Ben Hogan's wife remembers husband as exhibit open in USGA Museum.

It wasn't the trophies, the medals, the trademark white hat or any of the other memorabilia in the room dedicated to Ben Hogan that caused his wife to pause and cry briefly.

The items were a magnificent tribute to one of golf's greatest players, a man whose success was not only measured on the course, but also in his courageous battle to return there after a near-fatal car crash.

The sad part for Valerie Hogan was her beloved Ben wasn't there to share the experience.

"Ben would have loved this," she said Tuesday as the USGA Museum opened the Ben Hogan Room, the first it has dedicated to the life and career of a professional golfer. Hogan died two years ago at age 84.

Valerie Hogan talked about his golf, his 63 career victories and nine majors, she talked about his love of practicing, his personality, his battle to come back from the 1949 accident, and most of all, her love for him.

"I would give anything if he could be here, even if I were not here," Valerie Hogan said, and there was no doubt she meant it.

The 24-case permanent exhibit includes more than 300 objects, with the majority coming from Valerie Hogan. It details Ben Hogan's early years -- did you know his real first name was William? -- follows the highlights of his golf career, his accident and recovery and later his work as a clubmaker.

"I can tell you no one, no one loved golf more than Ben Hogan," Valerie Hogan said.

However, playing in tournaments wasn't what Ben Hogan enjoyed most. It was practicing on the range.

"I think he felt the actual playing of golf was for something else," she said. "Where he really enjoyed it was on the practice tee and then hoping he would play the way he would like to play."

One of the most feared golfers of his time, Hogan was known as a loner by many competitors. He spent endless hours on the practice range and was known to be a man of few words during a round.

Off the course, Valerie Hogan said her husband of six decades was a man of many interests who tried to do his best at everything. He also didn't speak much off the course, for a reason.

"He could discuss almost any subject with you because he was the best listener," she said. "As he said: `People who talk all the time don't learn anything because you have to listen, that's how you learn,' and believe you me, he listened."

That wasn't true all the time, especially during his recovery from the head-on collision with a bus in 1949 that shattered his legs. After that, he always played in pain.

In the first month after the accident, Hogan barely survived blood clots in his left leg. It took him almost a year to start swinging a club again, said his wife, who admits she was never sure whether he would play again.

"After he got home, he surprised me one day," she said. ``He so wanted to walk sometimes, he would slip out of the house. ... He would be out trying to walk and sometimes I'd have to go in the car and find him."

Within 16 months, he would win the U.S. Open in a playoff with Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio, much to the surprise of his wife. He qualified for the playoff by playing a 36-hole final day at Merion.

"I'd have to say that the night he came in, I didn't feel he would have the strength the next morning because his eyes were in the back (of his head) and he was so very, very tired. I felt that he was not going to be able to play the next day."

But Hogan slept like a baby and woke up refreshed the next morning.

"Even then I doubted he would have the strength," she said. ``I was probably the most surprised person he won."

Hogan would go on to win two more U.S. Opens -- only Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones and Willie Anderson have won as many -- and the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie. He won the Masters and U.S. Open that same year, when he won five of the six tournaments in which he competed.

Valerie and friends had to persuade Hogan to play in the British Open, the only time he did.

"He kept saying, `I just think you want me to go just to see me get beat over there,"' his wife said.

Valerie Hogan's funniest comment was about the movie "Follow The Sun," which portrayed her husband's life and starred Glenn Ford.

"Glenn Ford, he worked so hard, but he did not know how to play golf, but he told them he did," she said.

A woman who knew very little about golf when she married, Valerie Hogan has grown to love the game. She still watches it all the time. Justin Leonard is her favorite player.

Asked if anyone reminds her of her husband, she bluntly says, "No."

"I don't think it's fair to compare," she said. ``I think he was the greatest, especially when he came back. I know what he went through and all that he did."

AP