19th HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER

HOGAN: SORCERER'S APPRENTICE
Sirs:
For the past five or so years I've been a middle-to-high-80s shooter. After digesting Ben Hogan's lessons on grip and stance, I promptly shot a 75, and a week later had a 78—with four 3-putt greens. After the fifth lesson I'll challenge Ben himself—any course, any time!
J. P. JONES
Philadelphia

HOGAN: LOOK, MA
Sirs:
With the first decent weather now in six months, I went to the driving range, my driver in one hand, three copies of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED in the other and a patient wife to read and guide me. The results were startling: 200-250 yards and no slice. God bless Hogan!
RUSSELL FRAZIER
Loudonville, N.Y.

HOGAN: INSPIRATION
Sirs:
Superior! Superb! Impelling! Greater, by far, than Power Golf by Hogan. Ravielli's drawings are the clearest, most carefully done bit of analysis possible. Hogan, of course, has done a magnificently understandable job of setting out the fundamentals and those elusive little things that a beginning golfer knows nothing about. If teaching requires knowledge, lucidity, confidence and, in a way, the ability to inspire, Hogan is a real teacher.
JIM McQUAID
Milwaukee

HOGAN: FORE!
Sirs:
I truthfully can say I'll be shooting the game in the high 70s. You see, now that I have corrected my stance, my tee shots will go out 240 yards instead of 200.
WILLIAM WAYNE
Chicago

HOGAN: COACH'S FANCY
Sirs:
These articles by Hogan have taken the golfing world's fancy. They are well written and Ben Hogan, with his associates, has done an excellent job of teaching and coaching. They may be good enough even to improve my southpaw golf swing.
LOU LITTLE
Columbia University
New York

HOGAN: NEW TRICKS
Sirs:
Messrs. Hogan and Wind, along with Mr. Ravielli, did it! An old dog at 55 can undo the wrongs of 30 years. I have the score to prove it. You've got me for life!
FRANK H. SMITH
Clayton, Mo.

HOGAN: SPORTING LOOK
Sirs:
Although my scores are up, my deltoid muscles are twitching in nice rhythm. Just as soon as I saw Ben's explanation of the swing plane I ordered my Hoganplane and have now worn it for 108 holes.

It's almost everything a man could want and I'm positive it will cut my score (or at least bring it back where it was) just as soon as the blisters on my neck and shoulders turn to calluses and I can work out a few little operational bugs, to wit:

1) Not being able to see the ball causes me to fan more frequently than usual.

2) The bottom edge cuts up the greens in wet weather.

3) The same bottom edge catches on the fairway, especially in walking up hills, causing the neck hole to bump my Adam's apple. (This hurts.)

4) It slows me down in the rough.

5) The greens committee has barred me from the course on weekends.

6) My old foursome is now a threesome.
DOUGLAS McLAIN
Springfield, Ill.

•SI to McLain: Bail out of your Hoganplane and report to the pro for checkout on Hogan. Over.—ED.

HOGAN: CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK
Sirs:
The most noted change to date is that the game of golf has slowed to a snail's pace. Hogan's grip, stance and waggle are being checked and double checked before each shot by each player in every foursome. The result is that five and one-half hours are now needed to play 18 holes instead of three and one-half.
JOHN SNELL JR.
Judge
152nd Judicial District of Texas
Houston

HOGAN: TEACHER'S PET
Sirs:
I am using the articles as the basis of instruction in my winter golf classes at the high school and at the YMCA and the YWCA. With 120 enrolled in these classes you can see that your magazine is not staying on the local stands very long.

I am so well pleased with the progress of the classes based on this series that I feel that The Modern Fundamentals of Golf should become a part of every golfer's library, whether novice or star.

And as a side result, Ben Hogan has made a better golf instructor out of me.
W. E. HIRD
Fort Dodge, Iowa

HOGAN: NO BUSINESS LIKE PRO BUSINESS
Sirs:
My profession is golf, particularly teaching golf, and I have read Ben Hogan's articles and believe them to be of great value. I will continue to refer to them in my own teaching programs at my club, but I object to Mr. Robert S. Saho's letter (19TH HOLE, April 1) in which he claims he has learned more "than from actual lessons from a pro here."

Reading in the comfort of your living room can be very enlightening; sweating it out on the practice tee is something else again. Mr. Saho has no business criticizing his own pro in favor of Ben Hogan, and you have no business printing it.
BOB REITH
Minneapolis

•We agree there is no substitute for blood, sweat and tees.—ED.

HOGAN: HAS ANYONE SEEN JACK?
Sirs:
Lament of a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED reader's wife:

My house is a shambles,
The rug has a rip,
The furniture's tattered,
Thanks to Hogan's new grip.

My evenings of TV
Or talks of the day
Have been substituted
By study of Hogan's new way.

On weekends, I realize
I don't stand a chance.
My man's at the golf course
Trying Hogan's new stance.

I thank our Hogan
For Lesson No. 4
Only because (thank God)
There aren't any more.
MRS. JOHN D. UPTON
New York

BUMS: SILVER HAIRS AMONG THE CROW
Sirs:
There may be gray hair on Duke Snider's head, but there are still plenty of home runs left in his bat. Creamer has a lot of nerve. The Dodgers are still a great team. Creamer (SI, April 1) sounds like a diehard Milwaukee fan talking about my (and many other people's) Dodgers that way. He'll be eating crow by October.
BARRY JACKSON
Lakewood, Colo.

ARAGON: YES, BUT...
Sirs:
I agree with SPORTS ILLUSTRATED that Art Aragon has done something wrong and should be punished (E&D, April 1), but I do not agree with the attitude you take on the matter. You make it sound as if Art Aragon has never told the truth before and that the only people he runs around with are underworld characters.

Many people in California, including sportswriters, believe that Aragon was convicted of the sin of having a cocky and arrogant attitude, instead of fight-fixing.
RICK BEEMAN
North Hollywood, Calif.

ARAGON: IS THE TRUTH A LIE?
Sirs:
I am quite disturbed at the treatment that Fighter Art Aragon was given. I think it was very unfair to Aragon to say in your magazine that after all these years "his tears could not change anything."

Here is a direct quote from that article: " 'I told the truth,' [Aragon] lied once more, 'and I'm going to prison for it.' " I would like to know if you have conclusive evidence that Art Aragon was telling a falsehood when he said that he had told the truth. Of course you do not, and furthermore you stated that no sophisticated person would believe that he was telling the truth. Please tell me what a sophisticated person is, for to my way of thinking most of the sophisticated people I know have a negative attitude toward most things. Granted Art Aragon was found guilty, but the courts are not infallible. Why don't you give the guy a break?
AL BERNARDINA II
Burlington, Vt.

•Art Aragon was convicted of lying by a jury which, if it had believed him, would have freed him. In sentencing him, an intelligent judge took into account his brazen persistence in the lie and his reputation as a liar and ring faker. Ring-wise (sophisticated) persons know of other Aragon fixes and attempted fixes and take the thoroughly affirmative position that boxing must be preserved from wrestling's fate. This was no first offender.—ED.

SEBRING: RIGHT ON SHELBY
Sirs:
That was a fine piece SPORTS ILLUSTRATED did on Carroll Shelby (The Gentle Leadfoot, March 25). Most motor sports coverage and features consist of colorful prose, admirable attention to fashions and spectators and a wealth of misinformation about the cars and drivers.

Ken Rudeen's piece conformed to the preferred magazine style but still had a lot of meat and no inaccuracies.

I'm a sort of pioneer in motor sports reporting on the local level, having written (as much as I dared) and competed since shortly after the start of the "movement." I lay claim to having been beaten by Shelby more times than any other SCCA license holder!

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's was the biggest and best article on Shelby and let me repeat that you were right on every count.
LORIN McMULLEN
Sports Editor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth

SEBRING: PROCEED WITH CAUTION
Sirs:
Thank God for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, a magazine that can give us such results as the 1957 Sebring Grand Prix so well and so promptly.

No praise can be too high for the courage displayed by Chevrolet in promoting their SS. The car's performance should not be grounds for despair but great hope for the future. Not even the high and the mighty Mercedes, Jaguar, Maserati or Ferrari can come out with a new model and romp home with a first right away. I think that even SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is being overly optimistic in saying that the SS will be proficient at Le Mans. That's awful close and awful tough. Yet there will be the 1958 Sebring and Le Mans and Rheims to come. The Corvette should enter all these and the Mille Miglia besides. The lessons to be learned will open their eyes wide.

Let Chevrolet remember that while they progress the others will not sit still and that what is hot this month will be left far behind next month unless great progress is made all the time. Should victory come to the SS the reply from the imports will be massive.
DON BLADES
Los Angeles

FOOTBALL: CLEAN AMERICAN BOY
Sirs:
In reference to your excellent article on the "ripening crop" of Pennsylvania football players, now college freshmen (SI, April 1), I feel it my duty as a University of Miami student to clear up certain inaccuracies which appear in the article concerning Maury Guttman.

The fault certainly does not lie with SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, but it is just such remarks as Mrs. Guttman's enthusiastic overstatement which unintentionally sustain the ridiculous, obnoxious and untrue description of our school as "Suntan U."

If her boy Maury has clean linen every day Mrs. G. can pride herself on having raised a clean American boy—the university does not provide such a service.

As far as his apartment is concerned, the entire University of Miami housing set-up, with the exception of a freshman girls' dormitory, is composed of either two-or four-bedroom apartments complete with kitchen and living-dining room. If Maury Guttman has a terrace, it is a better-concealed piece of property than the gold at Fort Knox. I must admit, however, that every dormitory apartment does have a luxurious four-foot by six-foot cement landing, and if Maury is fortunate enough to live on the third floor and resourceful enough to have removed the roof (under the all-seeing eyes of the university students, instructors, officials, and campus policemen), he might well have a terrace at that!

One other correction: Maury is now pledging a fraternity.
DENA FRAZER
Coral Gables, Fla.

PHOTO

MR. McLAIN AND HOGANPLANE