Tip of the cap to Hogan

Golf writers used to ask Ben Hogan if there was a secret to his legendary ball-striking ability. Hogan, a reserved and reclusive man, would simply say, "The secret is in the dirt," a reference to the hard work he put in on the driving range.

The "Wee Ice Mon," as the Scots liked to call him, thought the only way to become a great golfer was through hard work and heavy lifting. Luckily for him, the idea of spending hours on a driving range and practicing was close to nirvana.

That's a far cry from John Daly's "Grip it and rip it" mentality, and not everyone who has enjoyed some degree of success on the PGA Tour has spent hours digging for answers in the dirt. Bruce Lietzke, who made a lot of money on the tour without playing a heavy schedule, once remarked, "You can do more damage than good on the driving range."

That's one of the beautiful things about golf. There isn't a one-fits-all blueprint on how to improve your game. No single teaching method has cornered the market. Different things and approaches work for different golfers. That doesn't mean fundamentals of the game can be ignored. The ball doesn't care who is standing over it and about to unleash unholy hell on its backside. The laws of physics rule in golf.

But the way any golfer "finds their game" is an individual journey. If you can shorten your learning curve by listening to the advice of someone who has already made the journey, it makes sense to do so. But some lessons can't be taught. They have to be learned on their own.

If Oldgolfdawg could copy the swing of any golfer, it would be Hogan. Many golf experts say Sam Snead had the sweetest swing. But Hogan's balance and power had a special beauty of its own. Bantam Ben only weighed about 140 pounds and he could flat out kill a 2-iron.

Hogan offered words of encouragement to the average golfer in his famous golf instruction book Five Lessons, which was first published in 1957. In the book's introduction he states: "The average golfer is entirely capable of building a repeating swing and breaking 80, if he learns to perform a small number of correct movements and conversely, it follows, eliminates a lot of movements which tend to keep the swing from repeating."

The exhilaration one feels after hitting a pure shot is addictive. The desire to string a bunch of them together is never satisfied. Hogan was a driven man who found his game through trial and error on the driving range. One can only hope he enjoyed the journey.