video posted below that. What are your thoughts on this? I plan to try this out in tomorrow's session to see how it works, but the better golfers here may have more insight to provide me.

bhstance.jpg
 
I have recently been doing this on my sim with the wedges, mid and short irons with success. Ali isn’t the only one talking about this on YouTube, it seems every Brit YouTuber is on the bandwagon.
 
I don’t draw my trail foot back to close my stance with driver- I play woods and hybrids square as a starting point. I do open my lead foot progressively through the irons more so in the short irons and wedges.
 
You should read Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons. That diagram is in there. Remember, Hogan fought a bad hook so everything he does is to combat that.
 
J.B. Cobb III said:
You should read Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons. That diagram is in there. Remember, Hogan fought a bad hook so everything he does is to combat that.
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Funny enough that is my miss and why this is intriguing to me. I have no idea if it will actually work or just compound the issue at this point.
 
Ludin said:
Funny enough that is my miss and why this is intriguing to me. I have no idea if it will actually work or just compound the issue at this point.
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I would probably start by weakening the grip first.
 
J.B. Cobb III said:
You should read Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons. That diagram is in there. Remember, Hogan fought a bad hook so everything he does is to combat that.
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the only thing he said he changed to was his "weak grip". The rest of the stuff is what he considered fundamentals.
I don't think he would have written a book, replete with diagrams just for himself.
I hear over and over again, Hogan created a slicers bible. Nothing but pure BS.
He stated quite clearly that the "weak grip" was for him and was his personal adjustment to fight a hook. Don't do it unless you fight a severe hook.
Just like "the hands do nothing" you hear people say all the time.
If they'd finished the sentence, they'd read "until about belt high"
Kinda like my brakes don't work until I step on the pedal.

But, I most definitely suggest Hogan's book. Just read it and digest it. Don't add what's not there and/or leave parts of it out.

Ludin: Does this jive with what you read?
 

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And this was a big reason I tried one length. Haha.
 
Actually, I think Hogan hit so many balls and analyzed em so well, that he incorporated the D Plane mechanism/theory(for lack of better word) before it was ever recognized.
 
I've seen this set used by several golfers, and it worked for them. Pretty sure a lot of modern day instructors teach something very similar.

I hit from a closed stance, which is what I have to do to square the club face up at ball impact. If I used Hogan's set up, I'd hit lots of pulls, ànd hooks.
 
I can see something brewing again………….
 
I do keep the same ball position relative to my front heel and vary my back foot distance, however I don’t close/open my stance. I’m slightly closed for driver to help promote and in to out swing but everything else is square.

In the end, having a consistent way of maintaining the same ball position (something I still struggle with at times) is always a good thing.
 
Thanks to those on this thread that mentioned the D-Plane concept, which I had never heard of before. For the past couple weeks I was experimenting with Hogan's approach on stance...and then read up about D-Plane and experimented with that...which makes total sense....took some steps back, modified some of what Hogan endorsed and wow...I love it.

My modification is:
  1. I do not vary the amount of openness or closedness of my stance depending on club length, as Hogan endorsed years ago. That approach from Hogan doesn't make sense to me. Nor does it make sense to me to close the stance for longer irons! What makes sense to me is that when you need to put a divot in front of the ball, then you need an open D-plane stance. That means pretty much all irons need a slightly open stance. When you need to sweep up at a ball on a tee (or perhaps sitting up on grass high enough to use a sweeping up swing), then a closed stance. Simple as that. For now I am aiming to have all irons using the same open stance, even the long irons; which is only slightly open, such that the bottom of the D-plane is where the deepest part of the divot will be, and my open stance will be facing directly to that point in the grass a few inches in front of the ball. For off the tee, I close the stance a bit so that the bottom of the D-plane swing arc is well behind the ball.

  2. Other aspects of what Hogan said, I am still using: ball inside of the left heel (but a little more inside then Hogan had it), still varying stance width slightly wider for longer clubs,
End result is that I have eliminated fat shots completely and drives are smacking up and far like never before.

Once I got a system down for lining up the shot, I'm hitting right at the target as far as ever. Lining up the shot is not as easy as before because feet aren't parallel with the target line, shoulders aren't parallel with target line, no part of my body is lined up with the target line. Anyone looking at me as a casual observer will assume I am lined up to the left or the right. That makes it a little more complicated to get right every time its true. Ecept the club head face at ball-address is square to the target and my right foot is perpindicular to the target if I am diligent to do it. I setup the rest of my body so that it just feels comfortable in that open or closed stance with the club head facing the target. that makes it a little imprecise to line up the D-plane itself just exactly right. No way to check it. The only two cues are right foot perpindicular and club head face at the target, assuming everything else is proper, including grip. But I'm starting to dial it in.

Thanks for the pointers about D-plane.. I think Hogan was probably on to something with this lesson on stance, and maybe he was meaning fairway woods for the longer closed stanced items, but I can't really imagine being able to sweep up at a ball on the ground in very many situations and don't really see the point of closing the D-plane for that purpose. Now if you're fooling around with opening or closing the face and trying to draw the ball more, etc..that's another issue, but I see those things are variations the simple basic theme I just outlined...lining up the D-plane so that the clubhead will be hitting down on the ball for irons, and up on the ball off the tee, and the D-Plane will be adjusted so that in both of those two scenarios the ball will go straight. This is actually a breakthrough moment for me.
 
What the hell is a D Plane? Goggle-Fu must not be working this morning.
 
If I hit my wedge with the trail foot that far forward, my ball would be so far left it would land on the right side of the fairway.
 
Whatever “D Plane” is, besides the little guy on Fantasy Island, I like how the old time greats just pounded balls until they figured it out.
 
Have not tried this yet but willing to give it a shot as my iron game is struggling right now. I already miss left with shorter irons so concerned this may exaggerate that, we'll see.
 
I'm sort of sorry I googled that.
 
I’ve come to think in middle age that the best thing to take from Ben Hogan’a book is that he tried so hard to make sure he understood his own swing. He took mounds of meticulous notes. If each of us had this many notes on our swing we would be much more consistent. I’ve been doing this and have picked up 10-15 yards in distance and a ton of consistency. I’m also learning how to manipulate ballflight. I did all this not by taking lessons or reading books, but by taking notes on my swing and when things go south go back to those notes swing that swing again and move forward again. Which is a very basic version of the journey Ben Hogan went on.
 
DataDude said:
I’ve come to think in middle age that the best thing to take from Ben Hogan’a book is that he tried so hard to make sure he understood his own swing. He took mounds of meticulous notes. If each of us had this many notes on our swing we would be much more consistent. I’ve been doing this and have picked up 10-15 yards in distance and a ton of consistency. I’m also learning how to manipulate ballflight. I did all this not by taking lessons or reading books, but by taking notes on my swing and when things go south go back to those notes swing that swing again and move forward again. Which is a very basic version of the journey Ben Hogan went on.
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To hit better, you better hit. That’s about as deep as I can go.
 
First off, I like Hogan's instruction on the golf swing. I think he knew what made his swing work better for him. My problem is that I'm not Ben Hogan, or his type club swinger.

I do something pretty much the opposite than what Hogan shows in the above diagram. Hogan moves his feet to fit the club, with the same ball position. Hogan also takes divots.

Believe me when I say that if I could do what Hogan did with his swing, I would. I spent a copious amount of time trying his swing to no avail. :banghead:

Me I keep my feet the same for all my full iron shots, but move the ball to fit the club length. I don't take divots. I prefer to pick the ball clean off the turf. I also hit balls from a closed stance, when compared to my aim line.

I am some what jealous of those golfers who can incorporate Hogan's swing into their own game. ;)
 
Bosco... said:
You can’t unread it either! I’m going to chalk that up to another thing I don’t need to know.
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I'm not even remotely tempted to look. I'm slowly getting to the point the stuff TMG has been drilling into me (literally) is becoming right and natural. The last thing I need is new thoughts adding interference.

Things like off-kilter tee box lines are easy to see and forget. (For me, anyway.) New swing thoughts: Not so much. That's why, for example, I took a quick look at the JuJu Swing, thought "Fascinating," and immediately dismissed it from my mind.

Bosco... said:
That’s @Duffer Seamus kinda stuff.
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If you mean analytical, biomechanics, scientific, yadda yadda yadda stuff: Mea culpa :ROFLMAO: That's the way I roll :)
 
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