were carried by Bill Frazier, the late Gonzaga Prep High School football coach<\/a>, according to a Spokesman-Review report from 18 years ago.<\/p>\n\u201cAs far as I\u2019ve been able to see, these are the earliest set of golf clubs that are used by Ben Hogan. They\u2019re still surviving as his legacy,\u201d Bommer said. \u201cI always look at it as like not the value, but the story behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The clubs are special to Bommer because of the struggles that Hogan overcame throughout his life. Hogan\u2019s father died by suicide when he was nine, with some accounts reporting that he was in the same room when it happened.<\/p>\n
In January 1930, Hogan dropped out of high school when he was 17 to become a professional, but didn\u2019t find success for years. He went broke several times and didn\u2019t win his first tournament until March 1940.<\/p>\n
Hogan lost two years of his golf prime while serving in the Air Force during World War II, and he nearly died in a car accident in 1949. He and his wife were struck in a head-on collision with a bus while driving home from a tournament. Hogan sustained severe injuries, including a double fracture of the pelvis, a broken collarbone, a broken left ankle and a cracked rib.<\/p>\n
Following his recovery from the accident, Hogan won six majors in a span of eight major starts. Hogan achieved the Triple Crown in 1953, winning the Masters Tournament, U.S. Open and The Open Championship. Throughout his career, Hogan won nine majors and 64 tour events. He is the only player to win the Masters, U.S. Open and Open Championship in the same year. He also has the record for most consecutive top-10 major finishes with 18, and he is one of just six men to win all four majors.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot having very much money to begin with and many things in life that could have stopped him from wanting to become pro,\u201d Bommer said, \u201cthe story and the message is that somebody that was once really broken was able to make something so awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bommer traded some collectible coins and a few vintage golf items in exchange for the clubs. The collector initially obtained the clubs at a garage sale about four years ago. It was nearing the end of the garage sale, and the woman who organized it planned on just throwing the clubs away. It is unknown how she received the set, but the woman almost certainly was unaware that they were Hogan\u2019s.<\/p>\n
According to Bommer, the set was in very poor condition at the time of the garage sale. Dust covered the logos and markings that make the set distinguishable. The bag was worn, and a bright yellow Indian Canyon sticker on the side was too warped to recognize.<\/p>\n
The collector cleaned everything up and uncovered a custom tag that was crafted by Burton for Hogan. After that, he did a deep internet dive to verify the authenticity of the set. Not only was he able to confirm that Hogan had a custom Burton set, but he was able to match various details about the grip pattern to pictures he found online.<\/p>\n
Along with the set, Bommer acquired from the collector a letter that was written by the boy\u2019s family. The letter tells the story of how Hogan gave away his set of clubs to the young fan in August 1947. The letter explains in detail how Hogan was so impressed by how enthusiastic the boy was about golf that he gave him the set, telling him \u201cI can tell you will be an asset to the game. Good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The day is Aug. 10, 1947. Ben \u201cThe Hawk\u201d Hogan, often touted as the best pure ball striker…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":118885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-118884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114972037151410780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}