Ben Hogan
Hogan had a tough childhood and taught himself golf while working as a caddie. Perhaps the hardest worker ever on the practice ground, he forged a swing that won him nine major championships - and created rumours of a "secret" - despite appalling injuries suffered in a car crash. He was a man of few words, but many of them were memorable.

What others have said of Ben Hogan...

For what [Ben] Hogan meant, it's the old story. For those who know golf, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible.
- Jim Murray

The three things I fear most in golf are lightning, Ben Hogan and a downhill putt.
- Sam Snead

... and Hogan's own views on the game

Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.

Like most professional golfers, I have a tendency to remember my poor shots a shade more vividly than the good ones.

I don't like the glamour. I just like the game.

I play with friends, but we don't play friendly games.

Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They're two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to try to do something that is totally unrelated. There shouldn't be any cups, just flag sticks. And then the man who hit the most fairways and greens and got closest to the pins would be the tournament winner.

This is a game of misses. The guy who misses the best is going to win.

Hit the ball up to the hole... You meet a better class of people up there.

The most important shot in golf is the next one.

Relax? How can anybody relax? You have to grip the club, don’t you?

I dreamed one night that I had 17 holes-in-one and one two, and when I woke up I was so goddam mad.

Golf is 20 percent talent and 80 percent management.

A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill.

I hate a hook. It nauseates me. I could vomit when I see one. It's like a rattlesnake in your pocket.

I never played a round when I didn't learn something new about the game.

I have found the game to be, in all factualness, a universal language wherever I travelled at home or abroad.

All other things being equal, greens break to the west.