Ben Hogan at the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie. (Getty Images)
Ben Hogan at the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie. (Getty Images)

I was tooling around on Friday morning doing some research for Rory McIlroy's run at the career grand slam this year at Augusta, and I stumbled upon this jewel of a statistic.

Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers ever and one of only five golfers to have completed the career slam, only took one shot at the British Open. He won it.

And now I'm down the Hogan rabbit hole.

The year was 1953 and Hogan had just won the Masters and US Open. The PGA Championship was July 1-7 and the British Open July 8-10. 

Hogan, who had to take a ship over to Scotland, eschewed the PGA for his only Open. It was his first shot at the career grand slam as he had already won the other three majors and never played the British Open.

His four-stroke win resulted in the Scots dubbing him "The Wee Ice Mon," for his approach to the ancient game. 

He called Carnoustie "one of the toughest courses" he'd ever played.

He also never played another British Open, ending his career 1-for-1 across the pond. "I’ve got a lawn mower back in Texas, I’ll send it over," Hogan said after his win.

There's a great story (likely a legend) about Hogan playing the sixth hole at Carnoustie. In that day you played 18 in the morning and 18 in the afternoon and completed the final two rounds in the same day (poor announcers!).

Here's the Telegraph:

"The sixth was also the hole which gave rise to the entertaining story of how Hogan's accuracy was such that his shots in the afternoon finished in the same divots he had made in the morning."

I'm not sure Rory McIlroy will be able to find his own divots this year at Augusta, but he'll try to join Hogan and four others as the only golfers to complete the career grand slam.

What a group.

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