With his perfect swing, golfer Ben Hogan achieved a kind of mythic stature in the collective mind of the American public. During his career, Hogan won sixty-three tournaments, including nine major championships. He was the PGA tour's leading money-winner five times, won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average five times, and was one of the first inductees into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. As awesome as that record is, the folklore concerning Hogan's arduous rise to the top of his profession and his famed comeback after a near-fatal auto accident nearly transcends it.

Ben Hogan

Perhaps the most famous photograph of Hogan (collected in The Hogan Mystique, 1994) captures much of the essence of the mystique: a shot of Hogan's flawless swing taken at its height and from the golfer's back, it extends outward to feature an attentive gallery on two sides...