An informed and highly portable pocket guide to the most effective way to address and execute hitting the ball, June 4, 2006

 Available NOW!  The DVD!!!

I reveal and demonstrate Ben Hogan's swing secret.

You'll be able to apply it to your swing 

and start hiting crisp straight shots everytime!

 “The Secret” 

 You can learn his secret in this book.

(Book Excerpt) 

Introduction 

      My name is Mike Cortson. I have been a PGA Tour Player Manager for Bruce Crampton for several years. My own skill as a golfer is less than perfect as I have had the misfortune of severe illness visit me. Nevertheless, I have been around the game and golf pros for more years than I care to admit. I have seen more successful golf swings than you can shake a stick at. Some are great to look at and some are just down right unbelievable. I was trained as a lawyer and my eye for detail is quite keen. It is far more difficult to catch a good liar than to catch a great golf swing.

      When I took up the game any hope I might have had for turning professional was long past. As most wannabe golfers I decided one day to take up the game. I did the usual and went to the sporting goods store and bought myself all of the latest paraphernalia, loaded up my trunk, drove to the nearest driving range, plopped down a few dollars, took a bucket of balls up to the range, dumped them out onto the ground and began to immediately make a damned fool out of myself. At first I was quite embarrassed. Then I noticed that in the grand scheme of the company I was keeping, I fit right in. I spoke to a few guys and they offered me all sorts of advice. You’d think I was at a surgeon’s convention and had a cancerous mole the size of a golf ball on the end of my nose.

      Oh they had all of the right answers. You had to “grip” the club just so, “stand to the ball” just so, you had to “turn”, “bend your knees” just so, “take the club back” just so, have a good “swing thought” (whatever the heck that is, my thought was “knock the hell out of it!”), then you had to “pivot” and drop the club into a “slot” and then BANG!...it was over in an instant. Did it work? No!

      Well, I wasn’t discouraged. I went to the book store and bought instruction books. I went to the video stores and bought videos up the ying yang. I had a golf library within a month. Oh I had to also subscribe to every golf magazine too. My wife was ready to kill me, and rightly so. It was now an obsession to hit that little white ball.

        I flailed at it like a monkey with a hatchet trying to crack a coconut. I looked like one too. Well if I couldn’t be a great player I at least had to look good. I watched every tournament every chance I got. I taped tournaments and would stay up until the wee hours of the morning trying to find out that “secret”. Hell, there just had to be one. Those guys on TV weren’t any bigger than me and made it all look so easy.

        I finally relented. I did the unthinkable…I signed up to take golf lessons. Ah, now that just had to work. I was now paying big bucks and just like everything else, you could buy the secret. What could be easier? Oh, why didn’t I think of that before? How stupid of me.

         I went back to the driving range and met with the instructor.  He came highly recommended. He sounded just like the teacher I saw on the videos I had bought…and I had all of them. I knew each one of them by heart. Nothing escaped this attorney’s keen eye. The golf swing was under the microscope and it was going to be conquered like it or not “Mr. Golf Swing”. Your butt was mine!

        So what happened? I was still flailing away getting nowhere fast. The only thing that was getting better was my teacher’s bank account. If it wasn’t for putting, I would never have even broken 100. I beat my brains out. I would sneak out of the office early and whack balls until dark night after night. Bang! Bang!  Bang!...dribble…boink….clank. I stank. 

        One Sunday afternoon I went back up to the range and got 3 large buckets of balls. I looked like I should be on tour. I had the clothes, the best clubs, and a fancy staff bag with my name on it.  The best golf balls…you name it. Golf was mine.

        About half way through the first bucket of embarrassment I noticed that the person behind me was quietly hitting shots. I heard them before I actually looked at where they were going. I was convinced never to look at a crummy player as the bad habits might be contagious. I finally had to see just what was causing this sound of “bullets” coming from behind me.

         There was a man in his mid to late 50’s in tattered clothes and leather skin wearing a sweat stained visor. He had an old golf bag that had his name on it and the clubs were “blades” which I knew from all of my study were only used by “pros” since they were impossible to hit. He had a cigarette hanging from his lips and was zipping shot after shot boring into the air. I was sure that he must be cheating some way. No one that I knew, other than the pros I had seen on TV came even close to what this man was doing. The ball bolted off of the clubface and pierced the air leaving a loud stinging sound in its wake. I shook my head. The man looked up for a second and said simply, “Hi.” I returned to splaying balls all over the place.

        This continued for about another 10 minutes when finally I heard the man from behind me say, “Hey kid.” I said, “What?” He said, “You suck.” I slowly turned around and said, “Oh, Mr. Holmes I presume?” We both laughed. He said, “Kid, let me show you something.” I thought to myself, oh no here we go again. I politely declined but he insisted. He kept pressing me out of pity no doubt. I finally relented.

        He asked me, “Kid, you ever heard of a man called Ben Hogan?” I said, “Sure, I have his books and some tapes of him.” He said, “Well kid, I was Ben’s only student. My name’s John, John Schlee.” I said, “Nice to meet you. Wow, you know Ben Hogan?” He smiled and said, “Yes. He taught me something many years ago and if you have a minute I’d like to show it to you too. But…”

        And this was the big proviso “but”. “But kid, you can’t tell anyone about this until I’m dead and Mr. Hogan is dead.  Promise?” I thought for a nano-second and said, “Hell yes!” He said, “You ever heard of ‘The Secret’?” I said, “Sure, everyone has heard of Mr. Hogan’s secret.” John smiled and said, “Well kid, it ain’t in them books you been readin’. Mr. Hogan never put it in the books. He swore me to secrecy and I’m breakin’ it. Don’t ask me why. I know I’m sick and no one will believe you anyway so here goes.”

        And away we go… “You wanna know a ‘secret’?” Come on in for a minute. That’s all it will take.

*******

GolfInstruction.com's book review

BOOK REVIEW

"The Secret": New
golf instruction
book reveals
Ben Hogan's secret

By Kiel Christianson,
Senior Writer,
Golf Publisher Syndications

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (May 15, 2006) — In golf, there are many tips and tricks, swing thoughts and methods. There are even lots of secrets (like, what does Tabitha Furyk see in Jim?). However, there is only one secret big enough to be known simply as The Secret.

As any golfer knows, The Secret refers to legendary Ben Hogan's secret. It is believed that whatever this secret was, it allowed Hogan to overcome his natural, vicious hook and go on to become arguably the best ball-striker in the history of the game, winning 63 total tournaments and nine majors.

A new book by former PGA Tour player manager Michael Cortson, titled "The Secret to a Great Golf Swing" (Seven Locks Publishing, $13), claims to share The Secret with all of us for the first time.

The Secret and The Secret

For nearly a half-century, people have speculated as to Hogan's secret. Theories ranged from the psychological and philosophical, as in Bob Thomas's book, "Hogan's Secret", to the mechanical (cupping the wrist).

So what makes Cortson's book different?

Well, without letting the cat completely out of the bag, The Secret detailed here is mechanical, and it does indeed have to do with the wrist, and the right arm. To find out the details, however, you'll have to read the book.

That's not what makes Cortson's slim 80-page book unique, however. There are two other factors that add a unique legitimacy to The Secret. First, Cortson is not your typical scratch-handicap, too-cool-for-you teaching pro. Second, he learned The Secret from Ben Hogan's one and only student, John Schlee.

Cortson, who now lives in Michigan, was at one time a PGA Tour player manager. Then things went downhill.

"In 2003 I had cancer and died twice during surgery," Cortson said. "I was sent home to die. I called in hospice and rotted away until Oct. 10, 2003, when I had a massive stroke leaving me a (quadriplegic). In January of 2004, I regained my lucidity but was pretty much a mess physically.

"I was in a nursing home on an end of life program. I was determined to beat it all, and I did! The cancer (pancreas, liver and colon) cleared up! The docs freaked out!"

Cortson worked hard to recover, learning to read, write, walk, talk and dress himself again.

"I hobbled out of the nursing home on June 11, 2004," Cortson said. "In the winter I tried to swing a club. My right side was still a mess and my natural arm swing when I walked was totally shot. I had to make my arm move."

Cortson had met Schlee many years earlier, on a driving range in Pasadena, Calif. According to Cortson, Schlee watched him spray balls all over until finally calling him over.

When Cortson asked why he was sharing The Secret — which he had been sworn never to do — he simply said: "I'm sick, and no one will believe you anyway."

After Cortson beat cancer, he remained paralyzed on his left side. But he still wanted to play golf.

"I sat and thought hard about what John had taught me, The Secret, and I had never done it right before this," Cortson said. "The natural arm swing coupled with the secret allows me to hit the ball straight and reasonably long for a 54-year-old permanently/totally disabled person.

"Well enough in fact that I started teaching it when the guys at the course saw how I was shooting in the 70s regularly, knowing all I had been through limping around the course."

The verdict

Cortson's book is very easy to digest and relatively clearly written, despite a certain lack of polish. Whether it contains The Secret is, we suppose, a matter of faith. Whether it will allow you to hit the ball like Hogan or not, well, that's something you'll need to determine for yourself.

One thing is indisputable, however: There is no instructional book on the market with quite as unique a story behind it. In fact, it's difficult to imagine that the story, as improbable as it sounds, is made up, which adds a certain amount of legitimacy to The Secret.

For more information:

Order  Now!

The Secret

To a Great Golf Swing

**************

Bruce Crampton

EXEMPT STATUS: Top 31 on All-Time Money List FULL NAME: Bruce  Crampton HEIGHT: 5-9 WEIGHT: 178 BIRTHDATE: September 28, 1935 BIRTHPLACE: Sydney, Australia WINS: PGA Tour - 14 Champions Tour - 20 Australian Hall of Fame Inductee

RESIDENCE: Severna Park, Maryland FAMILY: Wife, Marlene; Jay (12/27/67), Brad (6/2869), Roger (7/22/74), Leigh Ann (4/8/79) TURNED PROFESSIONAL: 1953 JOINED TOUR: 1985

My personal club builder

Golfing with my friend 

"Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks

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