The Ben Hogan Co. sits on a five-acre tract in the southwest corner of Fort Worth, Texas, less than a mile from the campus of Texas Christian University and alongside plants that manufacture and process such goods as steel, lumber and wooden cabinets.

On a blue awning that stretches from the front entrance, a red silhouette of Hogan watching the flight of his one-iron to the 72nd hole of the 1950 U.S. Open makes an elegant statement about the activity inside. It’s the company Hogan started in 1953, his best year in golf (he won the U.S. and British Opens and the Masters).

"I wanted to make golf clubs that were jewel-like in quality," Hogan once said, remembering $150,000 worth of clunkers in his first batch of irons. "I just ate them and started over."

Fifty years and nine months after he won a watershed golf tournament in Pinehurst, the proprietor is neatly dressed in gray slacks, a tweed jacket, white shirt and tie. On one wall is a large photograph of the four golfers who have won golf’s four majors: Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Hogan is pleasant and warm.

There are so many things to talk about where Ben Hogan and Pinehurst are concerned: The 1940 North and South championship, Hogan’s first on the pro tour after seven years of frustration. The subsequent victories in Greensboro and in Asheville. The North and South titles in 1942 and ’46. The grand times Ben and Valerie Hogan enjoyed with Byron and Louise Nelson, dressing in black tie and tails for dinner in the Carolina Hotel dining room. The 11th hole on Pinehurst No. 2, which Hogan once described as his favorite par-four. The 1951 Ryder Cup lambasting of the Brits.

"I always loved to play Pinehurst," Hogan is saying, interrupting his usual morning of office work before retiring to Shady Oaks Country Club for lunch. "I thought it was a great place. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I stayed there. I must have played No. 2 I don’t know how many times. But my record shows I won it three times.

"The whole golf course was a most pleasant and testing golf course. It’s a real test of golf. The North and South Open was a major then. At least I thought it was. It seems to me it was played in the fall of the year, after all the eastern courses had closed and the fellows were migrating south. It was a golf mecca. They had a very nice hotel, accommodations for everybody. It was great. It had a super reputation. Everybody wanted to go to Pinehurst."

William Benjamin Hogan was not a happy camper when the tour migrated to Pinehurst in March 1940. One report said he had $30 in his pockets and bald tires on his second-hand automobile. Since first trying the tour in 1932, he’d yet to win a tournament, and for five years would occasionally need money so badly that he’d drop off the tour, spend the summer as pro at the Country Club in White Plains, N.Y., and the fall with his folks in Fort Worth. He often stretched his limited funds by making meals of the free oranges available to golfers when the tour swung through California and Florida.

"In 1937 I decided it might as well be sink or swim," he said. "If I played the tournament round and did well, so much the better. If it turned out I wasn’t good enough to keep up with the rest of the boys, I could go home to Fort Worth and be broke again."

Hogan’s teen-aged contemporaries, fellow Texans Byron Nelson and Ralph Guldahl, had four Western Opens, three U.S. Opens and two Masters between them. Hogan, on the other hand, could only score better than two men in the 1939 U.S. Open at the Spring Mill course at Philadelphia Country Club, shooting 78-80 in the final two rounds.

Hogan was viewed as an oddity on the tour because of his relentless work ethic and long practice hours. Other golfers avoided rooming next to him, for fear that the "thump-thump-thump" of Hogan putting long into the night on the hotel-room floor would rob them of sleep.

"The rules and the equipment are fine," Hogan once said. "The only thing that golfers need is more daylight. There isn’t enough time during the day to practice and play to keep one’s game to where it needs to be."

And on another occasion: "The best part of golf is practicing and improving. You get your fun out of golf from practice."

While some thought his obsession with practice curious, others wondered if he had the mechanics to be a champion. "Hogan will never make it," Gene Sarazen once said. "That swing of his ... he should have won by now if he’s ever going to do it with that swing."

The 1940 season was showing some promise, but several near misses added salt to his long-festering wounds. Hogan was the second-leading money winner, with $3,038 to his credit, when the tour arrived in Pinehurst and had finished second six times — to six different players — in the last 14 months. Hogan was in the clubhouse in Phoenix with what appeared to be a safe lead, but Porky Oliver shot a 29 on the final nine to edge him by one stroke. Jimmy Demaret beat him in another tournament by a stroke. So did Nelson.

Hogan saw a sliver of hope in the narrow misses, however, reasoning to Valerie that if six different players were one shot better than him, there wasn’t one player head and shoulders above him.

"One day I’ll get so far ahead no one can catch me," he said.

"Ben Hogan was starving for a tournament triumph as the 1940 tour began," Gene Gregston wrote in Hogan: The Man Who Played for Glory. "The achievements of Guldahl and Nelson did not dishearten him, just the contrary. They added fuel to the fires smoldering within him until he was walking around the golf course like a volcano on the verge of eruption."

Despite his compact size — Hogan stood only five feet, eight inches and weighed 140 pounds — he still was one of the longest hitters on tour. He struck his woods and irons with vigor, furiously pouring every ounce of determination into his golf swing and grimacing if he even hit so much as a tail-end draw on his tee shots. In a long-drive contest earlier in the year in Los Angeles, Hogan’s blast of 253 yards took second to Jimmy Thomson’s 265. Thomson weighed 70 pounds more than Hogan.

Pinehurst and the North and South Open of 1940 had the aura reserved today for the major championships, and the Carolina Hotel and surrounding inns overflowed with the pros and the other guests who could watch golf, or better yet, play golf — or partake of the resort’s other pleasures. "Back then, the pros wanted to win the North and South more than any other tournament, except the U.S. Open," Henry Picard said. Gymkahnas — outdoor festivals of contests such as pig races and musical chairs on horseback — were popular on the side lawn (where the pool stands today). Minstrels provided musical entertainment on a washboard, harmonica and guitar, and W.C. Fields’ "My Little Chickadee" played in the Pinehurst Theatre.

The only thing to dampen the mood was the specter of war; the day before the North and South opened, Adolf Hitler visited Italian Premier Benito Mussolini in Rome to plot battle plans.

Admission to the event cost only $1.25 the first two days and $1.50 the final day (36 holes), and the purse was minuscule, too, by today’s standards: $4,000, with $1,000 to the winner. Pinehurst was the first leg of a four-tournament northern swing that closed the winter tour (later it would be played, as Hogan remembers, in November). The Greater Greensboro Open, the Land of the Sky Open in Asheville and the Masters Tournament in Augusta would follow, each paying $5,000.

The field lacked the tour’s top money-winner. Jimmy Demaret — who had won $6,125 but was still obscure enough that many fans were pronouncing his name "Dem-a-RAY" instead of "De-MER-it" — had returned to Houston to handle club business, but the rest of the tour’s top 10 money-winners and Vardon point holders were there.

Among them were Byron Nelson, coming off his 1939 North and South and U.S. Open victories, as well as Craig Wood, Lawson Little, Jug McSpaden, Paul Runyan, Dick Metz, Horton Smith, Sam Snead and Clayton Heafner. Even Bobby Jones was there as a spectator.

The crowds marveled at the sun-tanned faces, just up from Florida, and most gathered around Charlotte native Heafner, then a pro out of Linville, who was joined in the first round by Horton Smith and Dick Metz. In the gallery was legendary Duke University football coach Wallace Wade.

So the stage was set on March 19, 1940 for Benny Hogan, as he was then called. Wearing gray slacks, a dark green sweater, a white shirt and dark tie and the trademark white linen cap, Hogan got off on the right foot — he birdied the first hole with a drive, seven-iron and 12-foot putt, as well as the second with a drive, six-iron and four-footer. He went to three-under with a birdie on four. The new 14-ounce MacGregor driver he’d been loaned by Nelson felt good; his tee shots were long and true. Hogan froze a tabby-cat scowl on his face, walked fast and left a trail of cigarettes in his wake. His precision was painstaking: on one putt of an inch, he went through all the footwork and positioning of a 10-footer. He holed a bunker shot on 11 for a three and didn’t miss one fairway. Hogan shot a six-under 66, tying the competitive course record set the year before by Harry Cooper. Runyan was next at 69.

"There’s something about this new driver that fits me like a glove," Hogan said. "I tell you, I’ve never driven the ball better."

Hogan widened his margin to seven after 36 holes with a 67. His 133 total led Snead and Revolta, at 140. Never had Hogan felt more confident. Perhaps he’d finally acquired that insurmountable lead he’d spoken to his wife about. Sarazen was still skeptical: "He’s never won before, he won’t win this time. He’s been out front before. Someone will catch him."

The last day, a Thursday, was unseasonably chilly. Hogan was paired in the last group, with Revolta and Heafner, and his early aggressive, confident approach had turned tentative. He under-clubbed several times in the morning round and shot a 74, but his lead at lunchtime was still six strokes. Among his closest challengers up ahead, Sarazen was shooting a final-round 75 and Snead a 67. The latter holed a 20-footer for a birdie on 18, closing with an eight-under 280 total. But Hogan, back on 16, made a birdie to go 11-under. Two closing pars would beat Snead by three shots and clip two strokes off the tournament record set in 1938 by Vic Ghezzi.

"Don’t pinch me," Valerie Hogan said as her husband did indeed par 17 and 18 for a 70-277 finish. "I’m afraid I’ll wake up. Ben always said the only way he would win his first title would be to get so far out in front of the field that nobody could catch him on the final day. That seems to have happened now. But I don’t believe it. Ben has been so close so many times, only to see one fatal shot crumble all his hopes. He’s never given up trying, though, even in his darkest hours. That’s why I’m so proud of him now."

At the presentation ceremony, Hogan was offered the trophy and $1,000 in fresh, green bills by Edward J. Cheyney of Cleveland, a USGA official and friend of Pinehurst’s Richard Tufts. Worried about carrying so much cash with him, Hogan instead asked that a check be drawn and sent to him that weekend in Greensboro.

Then he drank a glass of milk and told newsmen: "I won one just in time. I had finished second and third so many times I was beginning to think I was an also-ran. I needed that win. They’ve kidded me about practicing so much. I’d go out there before a round and practice, and when I was through I’d practice some more. Well, they can kid me all they want because it finally paid off. I know it’s what finally got me in the groove to win."

And what a groove it turned out to be. The volcano had erupted. (It would take time, though, for "Hogan" to become a household name. That night at the Greensboro Daily News, a typesetter looked at an editor’s hand-scrawled headline and thought the name "Hogan" must surely be "Hagen." So the paper’s early edition read, "Hagen’s 277 Leaves Snead 3 Strokes Behind." John Derr, on the staff at the time, caught the mistake after the early edition went to press and corrected the error.)

The tour moved on to Greensboro for the first two rounds at Starmount Forest Country Club, then a 36-hole finale on Monday at Sedgefield CC. Hogan and Heafner each shot 69s to open the tournament and tie for the lead, and then on Easter Sunday, March 24, something very strange happened: It snowed.

Fourteen threesomes had teed off amid cold and flurries when play was halted. "Okay, fellows, let’s ski off," Sarazen cracked.

Eventually three to four inches fell, postponing the second round until Wednesday. Rounds three and four would be played Thursday, and the Land of the Sky Open in Asheville had been set back and wouldn’t begin until Friday.

Hogan was quiet during the delay, spending his days playing bridge, but his presence was felt now that he’d won a tournament. His biggest concern was that his $1,000 check hadn’t arrived from Pinehurst. "He’s a fine golfer, he’s been long overdue," Heafner said.

"He’s one of the best. He’ll be hard to beat in this tournament."

Hogan shot a 68 in the second round, with three birdies and no bogeys. Heafner faded to a 76, and Hogan led Sarazen and Guldahl by three at the halfway mark. It was no contest. Hogan lapped the field with a 66 and 67 on the final day, for a tournament-record 270 and nine-shot win over Craig Wood. He collected the $1,200 and was apprised by wire from Donald Ross at Pinehurst that his North and South winnings would be in Asheville upon his arrival.

"The game becomes monotonous the way the slender man plays it," newspaperman Jake Wade commented afterward. "He has all the shots and he tears into the ball with amazing power for one of such slight build. It is a straight, true and unwavering game."

Said Johnny Revolta: "It was easy to see we couldn’t catch that fellow, the way he is playing. You can’t beat perfection."

The players drove through heavy fog on the way up to Asheville that Thursday night for 18 holes at Asheville Country Club, 18 at Beaver Lake and 36 at Biltmore Forest.

Hogan continued his stellar play with a 67, but was three behind Metz, Guldahl and Lloyd Mangrum. Hogan and Mangrum were tied for second at 135 behind Guldahl’s 134 after two rounds. A pair of 69s on the final day gave Hogan a 273 total and three-shot win over Guldahl.

Hogan pocketed another $1,200 and, yes, his $1,000 from Pinehurst was there.

In three tournaments, Hogan played 216 holes 34-under-par, breaking par 11 of 12 rounds. He broke 70 on all but two rounds.

He three-putted just two greens, both in Asheville. Ten of 12 rounds were on Donald Ross golf courses (the exception being Starmount Forest). Hogan had now won $6,438 in three months, and he eventually won the 1940 top-money prize with $10,655 and collected the Vardon Trophy as well.

Given that nudge of confidence from two weeks in North Carolina, Hogan went on to become one of the top three or four golfers of all time.

He claimed the money-winning and Vardon titles again the following two years, won North and Souths again in 1942 and ’46 and became one of four players to win a career grand slam: four U.S. Opens, two Masters, two PGA Championships and one British Open. He was a member of the 1951 Ryder Cup team that whipped the British 9½ to 2½.

That was the scene of one of his career shots. In a singles match against Charles Ward, Hogan was 2-up when he hooked his tee shot on the par-five 10th into the woods. He punched out into the fairway, then launched a two-wood nearly 300 yards to the green’s fringe. Hogan drained a 75-foot putt for a birdie.

"Yes, it was as good as any I’ve ever hit in my life," Hogan said.

"When the adrenaline is running, you can hit a ball further, and I guess my adrenaline was going full speed. It surprised me that I hit the brassie so far."

Many of the specifics are fuzzy, but the overall feeling is still there for Ben Hogan this December, 1990, morning.

"The people from the North who’d go South for the winter, and they’d do it for years and years and years, they’d always stop at Pinehurst," the 79-year-old says. "They’d play golf for a few days and stay overnight and move on. They had three or four golf courses right there at the Carolina Hotel."

Hogan is told there are now seven courses at Pinehurst Country Club.

"Seven golf courses. Goodness gracious," he says. "Are any the equal to No. 2?"

"It would be hard to equal No. 2, don’t you think?" comes the response.

"You’re right, of course," he says, then soon after bids adieu to his visitor.

"Tell everyone in Pinehurst hello for me," Ben Hogan says cheerfully.

This story is from "Pinehurst Stories: A Celebration of Great Golf and Good Times" by Lee Pace, which is available at the Pinehurst ’99 pro shop.