MEMORABILIA AND COLLECTIBLES PART 14: Gary Moranon how one collector believes he has tracked down eight irons used by Ben Hogan during his 1950 US Open victory at Merion.
THIS BEN Hogan business sure is a headache. Last week's column about the one-iron he used in the 1950 US Open at Merion resulted in e-mails from both sides of the Atlantic variously claiming that the club in the USGA Museum is a two-iron (definitely not true, although they probably have a later Hogan two-iron as well), and questioning the chain of events which took the club from Bobby Farino back to Hogan over 30 years after it had been stolen.
Well, if a single Hogan club can cause such debate, then what about an entire set? One question nobody asked is 'what happened to the rest of the clubs', and until recently nobody really knew where they were. They haven't definitely surfaced.
But for an auction next Tuesday, Maxwell's in Cheshire are guiding £15,000-£25,000 (€18,823-€31,573) for a set of eight MacGregor Ben Hogan Personal Model irons (two-nine) that could - possibly - have been used by Hogan at Merion and right up to his greatest year in 1953, when his five victories in six tournaments included three majors.
Stuart Stebenne is affable, enthusiastic and very knowledgeable about golf clubs. No doubt these characteristics were useful when he worked as a sales rep with Callaway in the late 1980s. Throw in his tenacity and you have a good recipe for a golf collector. Stebenne searches everywhere from flea markets to eBay looking for, and frequently finding, nuggets others have missed.
Trawling through the classifieds last autumn, one listing really caught his attention: "MacGregor Ben Hogan Golf Clubs-2-9 Irons his set". Stebenne made contact with the prospective vendor and soon realised he could be on to something very special. The seller was an elderly man who spoke in great detail about how he was given the clubs personally by Hogan at Shady Oaks (Hogan's home course) in 1960.
So much of what the man said checked out and just couldn't have been made up that Stebenne had little hesitation in paying the asking price. He followed up with weeks of research, and believes he has the only known, existing set of Hogan's personal MacGregor irons.
By way of background, Hogan signed with MacGregor in 1938 and used the company's clubs, customised for his use and with the Personal Model stamp, up to 1953. The clubs were different to the eight Hogan models the company sold to the public in that period, some of which the player described as "worthless junk".
Still, it irked Hogan that MacGregor's top-of-the-range clubs were Tommy Armour Silver Scots, and he eventually split from the company amid scathing criticism of their equipment and set up his own manufacturing operation.
Stebenne shared his discovery with some other Hogan enthusiasts, and the more it was investigated the more certain it became they were one of Hogan's personal sets and dated from around the prime of his career.
The source and the "Personal Model" stamp are the most compelling clues, but there is also the silver band on the Tourney shafts, the bar-back design, the longer-than-standard hosel and even the custom-for-Hogan two red rings on the ferrule.
As Hogan expert Randy Jensen puts it, "Every other set of irons currently known in the world can be proved to not be the Hogan set of irons from 1950-1953."
The vendor's story was that Hogan brought him to his personal locker and gave him the clubs after watching him hit shots on the Shady Oaks range and deciding that a change of equipment might help. The lucky man may never have realised their potential significance, and the indications are that he didn't bother too much with them until he decided to get rid of them. Stebenne, in contrast, has thought about them every day for the last nine months and did try to strike a deal to see them go to the USGA.
He offered them for sale to the association and floated the idea of a part-trade for some items they were set to offload this year and says he was somewhat heartbroken they didn't take them. Not heartbroken enough to give them away for free, of course, and when this column asked the USGA why they didn't pursue the potential acquisition, they declined to give specific reasons.
Instead, the clubs go under the hammer next week as Maxwell's (www.maxwells-auctioneers.co.uk) hold one of the big golfing memorabilia auctions that traditionally precede the British Open.
To round out the story and possibly the famous set, another American collector, Ken Flanigan, has a matching sandwedge but is unlikely to sell. Hogan only won two tournaments after 1953 and never claimed a major with his own company's clubs.
Meanwhile, this column welcomes e-mails concerning golf memorabilia and collectibles but does not guarantee to provide valuations. If you have an interesting story or item, e-mail collectgolf@gmail.com.
