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Wednesday, July 30, 1997

A friend's memories tell the story on Ben Hogan

By FRANK LUKSA / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS - On a long-ago day of a distant year, Ben Hogan was asked to play an exhibition at Colonial Country Club to benefit the United States Olympic team. Hogan completed his foursome with the unusual choice of a local sportswriter.

Dan Jenkins had yet to become a dead-solid-perfect book author, magazine columnist and golf historian. He was then a mid-20s graduate of TCU, former three-year letterman on the college golf team, once runner-up to the city champion, and dressed for the occasion in elegantly shabby attire.

As Jenkins tells it, his button-down shirt and canvas golf bag were especially fetching. Dan turned out in casual clothes on the mistaken premise that 20 people might watch the round. About 10,000 showed up, which set Dan's nerves on edge.

Jenkins drew his first reaction from Hogan when he teed his ball. As they say in the car business, the ball was pre-owned. Hogan noticed. As Dan learned from a long association with the man, Hogan noticed everything.

"Here, don't embarrass me," Hogan said, handing Jenkins a new ball.

Dan got off the first tee in fine shape. Jenkins was a long driver and deft putter in those days. But he topped his second effort. And the third. Standing nearby, Hogan said:

"You can probably swing faster if you try harder."

Hogan meant just the opposite with his tease.

"Best lesson I ever had," Jenkins reminisced the other day. Word had reached his vacation retreat in Gstaad, Switzerland, that Hogan died last Friday in Fort Worth.

"He wasn't a stranger to me," Jenkins said of the man who remained ultraprivate to most. "First, I idolized him. Second, he knew my name."

Jenkins covered golf for the Fort Worth Press and wrote two mandatory, daily stories on tournaments Hogan entered. One focused on the event. The other was devoted to Hogan.

"He knew I was there like he knew (wife) Valerie was there with a thermos of iced tea," Dan recalled. "He knew I saw him play, that I wouldn't ask stupid questions and I knew the game." Jenkins knew a different Hogan than the public and fellow pros. He found Hogan had a sly sense of humor. That he was a college football fanatic devoted to TCU and a keen student of the world around him.

"We talked football a lot and events of the day. Not golf," Jenkins said. "He wasn't like a lot of guys today who can only talk about golf or themselves."

There was an Everyman streak in Hogan despite his fame. Dan and wife June stopped at a roadside watermelon stand one hot summer day. There sat Ben and Valerie, who motioned to join them at their table.

Hogan had a self-deprecating way about how well he played the game. The perfectionist in him found imperfection in shots that strayed by inches. Such is one of Dan's most distinct memories:

"I must have played 25 rounds with him and I never saw him shoot anything but 67. That was on old, tough Colonial. He wouldn't think he played that well. He'd say if you hit two or three good shots over 18 holes it was a good round. He really thought it was possible to birdie all 18 holes.

"Ben was the first who ever said what's been repeated a thousand times since. You need a repeating swing. He said, 'Everybody chokes, so you need a repeating swing.' "

Jenkins knew Hogan as "terribly shy," instead of aloof. As someone with a hidden yearning perhaps influenced by hard times during his Depression-era youth.

"He wanted to be polished and socially acceptable. That was why he dressed impeccably. He was so observant, too. I recall a cocktail party at some high-class home. Ben comes up and says, 'Did you notice those doorknobs?'

"He studied the room as he did a golf course. He wanted to be smooth and debonair."

Jenkins harked to the "biggest surprise I ever got from Hogan." The year was 1950. Dan was a TCU sophomore assigned to cover the Colonial Invitational. He approached as Hogan slipped from his trousers in the locker room.

"He had the sculpted legs of a running back. Like Doak Walker. That's where he got his power. I realized all great golfers are built with legs like that."

Unable to attend final rites for his old friend, Jenkins mourned Hogan from afar:

"He was the greatest shot-maker ever. Jack Nicklaus was the greatest winner. But nobody hit shots like Hogan. There was authority to his shots. 'Authority' is the right word. There was a crack to them. As far as I'm concerned, the world has lost its greatest treasure."

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