"I chuckle at the thought of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson or Bobby Jones having a swing coach. They would have killed him!"

Dan Jenkins sits down for a most enjoyable Q&A with Stephanie Wei for the WSJ online.

I've always kind laughed off Dan's take on the modern tour player. But oddly, this is the first time this seemed to ring true about a lot of players, particularly Americans and especially a week after I was struck by Matt Kuchar's theory on winning.

Mr. Jenkins: It's a different mindset with the young guys coming up. It used to be in my day, you couldn't shoot better than 65 because God wouldn't permit it. Now they can shoot 59 because of the equipment. Every putt is true, greens are good. They all get rich for doing nothing. You think about a guy like Matt Kuchar, who has won [millions] this year and hasn't won a tournament. I think there's something wrong with that. I think money is killing the incentive. I could go on and on about this. I just come from a school where you have to win something to be accepted.

On his all time top-5. You'll be shocked to know Tiger did not make the list:

Mr. Jenkins: Hogan's the best shot-maker and Jack is the best winner. You've got to put [Bobby] Jones in there. Then, Byron Nelson because of his record. I'd say Hogan, Jack, Jones, Nelson and Sam Snead are the five greatest players. Tiger doesn't make the top five. You have to have Arnold [Palmer] in there somewhere because he probably did more for golf in this country than anybody. He popularized it, he took it to the people. Tiger took it all away.

And on the art of Tweeting:

Mr. Jenkins: I need an electrician. [Laughter.] I still don't know how to do it myself. I talk, they type. I think Twitter is fun. You know why? Because you can say a lot of stuff you couldn't in the story. In a story, you have to have a theme and an angle, you have to have a beginning, middle and an end. You have to have a defining moment and kick it to death. You gotta be able to recognize that, by the way. It probably takes experience.

Comments

[sir real]

Can you say bigot? Some people are big fans of Mr. Jenkins. Can't count myself among them. Lame comments like the one mentioned above are quite revealing.
Twitter? How pathetic can one's life be that they are constantly checking out what others are doing at a given moment. This entire twitter/texting mania, while having some worth I suppose, has become a source of some of the most unproductive, wasted time in human history.

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

@ sir real: Well, it is true that the internet allows "some" people to waste time on a single site, especially when comments are flying pretty fast. But I don't know who you could mean. That would be pathetic, really. As for being the Ancient Twitterer, it seems that Jenkins does it only for the Majors, and some of his tweets are pretty funny. As for me, it's ShackLand as my homepage or nothing; no Twitter (not enough characters, LOL), no Facebook. Jenkins a bigot? Not likely. Maybe the joke wasn't particularly funny but Dan has more interesting things to say about golf than any 20 other golf writers (are there that many left) combined, the Hogan fascination notwithstanding. Besides, YE got him back pretty good and Jenkins could only laugh.

[digsouth]

DJ rocks, SW rocks, and is good looking at that.

I don't twit, but I have had a glass of water for all who do ,and have to know.

Jenkins is funny, and he can take it as well as dish it out.

His books are re-readable, classic.

digsouth

[NRH]

Anybody who bashes Jenkins has never read one of his books.

[Bill S.]

NRH--Amen. "You Gotta Play Hurt" is fine literature! The opening paragraph is one of the funniest ever written. He is truly one of a kind.
Bigot? hardly
Ky---great as usual, and yes, Dan does know his golf.
...and HBO made a better than decent movie out of "Dead Solid Perfect", but I guess it's not available on DVD.

[McStumpy]

Is it just me, or does Dan look a little like Freddy Kruger in the article pic?

[John]

Dan Jenkins knows golf and he can write. He is from the old school. Plus, he is a nice guy. Years ago I wrote an article for the Washingtonian Magazine about the PGA Championship being held at Congressional. I interviewed Dan for the article. He couldn't have been nicer to someone who he didn't know, and who was interrupting his own work in the press room. He has followed golf, and played golf, since the Hogan era so we should pay him attention to what he says about the pros today. And we need to give him the respect that he deserves. Also, by the way, he is very funny and that goes a long way in golf, as it does in life.

[Wisconsin Reader]

I believe I own all of Jenkin's books and enjoyed them because they are outrageous and funny. . . His "top five golfers" list is based on - who knows what criteria? 4 of them are dead (none of them seriously competing in the past 40 years) and the other is over 70 - so that might give us a clue. . . Woods is easily the most dominant player over a 10 year period who has ever played - but, Jenkins was past his prime then - so nostalgia wins out.

[peachtree]

Yes Jenkins is a bigot and a hater of all things Tiger Woods. Did you know at the height of Tiger Woods mania, TW refused to do a sit down interview with Jenkins, and thus started the Tiger Woods hate fest. How dare TW turn down an interview with the greatest and oldest golf writer of all times. The writer who has seen the great ones perform. He does not acknowledge the greatest period of dominance of Woods for 10 years - none of the great ones has ever been so virtuoso. By the way, when you read his Daughter -Sally Jenkins column re Tiger Woods, there is the same hate fest. Who would not stick up for Father/

[thusgone]

echo all the plaudits above about jenkins. when he's on, there is nobody funnier or more incisive. his zinger style makes him a natural for twitter. aside from the sh*t my dad says guy, he is the only twitterer i keep an eye out for.

but his top five list is as useful as frank sinatra's assessment of rock and roll's staying power- it says more about the rater than the game. any top five list of great golfers that does not include tiger woods cannot be taken seriously.

[Phil Benedict]

Excluding Tiger from the top 5 is just idiotic.

[Mike T.]

Dan could play a little, drink a lot and write even more. He's a keen observer of human nature and just flat out funny to boot. As for his hero worship of Hogan, if you're going to worship a golfer, Hogan's one of the best.

[Aunt Blabbie]

Dan Jenkins sweetheart, you are still the best. You always make my sides ache with laughter. One correction, Walter Hagen is the best.

[James H.]

@peachtree

Yes, all are aware that the mighty tw would not sit down with DJ.

Jones had a better ten years than tw...

[gov. lepetomane]

I have enjoyed Jenkins' irreverent humor from reading several of his books. He is a terrific writer.

That said, his top 5 reflects a curmudgeon unable to evaluate objectively beyond his era.
Woods' stats either exceed or are comparable to those of Dan's 5, whether one is counting tournaments won, majors won, US Amateur's won, consecutive cuts made, whatever.

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

Leaving Tiger out of the Top 5 is absurd, period. However, I don't think Dan Jenkins really gives a flip that Tiger wouldn't sit down with him, in particular, for an interview "at the height of the Tiger Woods mania" (mania: you got that right, peachtree). He has maintained that for the past 13 years Tiger Woods has been practically the only reason to pay any attention to professional golf. Doesn't sound like one of those "Tiger Woods haters" to me. It's more a matter of what is known as "giving back to that which has made you." Tiger's facility with that has tracked his sportsmanship, and this has not been particularly good for the Game. That he is more or less tied for #1 as the greatest champion ever (on the course) and remains unable and or unwilling to do so is what grates on the sensibilities of old timers and even some not-so-old timers. And it also makes him unique among the greatest champions of the Game. Including Hogan, who was a curmudgeon but nevertheless accessible when he was still playing. One hoped that Tiger had seen the light after the late unpleasantness. He said that he had from the Blue Velvet Room of Ponte Vedra. Has he?

[digsouth]

Dan's list is Dan's list.

He gives TW props as the best putter, which I agree with. For all you who diss the list for DJ not being current with the TW era, how many saw all the greats that Dan lists as his top 5.....maybe TW would not make your list, having seen them play either.

Remember, those guys did it with a driver with a sweet spot the size of a dime.

I say if they ask you who your top 5 are, then that is your top 5. Give Jenkins his due.

It was not a contest. it was a question about his opinion.

Pick on the old guy. Hmmff, Jenkin's wit could cut us all down while he was reading a pamphlet on a Kia. He's that sharp. Would you diss Dan with Steph sitting there frowning at you?

Visualize whirled peas next time you really need to make a 5 footer and think of Dan, not me....;)

digsouth, defender of the the Texas writer, willing Wei watcher.

[Chuck]

Was Dan Jenkins actually listing the best players in the history of the game? Or his favorite guys with whom to enjoy cocktails in the grill room?

[DRM]

Tiger is in the top 4 with Jones, Hogan, and Nicklaus. Flip a coin to determine who the best is, or just go by the majors total in which case Nicklaus comes out on top. But strong arguments can be made for all 4 of them.

[Phil the Author]

Actually Ben Hogan did have a swing coach. His name was A.W. Tillinghast. Hogan visited Tilly in the early 1930s and they spent several days together working on his swing. Tilly made home movies of them, developing them in his own dark room and they then examined them together frame-by-frame.

Is Tilly responsible for Hogan's success and his "secret?" No one will ever know, especially as the films were destroyed along with all of Tilly's records, drawings, etc... in a fire that destroyed the bulding where they were being stored some 10 years after his death... We do know it happened because there is an eyewitness to it; his grand-daughter Barbara who lived next door and was there when Hogan was...