Greetings from Bonny Scotland to just repeat and reinforce the gratitude due to you for posting this superb footage. Young children taking up the game should be sat down and simply asked to see for themselves the sublime "Mr Hogan"
Imagine walking along the beach not knowing who that guy is up ahead swatting golf balls into the ocean and thinking to yourself DANG that guy has a nice swing!
The thing about his graceful movement is it revealed at it's core the unfiltered uniqueness of his pure and raw talent. He was and remains a paragon on how to properly strike a golf ball.... Bravo ! 👏👏👏🥇😊👍🥂🇨🇦
A privilege to see. Bit like seeing michaelango creating a doodle for his friends. You can see it all: 65 years old, terribly injured in that leg, yet you can still see that he's a master. Sits right on the top table in golf heaven.
Beautiful. There is the similar swing toward the ocean as the man who hit the 1 iron at Merion. Watching this man swing at the end of his life - the golf connoisseur's simple pleasure.
Ben Hogan in your own back yard, letting you film all you want, even breaking down his iconic grip....and even supplying his own slo-mo!!! What a dream.
There are other swings one can examine for instructional value. But none capture the scientific simplicity we find in Mr. Hogan. ...It is built perfectly and performs as would an anatomical clock that refuses to quite. No one ever developed a better swing; and none better is likely to emerge as the future unfolds. ...I expect this to be proven once we better understand its key elements; even as its Master Combination beyond the grip are virtually impossible to see. Nevertheless, they are all right before us and represent golf at its true natural best. -- It's a joy to see this footage and may it remain on UA-cam "forever" to help inform all generations to come. "Thanks So Much" for bringing this footage to attention. ... It's a treasure. ...DrDom
Ward Sexton the guy was simply amazing... he could draw the ball as much or as little as he chose.. and fade it at will also! he is my true north in golf!!
I noticed that his right foot placement allows him to address the ball with his knee pointing towards the target. also in slow motion movement, he's absolutely brilliant at rotating his shoulders and arm club unit around his set spine angle so perfectly.
I just found this for the first time. What I get from this video is that his hand and body movement before the swing was just as important as the actual swing. He really emphasizes it in the slow motion action. This is pretty incredible stuff.
This is magical! He was either 64 or 65 when this was taken. The speed and fluidity. Hogan was other worldly. The smile on Hogan’s face show’s how much he loved hitting balls. Best backyard in the world right there,
This certainly is one the most important videos. For an additional reason, also. If Steve Elkington and his other SITD colleagues are correct, in their proclamation that Hogan twisted to the right with his feet, Hogan's feet would slip thru the sand, which they don't. And he is not even wearing his own shoes. Also when Hogan makes his slow swing Coleman says that it was as hard as making ten swings. And Hogan agrees. This shows that his slow swing is in fact an isometric training exercise.
Tim Shay They were at that. You could always tell from the sound alone on wooden clubs if it was hit out of the heel or toe where the metal clubs sound the same accross the face.
the clubs today have this huge heads and big sweet spots and basically just Square themselves up all you have to do is throw your hands at the ball Ben Hogan Sam Snead Byron Nelson Arnold Palmer Jack Nicklaus Gary Player and others had to swing the golf club and that's becoming a lost art
Tim Shay yes, i remember seve saying theres only 4 or five good ball strikers in the world-about 1980 so this group would win most tournaments as a goox strike was so much more important as the ball would lose more distance and go further off line than modern clubs
7:00 "Now watch this, see how it comes down behind him?" At the top of his swing his right wrist is facing out toward the ball. Half way down it's facing straight up and at impact it is facing down the target line. It rotates through all 3 planes of free space in a fraction of a second and keeps him from coming over the top. To do this I think about twisting my right forearm clockwise as I start down.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that Ben is a man's golfer of the highest regard. The real deal. We can't really expect an uninitiated misses to really see the value.
I understand that he used to practice a slow motion swing in order to try to diagnose and feel what was happening in his swing. Let's face it there wasn't video replay when he was trying to figure this stuff out in the 30's and 40's. He was a golf scientist in his day. more than anything, he lived his life to understand how to play the best golf for himself. The fact that he discovered many of golf's true fundamentals was a byproduct that help many generations to enjoy golf.
Have you guys noticed that when ben shows his swing slow motion, it actually looks like his swing, unlike a lot of folks who try to show you their sequences and they never look the same.
He wasn't very formal or proper in real life though. To those outside his inner circle he was a nasty sob. Just ask Johnny Miller. He also cursed like a sailor according to his biographer Jody Vazquez
Yes, but the thing is it is easier to hold your position when you swing in slow mo.He still the applies the pressure on the ground with the right foot when he hits the ball, probably a bit more.
George Coleman was a wealthy oil tycoon and a close personal friend of Hogan's from the early '40s and onward. If you are a huge Hogan fan, then you would know how wary and shy Ben was of strangers. As Hogan aged into his 50s and 60s, he became increasingly embarrassed of both his swing and putting woes. When asked to play an exhibition in 1969, he replied, "There's no way on earth I'm going to let people see my game. Nobody but me should have to suffer through THAT."
The sad thing about this video is that it was never supposed to be released. Hogan and Coleman often hit balls into the ocean from Coleman's lawn, in '77 George want a copy of Ben's swing. And Ben agreed to do it on one condition- that it never be shown to anyone but the Colemans and their closest friends. But a pirated vervain would be leaked onto the Internet, and I can't help but think about how much this would upset Ben, complete strangers seeing him like this...
Quote: "In 1977, at age 65, Ben Hogan made one final trip to Florida." False. Hogan visited Seminole from 1978 through at least 1983. I know the assistant responsible for taking care of Hogan when he was on the property during those years.
I showed a couple of swings of this video to my misses and she says, "whos that old fart", i replied probably the most admired golfer for his golf swing of all time. She replied that old fart, yeah right! lol i still luv her....
Hogan did close his feet with the driver and longer irons moving to square with about the seven and open then with ths short iron. In his books he mentions it
I don't ask my wife about scotch, straight razors, woodworking tools , etc either. There are some things many women won't get, and ben hogan is probably one of them. They want to see guys put on a charismatic show and hear flamenco music in the background.
Oh my gosh, i am not far behind him in age (this video), many golfers play their best after retirement when they can practice! I am within a year or so. I hope i can shoot par at age 65! The 73's and 75's are few in between but if i could practice i think i could play lower scores in old age.
Hopefully Ben would understand times have changed some, and folks wouldn't have judged him for not looking dressed perfectly and perfect hair, etc. All I see when I watch this video is a sweet swing, striking ball at age 65 that most will never see at any age.
He's referring to the club head coming from behind him rather than in front like what is being taught today.. Teachers today neglect the all important 3rd dimension..
Anyone notice his hips don't power through until his club is back to waist high? However slow motion demo shows hips turning first. Maybe he didn't even know his secret?
Bryan how do you know this? who was George Coleman in relation to Hogan? As a huge Hogan fan I think this film is really interesting and shows a side of Hogan's personality which would have never been known to the general public
Hogan may be the GOAT. If your counting majors then it is Nicklaus. Hogan missed 16 majors during WW2. A bunch more at his peak due to a head on car crash. Plus he only played the British Open once due to a scheduling conflict with the PGA. I have no doubt he would have tied or beaten Nicklaus 18 majors if he got to compete under the same conditions as Jack. I figure he missed 36 majors due to war or scheduling and the year he missed due his injury I am not counting as Tiger missed a year for his accident. GOAT also over Tiger because he played with inferior equipment which was unpredictable and shorter. He could have adapted to current equipment but could Tiger have adapted to Hogan era equipment with his crooked driver using current equipment?
Astute observation. It is not merely your imagination. As Kris Tschetter wrote in her must-read book on page 27: ""Even though the body was older and a tad plumper than the photos and drawings I'd seen, the setup was the same. His knees, hips, arms, and shoulders were open to his very closed feet."
You can see the stiffness and pain in his legs has he walks around, but when he's over the ball, absolute fluidity, grace and control. Furthermore, I've never seen a 65 year old man put that kind of a whack on the ball, or make a full follow through for that matter.
Here I am at 65, plus to make things more difficult I'm wearing spikes on the cement. Stop the swing to compare my angles to Mr. Hogan's. Stay in shape! P.S. I'm now 70 and can swing even better. ua-cam.com/video/i4v6X-Xuat8/v-deo.html
Indeed, but, as we are bi-pedals, lateral motion back and through has to happen in order to establish the pivot points-rotation can happen on only one axis. That 30 pound ball on top of your neck has to move as well or you can never create the axis. It is a shift-turn-shift-turn action.
Watch how his hands roll back and roll through after impact. That’s his secret that he talked about in the Life magazine article where they paid him $13,000 to.tell his secret
His secret is in a Chinese exercise called Fa-jin. It is a branch of the tai chi phase and is all internal power. This is pure evidence on why, at the age of 65 and limping, he is able to smack the ball, same sound as in his 40's, he has not lost the technique and he learned it very well. That combined with EVERYTHING he is showing in this video.
Maybe the only golfer to understand the centrifugal slow motion swing. This is not a slowed downcopy of filmed p sequences. In the downswing at so called p6 the club face is facing the sky. This is not the case for video sequnces of his swing where the club face is in the expected position at this point in the swing. In other words in his full speed version of this swing the club face is thrown out and rotated more closed by centrifugal force at this point in the downswing. How he worked this true slow motion centrifugal sequnce out will obviously remain secret since his passing. Maybe just empirical commonsense observations of how video p6 is thrown out it full speed if you first practise it in slow motion and reverse engineering from there.
President Eisenhower painted a picture for Arnold Palmer and gave it to him. Palmer felt the picture was too important and the meaning behind its development to be locked away, where only HE could enjoy it. So he donated it to the Golf Hall of Fame where it is on display as it should be. So others can enjoy it. I consider this film the same. JMHO
+0ucantstopme0 The manner in which Mr Hogan teaches to the camera, I am going to assume he knew that this would be seen someday for the masses. Just about everything you need to know is right here. I think he knew that.
Greetings from Bonny Scotland to just repeat and reinforce the gratitude due to you for posting this superb footage. Young children taking up the game should be sat down and simply asked to see for themselves the sublime "Mr Hogan"
Imagine walking along the beach not knowing who that guy is up ahead swatting golf balls into the ocean and thinking to yourself DANG that guy has a nice swing!
Man, what a swing! Love the slow motion. His left shoulder turn is amazing for a guy his age! Beautiful.
Everyone in the comments is marveling at the swing but his explanation and exhibition of the grip is priceless footage.
I don't think the world understands that this video happens to be one of the greatest sports events in history.
The thing about his graceful movement is it revealed at it's core the unfiltered uniqueness of his pure and raw talent.
He was and remains a paragon on how to properly strike a golf ball....
Bravo ! 👏👏👏🥇😊👍🥂🇨🇦
A privilege to see. Bit like seeing michaelango creating a doodle for his friends. You can see it all: 65 years old, terribly injured in that leg, yet you can still see that he's a master. Sits right on the top table in golf heaven.
How valuable is this video? Like finding a rare coin in your pocket change! Hope people realize how important this is..
Beautiful. There is the similar swing toward the ocean as the man who hit the 1 iron at Merion. Watching this man swing at the end of his life - the golf connoisseur's simple pleasure.
Hogan died in 1997; 20 years later
Ben Hogan in your own back yard, letting you film all you want, even breaking down his iconic grip....and even supplying his own slo-mo!!! What a dream.
You said it perfect!
There are other swings one can examine for instructional value. But none capture the scientific simplicity we find in Mr. Hogan. ...It is built perfectly and performs as would an anatomical clock that refuses to quite. No one ever developed a better swing; and none better is likely to emerge as the future unfolds. ...I expect this to be proven once we better understand its key elements; even as its Master Combination beyond the grip are virtually impossible to see. Nevertheless, they are all right before us and represent golf at its true natural best. -- It's a joy to see this footage and may it remain on UA-cam "forever" to help inform all generations to come.
"Thanks So Much" for bringing this footage to attention. ... It's a treasure. ...DrDom
Oh I dunno........Sam Snead developed a pretty good swing
Nobody mentions that every shot Ben hits goes dead straight! Amazing grace, amazing accuracy...and he's 65 here!
Ward Sexton the guy was simply amazing... he could draw the ball as much or as little as he chose.. and fade it at will also! he is my true north in golf!!
I noticed that his right foot placement allows him to address the ball with his knee pointing towards the target. also in slow motion movement, he's absolutely brilliant at rotating his shoulders and arm club unit around his set spine angle so perfectly.
look at him hes like a little kid again give me another ball u can see his focus ,,,,amazing
I just found this for the first time. What I get from this video is that his hand and body movement before the swing was just as important as the actual swing. He really emphasizes it in the slow motion action. This is pretty incredible stuff.
Even at age 65 you can hear that club whipping through the impact area and the solid thud of the strike. Awesome video, thanks for posting.
The whoosh is amazing!
His swing tempo is perfection. Fred Couples and George Knudson come to mind.
It just does not get any better than Mr Hogan. Legend.
Those little delayed splashes when he hits towards the ocean are dead straight... dang.
This is magical! He was either 64 or 65 when this was taken. The speed and fluidity. Hogan was other worldly. The smile on Hogan’s face show’s how much he loved hitting balls. Best backyard in the world right there,
“That’s all there is to it...”.
I'm pretty sure this is the only Hogan video I've seen where you can actually hear him making contact with the ball. And a sweet sound it is!
mystical. legendary. would have been awesome to meet him
Fantastic! The slomos are very telling, and difficult to perform.Thanks a lot.
What a great video. Hogan truly was the master!
This certainly is one the most important videos. For an additional reason, also. If Steve Elkington and his other SITD colleagues are correct, in their proclamation that Hogan twisted to the right with his feet, Hogan's feet would slip thru the sand, which they don't. And he is not even wearing his own shoes. Also when Hogan makes his slow swing Coleman says that it was as hard as making ten swings. And Hogan agrees. This shows that his slow swing is in fact an isometric training exercise.
The sound off the club is so amazing.
Tim Shay we lost that when we switched to metal
Micky K. I hear ya there. I came up on persimmon woods. Didn't hear "tink" till the mid-90s. Good times.
Tim Shay They were at that. You could always tell from the sound alone on wooden clubs if it was hit out of the heel or toe where the metal clubs sound the same accross the face.
the clubs today have this huge heads and big sweet spots and basically just Square themselves up all you have to do is throw your hands at the ball Ben Hogan Sam Snead Byron Nelson Arnold Palmer Jack Nicklaus Gary Player and others had to swing the golf club and that's becoming a lost art
Tim Shay yes, i remember seve saying theres only 4 or five good ball strikers in the world-about 1980 so this group would win most tournaments as a goox strike was so much more important as the ball would lose more distance and go further off line than modern clubs
7:00 "Now watch this, see how it comes down behind him?" At the top of his swing his right wrist is facing out toward the ball. Half way down it's facing straight up and at impact it is facing down the target line. It rotates through all 3 planes of free space in a fraction of a second and keeps him from coming over the top. To do this I think about twisting my right forearm clockwise as I start down.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that Ben is a man's golfer of the highest regard. The real deal. We can't really expect an uninitiated misses to really see the value.
I understand that he used to practice a slow motion swing in order to try to diagnose and feel what was happening in his swing. Let's face it there wasn't video replay when he was trying to figure this stuff out in the 30's and 40's. He was a golf scientist in his day. more than anything, he lived his life to understand how to play the best golf for himself. The fact that he discovered many of golf's true fundamentals was a byproduct that help many generations to enjoy golf.
CLASS DISMISSED!!! Awesome.
Have you guys noticed that when ben shows his swing slow motion, it actually looks like his swing, unlike a lot of folks who try to show you their sequences and they never look the same.
Oh man that tempo. I just felt .5 strokes drop off my index watching the tempo on this video...
you can hear the clubface is square!!!!! god i love that sound,i'm gonna buy some persimmon woods!
A private afternoon and lesson with Mr Hogan, oh boy how lucky were they!
He pushes back virtually as far back on the inside as he can. And this is something that most players don't do nowadays.
Thank you
Mr. Hogan was so formal and proper in his speech. He was definitely from a by-gone era.
That era needs to come back
He wasn't very formal or proper in real life though. To those outside his inner circle he was a nasty sob. Just ask Johnny Miller.
He also cursed like a sailor according to his biographer Jody Vazquez
Yes, but the thing is it is easier to hold your position when you swing in slow mo.He still the applies the pressure on the ground with the right foot when he hits the ball, probably a bit more.
Mr Hogan the master on the golf coarse and legend
a classic swing very much like Jose Maria Olazabal's....that said, beautiful well thought out swing....
He and Moe truly did own their swing
Is there a marine biologist in the crowd!! lol
How can you live with yourself?
Straycat Annie is that a Titleist?
Not everyone will get that, but funny as hell lol
Yes I’m George Vandelay
Simply awesome.Thank you for posting.
Good to see
0:19 one of the best sounds in sports. Now? Tink.
Great video of Hogan hitting. He is the greatest
..the sound of that impact.
George Coleman was a wealthy oil tycoon and a close personal friend of Hogan's from the early '40s and onward. If you are a huge Hogan fan, then you would know how wary and shy Ben was of strangers.
As Hogan aged into his 50s and 60s, he became increasingly embarrassed of both his swing and putting woes. When asked to play an exhibition in 1969, he replied, "There's no way on earth I'm going to let people see my game. Nobody but me should have to suffer through THAT."
I read that Ben Hogan said that by the time he'd figured out how to hit the ball properly, he was too old to take advantage of it!
The sad thing about this video is that it was never supposed to be released. Hogan and Coleman often hit balls into the ocean from Coleman's lawn, in '77 George want a copy of Ben's swing. And Ben agreed to do it on one condition- that it never be shown to anyone but the Colemans and their closest friends. But a pirated vervain would be leaked onto the Internet, and I can't help but think about how much this would upset Ben, complete strangers seeing him like this...
Quote: "In 1977, at age 65, Ben Hogan made one final trip to Florida." False. Hogan visited Seminole from 1978 through at least 1983. I know the assistant responsible for taking care of Hogan when he was on the property during those years.
POWERRRRRR!!
I showed a couple of swings of this video to my misses and she says, "whos that old fart", i replied probably the most admired golfer for his golf swing of all time. She replied that old fart, yeah right! lol i still luv her....
Best post here.
Doesn't look like someone who's taking all these "secrets" to the grave. He's showing us everything.
Hogan did close his feet with the driver and longer irons moving to square with about the seven and open then with ths short iron. In his books he mentions it
He was still a scratch golfer ten years later, according to Kris Tschetter
"The shaft may be a little stiff for you." LOL
Humbling to watch…
He will always be the master………….
I don't ask my wife about scotch, straight razors, woodworking tools , etc either. There are some things many women won't get, and ben hogan is probably one of them. They want to see guys put on a charismatic show and hear flamenco music in the background.
The best. At any age.patterned my swing from ben
He showed everyone “IT”in this video…
Oh my gosh, i am not far behind him in age (this video), many golfers play their best after retirement when they can practice! I am within a year or so. I hope i can shoot par at age 65! The 73's and 75's are few in between but if i could practice i think i could play lower scores in old age.
Hopefully Ben would understand times have changed some, and folks wouldn't have judged him for not looking dressed perfectly and perfect hair, etc.
All I see when I watch this video is a sweet swing, striking ball at age 65 that most will never see at any age.
Even today, Hogan would refuse to dress like a slob, since he had self-respect...unlike those conformed to this wretched age.
If only the quality of the video was better .....such a shame 😫
Can anyone understand what it is he is saying when he is demonstrating in slow motion. I cant make it out.
He's referring to the club head coming from behind him rather than in front like what is being taught today.. Teachers today neglect the all important 3rd dimension..
can you explain this particularly the 3rd dimension
swagcity the wrist/hand hinge
Anyone notice his hips don't power through until his club is back to waist high? However slow motion demo shows hips turning first. Maybe he didn't even know his secret?
Can only imagine what he could have done if he didn't have the car wreck.
Bandits... hitting those balls the sea
If he had no injuries( stronger fitter and more flexible) he could have still won majors with that swing.
halfway back hip height.......absolutely essential position virtually no wrist break|!.......
Bryan how do you know this? who was George Coleman in relation to Hogan? As a huge Hogan fan I think this film is really interesting and shows a side of Hogan's personality which would have never been known to the general public
His feet are not on sand. It looks that way but it is grass. Look at the colorized version
Hogan may be the GOAT. If your counting majors then it is Nicklaus. Hogan missed 16 majors during WW2. A bunch more at his peak due to a head on car crash. Plus he only played the British Open once due to a scheduling conflict with the PGA. I have no doubt he would have tied or beaten Nicklaus 18 majors if he got to compete under the same conditions as Jack. I figure he missed 36 majors due to war or scheduling and the year he missed due his injury I am not counting as Tiger missed a year for his accident. GOAT also over Tiger because he played with inferior equipment which was unpredictable and shorter. He could have adapted to current equipment but could Tiger have adapted to Hogan era equipment with his crooked driver using current equipment?
he looks old.......till he hits the ball!.......i'm 40 i dont have that flexibility!
His grip explanation is like watching Jesus read from the bible.
Is it my imagination or are Hogan's feet in the closed position while his shoulders are in the open position?
If you read his book. He set up with his feet slightly closed
Astute observation. It is not merely your imagination. As Kris Tschetter wrote in her must-read book on page 27: ""Even though the body was older and a tad plumper than the photos and drawings I'd seen, the setup was the same. His knees, hips, arms, and shoulders were open to his very closed feet."
7:00-7:10 pure magick
You can see the stiffness and pain in his legs has he walks around, but when he's over the ball, absolute fluidity, grace and control. Furthermore, I've never seen a 65 year old man put that kind of a whack on the ball, or make a full follow through for that matter.
Anthony Naylor ... your right but check out Mike Austin give an exhibition in he’s 70s fluid and long
Here I am at 65, plus to make things more difficult I'm wearing spikes on the cement. Stop the swing to compare my angles to Mr. Hogan's. Stay in shape! P.S. I'm now 70 and can swing even better. ua-cam.com/video/i4v6X-Xuat8/v-deo.html
Please let everyone note there is not a jot of lateral head movement in either direction ,,,,,,THE Hogan secret.
Indeed, but, as we are bi-pedals, lateral motion back and through has to happen in order to establish the pivot points-rotation can happen on only one axis. That 30 pound ball on top of your neck has to move as well or you can never create the axis. It is a shift-turn-shift-turn action.
@@acheamwake4287 The only head movement prior to striking the ball is rotational not lateral.
Watch how his hands roll back and roll through after impact. That’s his secret that he talked about in the Life magazine article where they paid him $13,000 to.tell his secret
dude could still whack it at 65.
His secret is in a Chinese exercise called Fa-jin. It is a branch of the tai chi phase and is all internal power. This is pure evidence on why, at the age of 65 and limping, he is able to smack the ball, same sound as in his 40's, he has not lost the technique and he learned it very well. That combined with EVERYTHING he is showing in this video.
Fa jin is not an exercise. It is an expression of force used in many Chinese martial arts.
+Richard Toth It is called STEROIDS>!
Where is this video taken???
The house of Mr. Hogan's friend George Coleman in Florida.
You can tell his first try was a shank.
Joe Cool joe thats uncool☺
Maybe the only golfer to understand the centrifugal slow motion swing. This is not a slowed downcopy of filmed p sequences. In the downswing at so called p6 the club face is facing the sky. This is not the case for video sequnces of his swing where the club face is in the expected position at this point in the swing. In other words in his full speed version of this swing the club face is thrown out and rotated more closed by centrifugal force at this point in the downswing. How he worked this true slow motion centrifugal sequnce out will obviously remain secret since his passing. Maybe just empirical commonsense observations of how video p6 is thrown out it full speed if you first practise it in slow motion and reverse engineering from there.
I wish pro golfers would act like hogan on the course instead of showing no class at times. Hogan was class alound.
He is killing fish, where is PETA?
B
Almost feel like we shouldn't be watching. A private video not meant for all to see?
President Eisenhower painted a picture for Arnold Palmer and gave it to him. Palmer felt the picture was too important and the meaning behind its development to be locked away, where only HE could enjoy it. So he donated it to the Golf Hall of Fame where it is on display as it should be. So others can enjoy it.
I consider this film the same.
JMHO
+0ucantstopme0 Yes, just like porn, you should not be watching, but you can't help yourself. Very similar.
+KE Deas Just like Hustler.
+Joe Cool Yeah, I guess so.
+0ucantstopme0 The manner in which Mr Hogan teaches to the camera, I am going to assume he knew that this would be seen someday for the masses. Just about everything you need to know is right here. I think he knew that.
Divorce her!
divorce her ASAP
to bad coleman was to cheap to buy a better quality movie camera i know they made better than that in 77
I'd say what has happened is the tape has deteriorated over time before being transferred to digital rather than it being a poor quality camera
A legend among the common folk