The Wee Ice Mon Cometh

A look back at golfer Ben Hogan’s historic 1953 season, still the closest any player has gotten to winning golf’s Grand Slam.

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It is considered by many the greatest season in golf history. In 1953 Ben Hogan provided a fitting exclamation point to his miraculous comeback from a near-fatal auto accident by becoming the first player to win golf’s Triple Crown—the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open—within a span of four months. It was closer than anyone had gotten to the modern-day Grand Slam of winning all four of golf’s major tournaments.

The Wee Ice Mon Cometh is the first book to detail Hogan’s historic accomplishment. His 1953 season remains the world’s greatest, and golfers seek to match his achievement every year. Bobby Jones in 1930 and Tiger Woods in 2000–2001 achieved comparable “slams,” but the Hogan Slam stands alone due to the car crash four years before that left Hogan on shattered legs. He nonetheless won with record-setting performances on three of the most challenging courses in the world: Augusta National at the Masters, the U.S. Open at Oakmont, and the British Open at Carnoustie, Scotland. Ed Gruver weaves together interviews with members of Hogan’s family, golf historians, playing partners, and business partners along with extensive research and eyewitness accounts of each tournament.

Seventy years after his historic feat, the Hogan Slam still serves as a symbol for the many comebacks Hogan had to make throughout his life—his father’s death by suicide when Ben was a boy, desperate days during the Great Depression, frustrating failures in tournaments early in his career, and the horrific accident that nearly killed him just as he was finally reaching the pinnacle of his profession.