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GOLF TEACHING PRO%u00ae 15 WINTER 2O26KNOWLEDGE USGTFto the right eye and the right-hand V point to the chin. This made it difficult for Hogan to have a closed clubface at impact, exactly what he was looking for. His advocacy of having the middle two fingers of the right hand and the last three fingers of the left hand apply the pressure has stood the test of time, though. But when it comes to the positioning of the Vs in the hands, most teachers today advocate they point between the chin and the rear shoulder.Another interesting thing in his book is the aim of the feet and the ball position that goes with it. He saves the details for the very end of the book, and promotes an open stance for the short irons a square stance for the middle clubs, and a closed stance for the longer clubs. In relation to the target line, he played the ball just inside the left heel, which means in relation to the stance line, the ball played more forward for the longer clubs and farther back for the shorter clubs. Today, most teachers advocate a square stance no matter the club, but there was some merit to what Hogan was teaching. Through simple geometry, we know that the clubhead path is going to the right of the bottom-out point of the swing arc, and so playing with an open stance helped to have the clubhead path go down the target line at impact for shots hit on the downswing. And after the bottom-out point, the clubhead path will be traveling left, so playing the ball more forward with the driver (because the ball is generally hit on the upswing) would call for a closed stance to mitigate this. Very clever, indeed. So, what%u2019s better, Hogan%u2019s approach or the modern one? We will leave that to the reader to mull it over.The most famous image Hogan left us was the pane of glass, representing the backswing plane. To Hogan, this was an imaginary line drawn from the ball to the top of the shoulders and continuing past. He wanted to see the left arm just below this line at the top of the backswing. A look at video of modern tour players shows most of them adhering to this. Current swing plane theory uses the shaft angle established at address, and the left arm from the down-the-line view is either parallel or close to parallel to this angle.When it comes to the overall motion of the golf swing, Hogan nailed it on the head. He goes into detail how the upper body winds up the lower body on the backswing, and the lower body unwinds the upper body on the downswing. He makes a strong point of emphasis that the hands should do nothing active on the downswing until they are just above the level of the hips, at which point the arms and hands actively apply the power. This is critical, because the main fault of amateur players is to activate the arms and hands too soon in the downswing. There are various causes of this, of course, but a golfer who can do what Hogan preached is almost certainly no higher than a single-digit handicapper. In fact, if there is one %u201csecret%u201d to golf, this may well be it, the ability to apply the power at the right time.Some of the things Hogan advocated have not stood up to the test of time, such as his belief that the inside portions of the elbows should face skyward. Yes, they should face upward, but not dead vertical as Hogan wanted. Another is the supination, as Hogan called it, of the left wrist at impact. In other words, he wanted to see the left wrist bowed outwards a little. Some modern tour players do this, especially those who rotate their hips a lot at impact, but most have a fairly flat wrist at impact. And trying to actively do this will likely lead to frustration. Finally, Hogan made a big deal about the pre-swing waggle, insisting that there was only one correct way to do it. Rarely do you see a tour player today waggle the club the way Hogan described it, and in all honesty, it is mainly a personal preference as to how any pre-shot club movement is executed.Having said all that, Hogan%u2019s book holds up extremely well a couple of decades into the 21st century. It is more than a worthwhile read %u2013 it%u2019s virtually mandatory for any teacher to have this in his or her golf library.