Cornish Golfer

Barnes and Hogan: Master and Student

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Lot 39, courtesy Golden Age Auctions

It is no surprise that Ben Hogan’s personal library, up for auction this week through Golden Age Auctions, includes Jim Barnes’s Picture Analysis of Golf Strokes.

Published in 1919, Barnes’s book was groundbreaking — using high-speed photography to capture the swing of one of golf’s great teachers. More than just a champion, Barnes declared himself a lifelong student of the game. Hogan clearly followed suit.


HN Wethered — father of the legendary amateur Joyce — hailed the book in The Perfect Golfer as “amongst the best of all instructional works. He put it this way:

“We see in a clear mental vision the tangled head of hair, the lanky figure in strong sunlight clad in shirt and trousers, the thrust of the right leg, the face of the club pointing skywards, until finally every muscle in his body is braced at full tension towards the task of flogging the ball to unheard-of distances beyond the margin of the page.”

Left: Jim Barnes in full flow. Right: Hogan’s Modern Fundamentals

The Cornish Golfer owns a first edition copy of Barnes’s book that once belonged to Johnny Laidlay, the amateur champion — and the man many consider the true inventor of the so-called Vardon grip.

Hogan’s Modern Fundamentals of Golf is often called the greatest instructional work of all time. It’s hard to imagine that Hogan — or his book — was not shaped by Cornwall’s great champion. Here, perhaps, is the evidence.

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2 responses to “Barnes and Hogan: Master and Student”

  1. softly842d0044c1 Avatar
    softly842d0044c1

    Mike – this is fascinating. I had no idea that the clinical examination of golf techniques started this early. As I have probably mentioned before, I consider that a proper history of golf and how it developed is sadly lacking – lots of who won what where and when but not much else. I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

    When my father took up golf again in the mid-1950s I accompanied him to the Four Lords pub at St Blazey Gate circa 1957 where he purchased a set of Ben Hogan irons (2-9 + pitching and sand wedge) from a non-golfer who had won them in a raffle. I seem to remember they cost £1 each which equates to £21-13 today according to the B of E inflation calculator.

    In 1937 he went to St Enodoc to watch the English Womens’ Amateur Championship played there. He said that he was amazed how far the ladies could hit a ball.

    Best wishes

    Jim L

    >

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    1. @cornishgolfer Avatar
      @cornishgolfer

      Thanks for your great recollections Jim.  You had me looking up the 1937 English Women’s Amateur Championship.  It shows the high regard St Enodoc was held in back then.

      Golf instruction books go way back. The small book on the top of Ben Hogan’s auction pile is Horace Hutchinson’s Hints on Golf from 1886. (HH designed the Isles of Scilly golf course) I have a third edition from 1891.  It was a hugely popular book. He grew up at Westward Ho!, England’s oldest golf course.  His autobiography Fifty Years of Golf, is one of my favourites of all time. Like so many old books, they are just a click way, in this case on Project Gutenberg 👉 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37394/37394-h/37394-h.htm

      Maybe take a quick look. 

      kind regards

      Mike

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