Well, I admit I might have exaggerated with his mediocre short game; but his putting deteriorated just after the accident (damaged lead eye - dominant eye for Hogan, BTW). Bolt addresses it very clearily in his sentences about Hogan.
Hogan's biography indicates that the putting deterioration was more gradual.
Your knowledge is really astounding, no doubt. And your argumentation is now good. Anyhow we still have no stats comparison of the early 70-ies, when Trevino played his best golf and beat Nicklaus several times.
He beat Nicklaus at the 1971 US Open at Merion, where it was wet from consistent rains, a key for Trevino because of his low ball flight, and where Nicklaus had stunning failures with his sand game.
Second time was at 1972 British Open at Muirfield, where Trevino freely admits it was his short game that won it: he holed out from off the green five times, including once when the ball slammed square into the flagstick when he thinned a sand shot. If he'd missed, it easily could have gone over the green.
Third time was the 1974 PGA at Canterbury where, as at Merion, it was wet throughout the tournament. Trevino said that he always won "in the mud". One reason why Augusta wasn't his cup of tea.
Lastly, could you say when Nicklaus said that the best ballstrikers were Hogan and Trevino ? I know only one version where he said Hogan was easily the best ballstriker.
It was a magazine article, not sure which magazine, where Jack made the comment about Dickinson and "short irons" I quoted earlier. He listed his best overall ballstrikers (Hogan and Trevino) and who was best at certain shots.
LOL. Ben Hogan at Merion has a plaque commemorating a 1-iron shot thats 1000 times more famous than all Nicklaus 1-iron shots together.
Cheers
That shot is way over-rated. Hogan was leaking oil like crazy and struggling to finish the round, his first 36-hole day since the accident. The shot that was called for was a faded 4-wood to get it back close to the hole, a shot Hogan "owned" and in less stressful circumstances would have attempted without hesitation. Instead, since he had already thrown away the lead on the back nine, he conservatively chose a one-iron into the middle of the green, and left himself a 40 foot putt that he nearly three-putted.
In contrast, Jack's 1967 shot was well beyond his normal 1-iron distance and finished 22 feet away, a putt he holed. Jack also hit a great 1-iron at the 71st hole at the 1972 US Open at Pebble Beach, that hit the flag and left a clinching tap-in. Jack also knocked a one-iron close at 15 in his 1975 Masters win, when he held off Weiskopf and Miller the last day. All three were superior to Hogan's one-iron at Merion. It is just that no one took a great picture of Jack's: I get shivers looking at Hogan hitting that shot. Perhaps the best golf
picture ever taken. But an ordinary shot (as Hogan implies in "Five Lessons").
