The Complete Hogan: A Shot-by-Shot Analysis of Golf's Greatest Swing

The best book I’ve written. If you want the best of Hogan from people who actually knew Hogan and played with Hogan this book is for you.

Love the book and agree with those who say it is remarkable and amazing. McLean thoroughly analyzes Hogan's swing using stills from films of Hogan taken when he was at his peak physically; relates his insights about Hogan from knowing him personally and playing golf with him and from talking to many other well known golfers who knew Hogan; and provides brief reviews of other works about Hogan. Some people who reviewed the book fault McLean for referring to his other books and to his own experience as a golfer and teacher, which seems strange since his experience, understanding of the golf swing, and insight are the source of his authority to write the book. Nobody else could have written it.

This is a phenomenal analysis that focuses on Hogan at his peak. Jim McLean's impressions are not the result of random memory, but rather hours of personal observation and conversations with those who knew Hogan best, his fellow competitors and contemporaries. A point well taken that golf "frame by frame" deconstruction is misleading unless done on a scientific and consistent basis, the use of spot on photos, leaves the reader with the understanding of what is actually happening in a swing that produced machine like consistency but with an artistry and athletic motion that has yet to be matched.

This book can be reviewed several different ways. The good part of the book is that Hogan's flawless swing is looked at very closely from three different perspectives, in addition to a mirror image/lefty view. There are keen observations pointing out nuances of Hogan's head position, leg position, bowing of the left wrist,etc. McLean obviously has done extensive studying of the Hogan swing as well as conducting seemingly hundreds of hours of converstaion on this subject with people who knew Hogan. He knows the swing well.The OK part of the book is that it is not an instructional book, but rather a series of observations. It is up to the reader to take whatever strikes him as relevant and apply it to his own swing. That's fine, but would probalbly limit this book to those that are looking to fine tune their swings rather than those beginning.The ugly part is that McLean makes numerous references to his own books/DVD's/school/teaching system. At points it becomes blurry at to whether he's talking about Hogan's swing or McLean's teaching system. Considering that it's a book about Hogan, the words, "I", "me" and "my" (referring to McLean), are used way too frequently.Overall a good, but not great, book.

I thought Leadbetter's book was better but McLeans book is a good addition to the Hogan swing analysis if you can get by all the self promotion. Mr. Nelson attended my church and ranks right up there with Hogan and Snead. A name never mentioned these days is Marty Fleckman who won the NCAA at UH. I took a lesson from Fleckman at Blackhorse in 2008 and it was the best lesson I have ever had. I think Stan Utley, Jim Hardy and Fleckman are excellent and humble teachers.

Jim McLean is an amazing teacher. He's been at it for over 30 years and he is absolutely one of the best. This book is another of his marvelous swing analysis books on Hogan, and he breaks it down for you in the most complete, smartest details, it makes you feel every aspect of Hogan's swing in the way Mr McLean describes it.That being said, I just wished the photos were a little bit bigger and a lot clearer. With all of our modern photo and video technologies to make things look better, I think the Black and White clips from the classic videos and films could've been made sharper, larger and much clearer. The lines drawn for analysis should also have been in a better contrasting white rather than the black, which is lost in some of the pics. I had to use a magnifying glass to see a bit more detail in some of them to see where the line was dissecting on Hogan's body parts.

This book is excellent for anyone looking to gain knowledge about the history of the game and one of the best players ever, Ben Hogan. Jim McLean goes into great detail with unbelievable frame-by-frame photos of Ben Hogan's swing. Many people talk about Ben Hogan's "secret." Jim McLean came up with 15 secrets that he believe made Hogan one of the best. Very interesting information from a great source.

I love the Hogan swing and have read most everything I could find over the years. This is great in depth analysis of the intricacies of Hogan's swing with illustrations of swing sequences viewed from three 3 different camera angles. The information is thorough and exact enough to put to practical use.