Ben started caddying at age nine at Vancouver Golf Club in British Columbia, Canada, under professional Don Sutherland from Royal Dornoch, Scotland - he gave Ben his waggle and forward press. An unattached professional and member of the club, Walter McAlpine gave Ben, “Ben Hogan: Power Golf” and he would lay the book on the ground and copy the pictures, and would like it when the wind blew the pages open – it was just like a movie. When Ernie Tate, the next professional who arrived, Ben asked him if he would start a golf program at his high school. Tate replied that he would if Ben would be his assistant.
Ben played college golf at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, and took his first assistant job under Frank Sadler who was on the book jacket of Ben Hogan’s five lessons. After two years, Chuck Congdon – “Mr. Golf Professional” of the Pacific Northwest Section – hired Ben and he became the first professional to teach under him. Two and a half years later General Truman asked Col. Speaks to hire Ben as their new civilian Professional/Manager at Fort Lewis Golf Course. While at Fort Lewis Ben was the #1 purchaser of Ben Hogan equipment, and consequently Mr. Hogan called Ben and invited him and his wife Joanne to come to Fort Worth as his guests for a week. It was the year President Kennedy was shot. While at Fort Lewis Ben had the opportunity to design a new nine holes to the existing eighteen.
After seven and a half years, George Howard hired Ben to be his Associate Professional at Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle. In 1968, while at Broadmoor, Ben and Joanne hosted 35 couples traveling to Sotogrande in Spain and Penina in Portugal, where Ben met and worked with Henry Cotton. Henry knew the key to golf is educated hands. He described educated hands. In 1969, Homer Kelley came to see me for the first time. Homer explained educated hands. (see the forward in “The Golfing Machine.”) While a member of the Pacific Northwest Section of the PGA, Ben played on five Hudson Cup Professional teams.
Having qualified to play in the Bing Crosby tournament in 1961, now known as the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Ben discovered the Monterey Peninsula and knew it would be a great community in which to teach golf. So, in 1971 when he decided to become a full-time teacher, Ben and Joanne and their three daughters moved to Monterey, CA. Teaching for two years at Laguna Seca Golf Club, he worked under professional Harold Firstman, who played the part of Ben Hogan as a youngster in the film “Follow the Sun”. In 1973 Ben moved across the hill to Ed Haber’s Carmel Valley Golf Club, which later changed it’s name to The Golf Club at Quail Lodge when purchased by the Peninsula Group in 1989.
As Ben mentioned in the forward of The Golfing Machine, he had always wanted to share the book, and that is what he did throughout his illustrious career. His DVD's and 6' x 10' Facts & Illusions Mat have been an outgrowth of Homer’s great work.
