Fore Play - Butch Harmon: An Open Book

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Legendary golf instructor Butch Harmon joins the show — the whole crew is live from Butch’s office at the Butch Harmon School of Golf in Las Vegas. Butch delves into stories on Tiger changing his swing, Phil winning the Masters, DJ committing to a new ball flight, and Spieth seeking a second opinion. We get behind the scenes of Rickie at the Open and Tiger & Phil in the Augusta champions locker room. Butch also talks about his efforts to help veterans including a 2007 trip to visit 9 bases in 7 days in Iraq with David Feherty, Tom Watson and Tom Lehman. All-time interview!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/foreplaypod

Hey, 4Play listeners, you can find us every Tuesday and Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. We have perhaps the coolest interview to date that we've ever done. We had about an hour and a half in Butch Harmon's office with Butch, and we just let it rip. So I know there's a lot to talk about, Bay Hill, Bryson. There's a ton to talk about. We're going to push it to Thursday. So Thursday's show, you'll hear about all that stuff.

We were at Pebble Beach. We got stories. We got fun stuff to talk about. This is Pure Butch Harmon, and the stories that are in the show are as good as it gets. So we're just going to, again, let that rip. We're going to put some ad reads in. Thanks to our sponsors, big time, especially Owens Mixers. Please do yourself a favor.

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So big thanks to Owens. Without further ado, here is just a phenomenal interview with Butch Harman. Folks, we're joined by one of the most special guests we've ever had on the show. We're sitting in his office here at Rio Seiko, just outside of Los Angeles. Vegas, Nevada, maybe the most prolific swing instructor, swing coach in the history of the game, all kinds of family history. We're sitting in your office now, and you look around and it's every big name that you can imagine from the world of golf.

Butch Harmon, welcome to the show for the first time. I'm happy to be here. I'm a big fan of you guys. I love watching your stuff and seeing it on Instagram. It's just you live life like I do. You have a good time. That's what it's all about. So we just came off the course, and we're going to save a good amount of whatever.

happened out on the course for our video series, which will come out in the near future in the next month or so for everyone. But what we will allow to reveal right now is give us a quick, having watched nine holes or so, give a quick breakdown of what you thought of, and real quick, of kind of each one of our games seeing us for the first time. Well, Ben's far and away the best player. I mean, he hits the ball the furthest. You know, he doesn't really know where it's going a lot of times, But I talked to him in hitting some drivers today because of the wind where he probably wouldn't have, but he delivered and hit him. He shot the best score, you know.

So he's probably the best. Appreciate that. Big thing. His partner, Frankie, is, plays left-handed. He's right-handed, but he plays left-hand. But Phil Mickelson does the same thing. Although you don't pitch the ball like Phil Mickelson, that's for damn sure. I gave you a video today.

Just go to the short game part of it. And my man over the game. here big Z. He has probably the best looking swing of the bunch. I'm sorry to cut you off because you are such a legend we're in your office, but the internet disagrees with you.

To maybe the complete opposite, where they say that he has the ugliest swing in the world. So, what's the internet? Here we go, yeah? Who on the internet knows what the fuck they're talking about. There you go. That's so big for Riggs.

You know, Riggs, he takes it a little inside going back. If I worked with him, I'd get him a little wider off the ball and stuff, but still he's got great hand action. But the internet, you can't listen to the internet. I mean, well, I hope they listen to you on the internet. I know I do. But, you know, people, people that give critique of golf swings on the internet, unless they're professionals that know what the hell they're talking about, why would you listen to them? I mean, you know, because you don't listen to that bullshit. Don't, don't listen to that bullshit people giving you a hard time. You know what it is? It's jealousy. People are just jealous because

you got a nice flowing swing and it looks good. And the ball doesn't always know it looks good, but the swing looks good. I appreciate that. And it's your show, so you can cut me off any time you want, frankly. No, no, no.

I just, I knew that everyone was sitting there listening to this being like, what did Bich Harmon just say? Because they, it's been a topic of conversation, but we've also given Riggs the benefit of the doubt that at some point he gets the club to the right spot, regardless of how it got there is.

Okay, let's put it to you this way. There is no one way to swing a golf club. There you go. If you've ever been to the Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida, you can see some horrendous swings in there that worked. And we could go down through our greatest players of all time. He could take Arnold Palmer. Nobody's going to teach Arnie to swing the way he did.

Jack with a flying right elbow, Trevino, aiming 50 yards left, hitting it to the right. So you don't have to have a perfect swing to play golf. The secret to playing golf is to get the club base on the right path and square at impact. And if you can do that, and Rigsie's got good hands. He gets it in there. He didn't have his best day today, but he's a better player than that. So, you know, the Internet guys, it's very easy to sit here at your desk and turn on your computer and be a genius. You know, and that's what somebody who's giving you a hard time about your swing, you know.

And you can tell that Frankie likes it because he brought it up. He would have had to have said something. We couldn't have just let that go because it's a cars were crashing on the road. Yeah, people were going, what the fuck did but what about Trent? Trent has, he's got, he's got possibilities. because right now you haven't played golf very long in your life have you i mean i've been playing for a pretty long time but there's been large gaps in between them not consistently enough to like have a great golf swing the one thing you can learn from trance is rhythm look at how good his rhythm is he never

tries to overpower a shot he was the only one today watching you guys because it's blowing 25 out there it was tough he was the only one of the four of you that never really tried to overpower shot he always took more club than he needed and he try and swing easy so he's got a chance you know he's got a learn the nuances of how to score and what to do. And then I got my man Lefty over there, who really does have a nice swing. The drive you hit down the last hole, dude, you pummel it. And you're saying, should I hit an iron off the T.m?

No, hit your damn driver. It's straight down wind. Wind off the left's perfect for a lefty. And you bombed it down there. And you hit a beautiful wedge shot into the green, and you hit a good putt just hung it on the front lip. So I think all four of you have different swings, but different strengths in your game.

Ben, obviously, his distance off the T is an asset if he can find it. Then again, watching him play 18, and he finds it no matter it, no matter. It doesn't really matter. I appreciate some of the companies. I thought it was interesting when we got on the green. And, you know, I didn't want to bring us up when you're out there because you had a match. But, you know, then it was over in the crap, and he found a ball, and he hit a hell of a shot. He makes a birdie, and I take the ball out of the hole, and he teed off of the

tailor, and he made a birdie with a title. So it's a pretty good thing. I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. I've always been really curious about that because, you know, the stable of players that have worked with you and I'm looking at Tiger Woods, you're great, all these different players who all have dramatically different golf swings.

How do you know what to tweak and whatnot, right? Because they all keep their swings. It's not like they've really. really have made dramatic, aesthetically looking changes to their swings. So how are you able to apply, you know, that type of knowledge and tweaks to so many different kinds of golf swings? Well, for me, I don't believe in systems. You can't teach everybody the same.

Look at the four of you. You're all built differently. You have different handicaps, different flexibilities, different strengths. Everybody's different. I learned the two biggest influences in my life from my father, obviously, and I mean, on the corner of my desk. John Jacobs, the great English pro. And they talked about never change what someone does naturally, just make it better. Look at what is the, what we call the Achilles heel and the golf swing in this particular swing, and take that away, and you fix that

one thing and four or five other things will fall into place. In this day and age, you see better fundamentals than we have with the young tour pros, because they grew up in a different era than people like I did or the people who came before me. And so I think it's a very important. And so I think it's important to understand that nobody's going to swing the same. You can look at a great player that has maybe the same stature of bill that you have, and what does he do? Could I try and do this to make it better? But give me an example, in my 10 years with Tiger Woods when he played so well, everybody that came to our academy said, I want to swing like Tiger Woods. I'm like, well, no kidding, so do I. But unless we could climb in his body, there's no way we could do that. Same thing with

Bryson D. Chambot. Sure, I'd love to hit the ball that far, but heck, I'd be in the hospital and crippled if I tried to swing at hard. So you've got to realize everybody has their own swing. I try and look at for tour players. They're all good, okay? And my philosophy, when I see one, is the first thing I look at it is basic fundamentals, grip, stance, posture, ball position, alignment.

You'd be amazed how often great players get out of position before they swing. Most of it's alignment. Most of them aim too far right or too far left or something. And then after that, I try and look at what's the natural motion? look like. What is their natural motion? What type of shot does it lend itself to? Draw, fade, higher trajectory, lower trajectory. And then I'll ask them, so when you're playing bad, what is your miss? Good players tend to error under the plane coming down a little too far under

and too much hand action, but they have such great hand-eye coordination. They can time it sometimes. The average player errors over the top, but the good player is mostly error underneath. And once you find a guy's ball shape that his natural shape is that his eye hits, and if he's not hitting that, you look at, well, why isn't he? Like, for example, if a guy likes to draw the ball and he keeps missing the ball the right, missing the ball of the right, is he aimed too far right to start with, probably? Good. Because he's trying to hook it, it's not coming in, so he's going to aim further right

and trying to hook it. Is the position at the top, you know, everyone thinks at the top of a swing, you want to have a flat left wrist. Well, that's a bunch of bull, because if you have a strong, like Fred Couples, you're going to look like that at the top of the swing. If you're like DJ and Trevino and those guys with neutral a week, you maybe shut at the top in this position. The first thing I told Dustin Johnson when he sat right here where you guys are sitting in my office

almost 10 years or so ago when I first started with him, I said, don't worry, I'm not going to change how you look at the top of your swing. I've seen a lot of great players play from there. My father played from there. He won the Masters. Trevino played from there. You look at David Duval played from there. John Rom plays from there now.

So someone would change that. We'd have never heard of Dustin Johnson. He'd look good up there, but you would have never heard of him. For me, with tour players, if I, depending on how they grip the club, weak being left hand or top hand, in case you're left hand on top of the club, strong being turned way over where you can see three knuckles in it, that dictates to me the position they'll be at the top. And so if I can get a person in the right position up here, tour players. The rest of it gets easy because they already have the talent.

They're all good. Everyone who's come to me has always been good. I'm just trying to make them better. And so you just really take what they do naturally and look at what is that Achilles heel in there that keeps them from being more consistent. And once we fix that, some of the other small things, you know, we like to say that if you go to the doctor and you've got a broken ankle, you got a sprained elbow, and you got cancer. Well, we're going to forget that other shit, and we're going to take care of the cancer. So I was trying to look at the cancer in someone's swing. What is it?

If I can fix this, the rest of it kind of falls into place, especially at that level. Guys can win tournaments coming from the wrong position because they save themselves because their hand-eye coordination is so good. And then three weeks later, they can't break 75. And they can, what happened? Well, it got a little worse and a little worse. And all of a sudden you couldn't catch up or he didn't make all those 20-footers that you were making. and you play bad. So I don't believe in a system

because nobody, two people are the same. I treat everybody as an individual, and I just try and make them better. I think one of the things I'm most proud of in my 35 years of teaching tour pros is that no one stays with you forever. You know, I've taken five guys to number one in the world.

Four of them fired me, so, you know, so it's not like it's a longevity thing. I tell people that when they come to my golf school. I say the best thing you have now is every time you hit a bad shot, just blame me. We don't want to hurt your feelings. Hey, I took five guys in one of the world, four of them fired me,

so you're not going to hurt my feelings. Don't worry about it. You're going to be fine. But with them, you have to look at the talent level. They've got so much talent, so much hand-eye coordination. And they can do whatever you tell them to do. So you have to, as an instructor with tour players, I consider ourselves more of a coach than an instructor with tour players,

because we're coaching them. They're already good. We're not really teaching them. We may teach them different shots. It took me a long time to convince Dustin Johnson to hit fades. And now he fades every shot, and he's the best player in the world. So if I can get you in the right position up here, the rest of it's going to be pretty good. And then we look at the consistency of what you do, how good is your short game?

The other thing you look at, what do you have a hard time doing? What's a hard shot for you? In modern day times, because of new equipment, new clubs and balls, the drawers have a hard time draw on the ball because the ball doesn't curve as much as it used to. And so you look at that. So then you look at a starting line of maybe your starting lines have to come in a little because of the new equipment stuff. But you just got to treat them as individuals. Each one of them is different.

I mean, one of the things I've always prided myself on, there's probably only two players that I've ever taught that swings look similar. And that would be Tiger and Adam Scott. And when Adam Scott came right here, where you are right now, when he was a freshman at UNLV, he was 18, he showed up with that swing. Because he had copied, his dad was a golf prolet, taught him when he was a kid, he copied. Tiger Woods is a swing. All the others, if you walk up and down the range, if you say, for example, you look at the stack and tilt guys. You can pretty much see who's all a stack and tilt guy. If you go to this other instructor, you can see, oh, well, they're all doing this. I see everybody. If you look at my guys, they're all different, and I've always prided myself on that,

because results are all the matter. I don't care what it looks like. I don't care if it's pretty or if it's ugly. If it works, it works. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And that's always been amazing to me, because like I said, you know, the pan from one guy to another during the coverage. It's a butch guy as a butch guy, and they're all over the fucking way. They got all different kinds of actions. Different swings.

You know, tell you a great story. My dad, before he passed away, you know, he won the Masters of the 1948. And even when he couldn't play, as he got older,

he would always go because I'd like to go for the Champions Dinner on Tuesday. And he loved to watch great players practice. So he was sitting on the range, and they'd bring a, you know, he's got his green jacket on and his thing. We were younger then. We'd go with dad and stuff.

And, you know, he's sitting there and he's watching. Tom Percher, hitting balls right here. Beautiful Swinger, if you've ever seen Tom Perch. And Lee Trevino's hitting balls right here. Totally different swing. Somebody in the gallery said, Mr. Harmon, Tom Perchard's

got a beautiful swing. Doesn't he? And Dad says, I don't know. I'm watching him. He says, why are you watching him? He says, I'm watching this guy. He's playing golf. This guy's playing pretty. Pretty doesn't beat anybody. Playing golf, beat someone. Amazing. And it's true. And Percher to this day, and he's one of the nicest guys you could ever

meet if you well you were you were in a Arizona for a while so you probably met him and he had a beautiful golf swing but it's results they count it's only thing it counts as results. Data data is very important you got to have data especially on your body and that's what whoop does it's the best wearable

on the planet hugely involved now in the golf world and involved with us but you've seen the guys Justin Thomas Roy McElroy talking about whoop you saw the PG tour procured a bunch of whoop bands last year with COVID with monitoring your body and we've been on the whoop train.

I got to say from our pebble trip, the whoop data was up down roller coaster city. I was saying to somebody earlier, my who must think I'm attached to a different person because my strain has just been through the roof. Obviously, we're going to talk way more about pebble on Thursday, but just a rundown of my day strain while we've been out here out west. Friday, 179, Saturday, 14, 1, Sunday, 177,

and then today, Monday 13, 2. And before that, I was averaging like a 4-2. Like Frankie, I'm not much, I'm not that different than Frankie. So, like, going on these trips, it's just, yeah. We did a lot of walking. We did a lot of walking. Tons of walking in my body is like what's going on.

And my whoop is also like what's going on. But it's cool to see what it's like when I actually move around. Yeah. And you can optimize your body's performance trend with that information from Woop. Maybe you can't optimize. I don't really care what you do with it, but having it is awesome. So code forwardplay at wop.com, W-H-O-O-O-P.com. Into the code forwardplay.

You're going to get 15% off. at whoop.com. So after Tiger won the Masters and it's very distracting, you got this whole Tiger thing behind you. It's incredible. That was all the records from 97 when he won it. So when he wins the Masters in 97 and then he calls you shortly afterwards and says, there's certain things I really don't like about my swing.

We're going to change it. What did you think? Well, he was right. The Cub was not in the best position at the top for what he was trying to do. It limited him and the ability to hit all the different types of things. shots he wanted to happen. And so I said, look, we can fix this. This was the end of 97. And I said, but it's going to take a while, you know, because you're still going to play in 98. You're not going to pull a foul though like he did with Ledbetter and just quit for a year and remodel the swing. He goes,

no, I'm going to keep doing it. He said, what do I need to do? So we talked about it, the positions he needed to be in. And I said, we can do it piece by piece. Ty goes, now I'm going to do it all right now. I said, well, it's going to be hard to play to take a, the beauty of Tiger Woods is every time we made, I made a correction in his swing, he would take it right out and put it in play in a tournament, because it has to work in a tournament. Who cares how it works on a driving range or in a practice round it? If it doesn't work on the back nine on Sunday, you're not doing the right thing. And he, I always admired him that way. And I said, well, it's going to be a tough year. And if you look at 98, he only won one tournament. Just won in 1998. He struggled because he

was making changes. He was making his changes. And then came 99, 2009, 2000, 2001, maybe the best three years that we've ever seen in golf. So the one thing you can learn from that for your listeners that are listening out there is change is difficult. It's hard to make changes. Best players in the world struggle making changes. And you go take a 30-minute lesson from your local PGA pro and you don't play good and you just throw it out. So change that you have to regress before you go forward. And I explained all that to Tiggie and he got it. He said, no, I got it. But I want to change it because I want to get better and better. And it's a change. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a the one thing you can admire in that guy,

the 10 years we had were phenomenal. He left me, went to Hank Haney, completely different swing. Still won. I think he won five more majors, one eight with me, won five more, six more with him. Then he went on to Foley, his swing was different, and then Chris Como tried to help him, and, you know, so he's

done a lot of different things in his swing, but the talent level is just beyond belief, you know. The Dustin Johnson story is funny because when DJ came to me, he could not hit a fade. All he saw was hooks. He had just hit hooks. That's what he hit. Every shot he hit was a hook. It could be a right pin. He's hooking it in there. And we would practice. I showed him how to hit fades, how he could do it. And he'd do it perfect in practice, but he wouldn't put it in play. And he'd go right back. And sometimes with tour players, you've got to make it their idea.

You've got to plant the seed. And I kept planting this seed with Dustin. I said, look, look how good you're hitting these fades. I don't know about you. And all of a sudden he calls me up one day from part of He goes, hey, butchie, I had this idea I played today. I decided to hit a fade on every shot and I hit it perfect. What do you think? I said, you know, I think that's a pretty good idea. That's a genius. That might work, pretty good for you.

So, you know, he had to come to it where he felt comfortable with it, where he felt maybe it was his idea to do, which I don't care. That's fine with me. And now look at how much better he plays. He's one of the best drivers in the world now, and he hasn't lost any distance because he doesn't curve it. It slides like Trevino does. And if you look at all of our long hiters, most of them hit fades.

ROM's a fader DJ's a fader Brooks is a fader Why? Why? Because they can control the ball better than trying to hook it. It amazes me listening to like I mean obviously it's Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson but to be that in control of your swing

to be able to make a change like Tiger and you were talking and he's not the right position at the top. For us Amateur is sitting here like we are at the different position at the top every single swing in one round. Every single swing. I have no what that means. We're talking about talking about guys this is how they make their living. So they live this and they practice.

I mean, these guys work so hard away from tournaments. You may only see them in turn, but like people always say to me at majors, I'll see them on the internet given. Yeah, I don't understand how Butch Harmon's so good. All he does is telling those guys jokes out there. He's just gotten them laughing. We did all work for we got there. They're nervous as hell. I'm trying to get him to relax. So we've already done all the X's and O's before we got to the tournament. We've created, you know, the Masters was always the easiest one to get ready for. because the PGA ended in August, and the Masters wasn't until April,

and it's always on the same course. So you knew what you had to change in your swing, or if you had to change shot selection or trajectories. And as soon as the Masters was over with, we'd look at, in those days, it was the U.S. Open. Now it's the PGA's next. You would look where that tournament is, and you'd look at the characteristics of shots you have to hit,

and each one of my players would be different, and say, hey, we better work the ball a little more this way for this course, because it's got more of lens itself, more to these shots. We've got to hit the iron's a little higher, a little lower, whatever. But they could do it because they have the talent level to do it. But they work so hard.

I mean, these guys work their tails off. You just don't see it because you're not at home with them and stuff and watch them practicing. It's amazing because we work with the tailor-made guys and we were chatting with them. And we were trying to get more Tiger stories from him and tell us about his each weekend, what's he say in the truck. And Tiger's the only guy we work with that when he shows up to a tournament,

we don't do anything for him. He's 100% prepared. Everything's ready. Tiger Woods is the best judge of types of equipment I've ever seen. He has the ability. I remember when he left Titles and went to Nike and we were still working together and their ball people were there and they'd bring, I remember we're on the back of the range at Alworth.

I think they had 12 different balls. Didn't have any name on them or anything. They had a mark so they knew what it was. And they just wanted him to hit him and give him their feedback. He hit every shot he hit with every ball. He told him exactly what that ball was. well this one's softer it doesn't go through the air is good this one the dimple pattern and look at the ball through the air every one of them he was spot on and the guys they were doing it

they just shake their heads and my god he knows every ball we're giving them and he's always been like that with equipment now some guys aren't equipment junkies some guys just play with anything he knows his stuff so good and what he what he needs to do to get better what he needs to work with and he's tiger woods you know he's the argument is who's the greatest player of all time, Jack or Tiger. How about we just say there's a tie? Jack's the greatest champion. He's won 18 majors, 19 seconds, 16 thirds. Think about that. That's beyond belief if you think about it. Tiger's probably the greatest player of all time. I mean, he's winning majors by 12 and 15 shots, and that doesn't happen. I mean, it doesn't happen. Probably will never happen again. So let's just say they're the two best

players of all time. Both of them are geniuses when it comes to golf, golf equipment and stuff. And they're so good at it. And what the tailor-made guys are telling you about Tiger is true. No, he's already dialed in before he gets there. He knows what he may want you to check the lion loft on this club. Because the more you practice, the more you'll knock your clubs out, your irons especially. And so he may have his caddy take him over there and have Joe take him over there.

And they said, check the loft on these short irons. I feel like I'm hitting this low too far. But he knows his equipment and he knows his stuff so good. Is that the most impressive thing you saw about him? I mean, you're with him, 99, 2000. And what was it like? Was there one thing that really blew you away when he was in that midst of that run

and being the best golfer? Before he won by 15 in Pebble, I told you guys the story when you're on the course today. It was a similar day today. He was playing with Adam Scott. The one was bowling about 25, and they played all the way back. And he shot like 62 or 63 with a penalty shot.

And it was the best I'd ever see anybody play. And Adam Scott will tell you, he looked at me and said, man, I got to get a lot better if I'm going to compete against this guy. And we rushed to the casino to make a bet on him because there was no way he wasn't winning that tournament. I mean, you couldn't beat him.

It was a great story about that. Ernie Ells and Miguel Angel Jimenez finished tied for second, 15 behind. And Ernie was playing the last group with Tiger, and I was doing Sky Sports, which I've done for 24 years. So I came down on my tower behind 18 Green. I just wanted to be able to congratulate him because I had to go back up and finish.

So I was standing there waiting for Tiger to finish. and Jimenez was standing right next to me and he and Ernie were tied for second, 15 behind him. Mendez is pretty funny too. Miguel's a funny guy and he looks at this USGA guys and he goes, oh, excuse me, sir, can you tell me where the playoff starts between me and Ernie for the other tournament?

Which was a great line. I mean, just so nonchalant standing behind the 18th green, yeah. Because this guy is in a different tournament than we are. Tiger Woods, when he first came to Simi, I can take you back in the studio back, there and I still have the film from 1993. The teenager was like 16 or 17. I'll show you the swing.

I'll let you show it to you. When he first came to me, you could see the raw talent. You could see, oh my God, this kid is at the talent level is unbelievable. But you know, you didn't know what was going to happen in the future. You could see how good he could be. He just needed more polished.

He needed, you know, because he just, give me an example. I said to him on a practice theater that the club I was at in Houston called Lockenbar. And he's hitting balls And I said, do you know, Tiger, every, now this is the first day I've ever met him. He and his dad. And the only reason Earl brought him to me, because Greg had just won the British Open before

at Royal St. George was shooting one of the greatest last rounds of all time. Fallow had a one-shot lead and shot 67 and lost because Greg shot 64. And that impressed Earl and the fact that Earl was a green beret combat veteran. And I was an Army combat veteran. And we kind of had a bond that way. Thank you for your service, by the way. It's my pleasure. Thank you for sure.

And so watching him hit balls, I mean, you. you just see this beautiful motion and he's hitting these shots. So I said to him, I said, you know, everybody's got a go-to shot coming down the stretch. Some guys tee it low and hit, chase a little fade out there or get a little draw out there. What do you do coming down the stretch when you absolutely have to drive in the ferry? So I just hit as far as I can and I go find it and hit it again. And I'm thinking to myself, well, this is a cocky little SOB. And the more I got to know him, that's how he played. He wasn't being cocky or giving you BS. That's just what he did. He just teed it up. Boom, let it fly. And he'd go find it and hit it again.

again. I said, man, well, if you could clean this guy up and do a little work with him. You know, we're going back into the 90s now. We're in 1993. This is before the internet. You know, so we're taking handheld cameras, taking pictures. And I ended up buying a camera for his dad to take pictures. And they would FedEx me, the little cassettes. And I'd look at it. I'd call him at night when he went to Stanford. I had to give three, I had to buy three video cameras for the team because of the NCAA rules. You know, I couldn't just give one to Tigers. I did, but gave the coach three.

And he fedX and back and forth. I gave my FedEx account because he didn't have any money. FedEx and back and forth, I'd look at the film, I'd call him on the phone. And that's pretty much how we did it in the early days because, you know, I live in Houston, and he lived in California. And so it was different.

But his natural talent was beyond belief. I mean, you could just see it in great hands. I mean, he could do anything with his hands, pitch shots and stuff. You could see that the talent was there. I would say next to Tiger, Greg Norman, was probably the next of the great, great players I've ever played. I don't think he gets the credit he should get.

All you think about is the tournaments he didn't win because something happened. The guys won 83 tournaments around the world. He was the greatest driver of all time with a wooden driver, far and away the best. Hit the ball 300 yards, either side of the fairway. you know he's an Aussies so the Aussies are they're macho and he they love to they love to try the the hard shot and Greg had he was like Arnie he had no layup in him he was going for it and that's

why everybody loved him we had him on our show and he's the most confident person I think we've ever heard on the show and ever met in our lives I think we asked him what's the most nervous you've ever been on a golf course and he said never I wouldn't doubt it well it's the most nervous you've ever been over been over over a shot never it was just all that all day 100% commitment I'll tell you what, I learned as much, in all honesty, in all the great players I've taught, I've learned as much from them as they learned from me because I get to watch what they do.

And I watch them under pressure and how they hit shots, and I can relate that to other players that can't quite hit them that way. And I say, hey, you know, Oathab one of the greatest wedge players of all time, he spins the ball. He does it this way. He does it a little different than you or what I learned from Phil about pitch shots and stuff. And so with Greg, I now I learned what a great competitor was, because he was such a good businessman.

His decision making in tournaments may not have been a decision that say Jack Nichols would have made, but he was aggressive more than Jack was. And so that's just how Greg played. But I learned how to manage my time so well from being around him because, you know, he had a wine business, he had a sod business, he had a golf course design business. He had all these businesses.

So when we were working, we may have two hours only to work. And we had to work for those two hours. There was no BS. Look, I got two hours, and I got this meeting, this meeting, maybe we'll hit some balls later on tonight or something. And so I learned having numerous players at tournaments how to budget my time very well by being around Greg. So I learned a lot from Greg.

And to this day, he and I are good friends. We'll talk on the phone or we text each other. I tease them all the time about his pictures on Instagram with no clothes on it. He looks fantastic. And he says to me, he goes, well, I look pretty good. I said, you know, Greg, I don't really look at men looking pretty good. I mean, he had one recently. There was a bit of an outline on the board shorts and the whole thing.

Well, and how ironic was he didn't notice that during the picture. Yeah, right. Funny how that works. Yeah, what are we doing here? Tiger Woods, you know, Greg Norman, Dustin Johnson, can you just walk us through just kind of like an overlook of how this career has gotten to where it is? Like, where did it start? How do you get that notoriety to be working with these guys?

And then is it like, where does that walk us through? You know, I played the tour 69, 7071, three years. was great. You know, I could stay out there, but I wasn't winning anything, and I wasn't that great a player. And it wasn't that much money in those days anyway. And so I always was going to play until my oldest, my daughter, Michael, was the school age, and if I wasn't making a living at it, then I would go into teaching. I always liked to be teaching. I mean, I did it when I was a teenager, because I always hung around my dad, and he was always hanging around the best players in the world. And so I watched what he did, and then my buddies, when we were kids, I used to

like trying to help them. And the first, once I got back, I, in 71 when I went off the tour, I moved to North Africa, I moved to Morocco. I went to work for King of Morocco. I was in King Hassan's personal Valpro. And I did that for almost 10 years. And I would spend my winters there up until 75, I mean, full time, lived in North Africa up until 75.

And then I came back and went to the Quad Cities where in Iowa were trans from. And I was there for about five years. But I would spend my winters over. Morocco because it was bad in Iowa. What do you think of that place? What Morocco? No, the Quad City. Iowa.

The Quad Cities, I love Ottawa. My wife's from Iowa, she's from Davenport. Iowa people are the nicest people in the world. Midwestern people are the nicest people. We're in his office, obviously, and he's got herky here on a putter, so it's no bullshit. And I'm a big Hawkeye fan. We've got a good basketball team this year, too.

We're going to do our right. Yes, we will. And Garz is the best player in the country. Absolutely. Player of the year. Look at these guys. Anyway, so I came home from Mara's, Rocco, and my first person, I really had a chance tour player to have, even though Jeff

Slumman worked with my brother Craig and I like Jeffrey and I did a little work with him in the 90s. And Steve Elkinton in 85 was a pro to club where I was a pro in Lockabar and my dad loved Steve and I met Steve and I started working with Steve and we had good success. You know, he won the players, one of the main. Then that turned into Davis Love the 3rd. I started working with Elkinton and Davis Love the 3rd. And then Steve introduced me to Greg Norman in the 90s. And I went to work with Greg Norman. And then that, you know, it's funny how people say, well, you know, Tiger Woods put Butch Harmon on the map. No, I took Greg Norman to number one before Tiger Woods has even come along yet. And so I've had the opportunity to go from one to the other.

And I think the word of mouth is if you come to me, you're not going to get any worse. you have most people that come to me they're better when they leave than they were when they showed up and I'm not a systems guy I'm not a I'm not smart enough to give you all kinds of X's and O's and look at the numbers on the track man

and give you the ball tells me everything I need to know the ball tells you the path of the club the club face angle when you hit it steep shell whatever just by the spin on it and that's how I was taught to teach off the ball because we didn't have cameras we didn't have any of that stuff in those days and so I've just always looked at what someone does naturally and try and make it better.

And I've had good success doing it. I'm a no bullshit guy. If there's something wrong, I'm going to tell you. Tour players, everybody kind of kisses their butts. They all have a lot of yes men around them. I've never been a yes man. My theory was, you're hiring me, paying me good money to try and make you better. I'm going to do the best I can do.

You're going to get 100% of my effort to try and make you the best I can make you. And then, you know, that is what it is. And so I think that's helped me along the way that I am brutally honest, sometimes brutally honest at times, which some guys don't like. You know, and I'll give you a Ricky Fowler story. In 2013, when Phil won the Open, played phenomenal at Mearfield, some of the best golf I've ever seen. He played a lot of golf with Phil on the Tuesday gambling games.

And I didn't never work with Ricky, but I knew Ricky and I watched him play. And so he played so bad in the Muirfield. He missed the cut. And on Saturday, excuse me, Friday night, and he picked up phone and he called me and he said, hey, what you? He says, after your guy's tee off on Saturday,

is there any way you could watch me hit some balls? I've just played so bad. I said, yeah, I know, I watched you on Tuesday. Gosh, it was awful. You were struggling. You think you could help me? I'll just give you, what I tell all of them. I said, look, I'll just give you my opinion,

what I think you need to do. And if you remember Ricky's swing, he used to take the club back like this and whip it way under. And so everybody tees off on Saturday and we go to the range. Ricky's hitting balls. I said, you know, it's Ricky Fowler. So all of a sudden there's a bunch of people around.

And I'm trying to get him out of this motion because this then dropped so far under the plane and he had to do everything with his hands, which when he was on, he was good when he wasn't. He wasn't consistent. So I showed him, I said, look, you've got to get here. And then this will naturally go up. And I said, I'm going to show you a drill.

I said, I'm going to have you take the club back. I'm going to put you in this position here. You're going to stop. You're going to look at it. And then you'll look back at the ball and you're going to start your swing from there. Well, he must have hit 15 shots and never put the club

and the ball doing that, which is unusual, because normally they do that and they start striping it, you know, and all of a sudden he stopped and he looked at me and he said, are you going to make a fool out of me in front of all these people here? And I said, no, I think the score you shot for the first 36 holes, you've done that to yourself. I said, no, if we do some work here, we're going to get better. And then if you remember after that, you would see him make that long waggle remembering he'd look at it and then he'd come back because he hit a thousand balls starting here and going up to get out of that.

But that was his, I remembered Joe Lakov and Sammy Mac, his manager, they were standing over to the side. And they told me the story after. So we kind of looked at each other because nobody really never told me that before. And I said, well, I'm sorry, but that's what I saw. And that's what I think he needs to do. And that's just the way I've always been. If I see something, and if it's not right, I've got to tell you it's not right. It's not going to do you any good.

JT looks at his body. He does now. Yeah, if you look at him, his dad's got him doing that, yeah. Yeah, I mean, certainly playing with you today a little bit and seeing the swings. I appreciated you right off the bat because it was no bullshit the whole time. It was just like, no, it was good one, bad one, whatever the case may be. It is what it is. Yeah.

I mean, it's, the ball doesn't lie. Right. And that's what I laughed about. We players are the biggest hypocrites on the planet because it's never our fault. You know, oh, shit. No, you know, you're talking to my boss on that hole. Yeah, you know, it wasn't me. I didn't top that ball under the rock.

Right. No, but that's gold. But I mean, that's the truth. That's the truth. That's true for all of us. We all have that. I coined a phrase on Sky on TV. You can get away with a little more in the UK than staying and stuff than you could in those days. I said, you got to, somebody hit a bad shot.

And he looked at the caddy. And I said, you got to understand. It's never the player's fault. Okay. You people need to understand this. Long or short, Caddy's fault, bad yardage. Left or right, coach's fault, bad swing. bad decision mental coach's fault didn't think it through

body doesn't feel like trainer's fault didn't get you stretched out this was the line show up in a bad mood wife or girlfriend or both's fault or both and my producer in my ear says to me did you really go there on that one but we we we we we we the one thing I loved about working with tiger is he would take ownership to everything. It was never anyone else's fault but his. He would never blame you or the catty or he wanted all the information he could get. Then he'd weed it out. If he didn't, if he felt this didn't pertain what he wanted to do, well, he wouldn't do it. But he wanted all the information he could get. But we golfers, and I'm just as guilty as you are, ah, you know,

because I'm 77. Ah, you know, that bad shot. Well, how come it didn't hurt on a good shot? You know, so do you think that's what, like, if you were going to bake it down into one thing, Obviously, Tiger doesn't ask everybody for swing help, for swing ideas. 97, he calls you after that to make some changes. What would you put it to that you were like, this is where we bonded together. This is why earned his trust. Because I knew what he was talking about, and we had seen it, you know, because he was still young. He just turned pro in 96.

And, you know, he won his first tournament here in Vegas when he was 96. In 96. And, you know, we were still going through the motion of changes. The swing was shorter, but a little across the line. at the top. That's what he was talking about. The club would get here and when he got out of sync it would just get a little across the line and we wanted to just, he wanted

to get it set in a little better position which I agreed with and we had to change a little of the takeaway and the way the arm plane went to get there. And that's why I said it's going to take a while but I have to admire him because he did it. And you know, he didn't play very good in 98. If you go back and look at the record, like I said, the only one once but then when it clicked it was like, whoa.

The story about him calling you, I believe, what, 99 and saying, I got it with one swing? Yeah, he called me from Florida. He had been working on this stuff, and he finally felt it. He said, I got it, but you said, I got it now. Now we can go. And boy, did he ever. Did you go right back to the casino?

Because I look for a smart man. How much stock do you put in Trackman and all the technology nowadays? Because you said you judge things off how the ball. Ball doesn't lie. So how much do you put into all this technology that's around nowadays? Technology is information. Yeah. I think the most information is good.

it depends on how you use it for. We use launch monitors in our teaching. I use them more for when players are changing equipment changing drivers, changing shaft, changing balls to look at ballfly. I mean, I can see if the ball's spinning too much. I don't need a machine to tell me that. I can see if the path is outside

and I don't need the damn thing to tell me that. Dustin Johnson, I think, uses it the best because he only uses it for wedge. I told him God, has it been five years now, six years now ago? At the end of the year, I look at all my guys' stats. And I don't really look at Fairways hit or Green's hit, because some of those are misleading.

I look at proximity of the hole from all the different distances. It tells me a consistent pattern and iron play, you know. And I said, look, DJ, from 150 yards in, your proximity of the hole is not bad. It's horrendous. It's terrible. And you play every hole from under 150 yards, except for par five. And some of those you play from under 150. So we've got to go to work on this wedge game.

You have got to work on your wedge game. I said, you've got 12 different swings with four wedges. You know, here, here, and here, and you multiply that time four wedges. That's 12 different swings. Let's go to the range, and let's just start working. Take the cup back to here and hit it with every one of your wedges and chart it. Get yourself a track man and see how far it goes. And then take it to here and hit it and see how far it goes.

Well, if you watch him practice now, he uses a track man every time he goes to the range. He's the longest warm up of anybody I've ever worked with, sometimes an hour and a half. before a round. But the first 45, 50, 60 minutes are with wedges, if you watch them. And he's charting how far every one of them goes and he'll hit one. He goes, oh, I hit that. He said, all right, but I'm going to go at that tree over there or whatever it is. Shoot that, for me. He says to his buddy, he says 80 yards. Okay, see, he hits it. Now that one was a little harder. That's 81. That's 81. 81, 82, 80. So he got it down to a science. He knew that he took it to here and hit it.

with a speed or add more speed to do this or that. And he became a great wedge player, which was one of the reasons he, that in the fading the ball, especially off the T, is what made him better than anyone else. Because now he plays those from all the fairways, and 150 yards in his proximity,

the hole is really good now. And so that was just one of the things that I told him he needed to work on. You got to, you, because I can't make it better for you. I can show you how to do it. You have to put in the time, and boy, he worked his ass off. and look where he is now. So was that not even really a technique thing?

It was more just... No, it was more feel. Yeah, we talked about positions and how do I want to get here? Do I take the club here or there? We talked a little bit about that, path-wise. But it was... Because the wedge games all feel.

Right. It's all feel. It's just, you know, it's to feel how hard do I hit it. And if you watch him, he never really tries to overpower one. You know, because he knows these positions on how far each one of the clubs goes.

Like I say, you've got 14 of them to choose from, so you don't have to try and nuke this thing. You know, you can take another one and hit his shot. And he worked, Dustin Johnson works his tail off. Dustin Johnson gets a bad rap, number one. Everybody goes, oh, you know, he's kind of aloof. And they say, no, he's dumb like a fox. You kidding me?

He's playing with you when he's doing these. When he does his interviews, he doesn't want to stand here all day and answer all these questions. So he gives you one word answers because the guy says, well, it's a bad interview and don't have to do it. He goes, I don't have to do it now, you know. But I told you on the, course, he's a genius on the golf course.

And look at how much smarter he plays now. They learn how to fade it. He hits irons off teas a lot of times. Give you a good example at the PGA at Whistling Straits. The one that he lost, remember when he was in the bunker on the last hole? Didn't know it because there was beer cans and all that in there. Well, the 10th hole in the first round, have you ever played Whistling Straits? Yeah. You know, the 10th hole, the dog leg to the left up the hill.

Well, it was playing straight downwind. And it was only like 290 to the front right of the green. but the green sits in there like this, and the pin was way over here, and all that ravine and bunkers there. So we're on the range. And I said, hey, DJ, I said, you're starting on 10 today.

Why don't you hit a four or five iron off the tee? Because that bunker in the middle of the fairway is only 300 yards. And I said, then you're just going to have a wedge or cross, and you'll be able to get it in there. And you maybe get a good start with a birdie because the next hole of the par five. I said, I know you can reach that. Bro, I'm sending it.

I said, yeah, I know you can send it, but there's no place to send it, bro, I'm sending it, I'm driving it on the green. I said, but you'll have a 90-foot pot. You can't carry it. Bro, I'm sending it. So he drove right on the front of the green. Of course, he three-potted.

Well, if he played there today, he'd probably hit a five-iron off the tee. And it hit a wedge in there about six feet, and he'd make birdie. You know, so he, Dustin, to me, has matured tremendously into the reason he's number one in the world. It's not so much that he can overpower a golf course because he can. But he only goes at about 80%, 85%. I think in the Masters last year, when he won the Masters on Sunday, he really only hit two drives where he went out.

He did on 8. If you remember his swing on 8 on Sunday, because he knew he could carry that bunker at 310 or 315 if he really hit it. And then he did it on 18 just to stick it up everybody's rear end and drove it 800 miles down there and wedged it through great. Other than that, he played under control all day long. It's funny, I texted him the other day. I said, I don't know if you have the Masters app.

I have it on my phone, and I said, if you go to that, they have one little segment. It shows every shot you hit on Sunday. Shows from the first tee, every swing, every put. I said, you need to go look at it, look at how under control your tempo was. So he looked at it and called me back. He goes, man, that was nice. That was swinging easier then, wasn't I? Yeah, you were under control, you know.

Sleeping, ladies and gentlemen, sleeping's huge. One of maybe the best things in the life. I would actually see my favorite part of every day is when you lay down. Yeah. Yes. This is, I mean, I have, yeah, this is, that's the favorite part of every day of my life. Sexual. Regardless of what's going on when you lay down.

Well, it can literally be. But the feeling is like, whatever it gives off, it's the same. What's the word I'm looking for? It's not, is it endorphins? Yeah, sure. You know, something's going on in your brain when you lay down. It's that feeling of relaxation. It's, um, it's just, it overcomes you, you know?

I think you're talking about endorphins. Okay. That's the feeling. And when I lay down, I have that same feeling. It's like, oh my God. I've never felt better in my entire life. So when you lay down, you feel sexy in that moment? Not sexy.

It's like it's a, it's a, it's a feeling almost as, as good as sex. I don't, I prefer laying down more. Yeah, there you go, right. For being, if we're keeping it a buck, as the kids say. That's what the kids say. Well, let me tell you about Helic sleep, which is what we use mattresses. What they do is you take a quick quiz. Two minute quiz.

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and two free pillows for our listeners. listeners, helixleep.com slash four. I got to ask you about Jordan Spee. So, you know, he's had well documented three or four years now where he's been struggling despite being just a total star and stud and have all success his whole career. Now all of a sudden, and there are rumors that you looked at some of this stuff, but now all a sudden he's three top tens or top sixes and his last four starts or so. What do you think of his game, his struggles, his journey?

I've known Jordan for a long time, and I'll say it's one of the nicest young man you could ever meet. He's a class act. You can tell he's got a great mom and dad. He was raised right. And he's great. And he had, at a very young age, he had a tremendous amount of success, which sometimes is difficult, you know, because everybody goes into a little low. I saw Jordan at the end of the year when the term was out at Shadow Creek, the Zozo, I think it was. He just called me on the phone, and he said, hey, but this was like Friday night of the tournament. And he had played terrible the first two rounds. She, can I come over in a morning before I tee off, I just like to have you give me another opinion of what I'm working on.

So I said, sure. I mean, I'm on Jordan forever. And I said, it would be happy to us. He came over and two hours or two and a half hours before he played. And he came over and I told him what I thought, that I thought the club was a little too far inside. And I said, you know, you're in and then you're up. You're not really making as much shoulder turn as you need to make. I think if you could get a little wider on this end, a little wider on your through swing end, you get on path. And once you get the club on path it's going to get easier for you. And I think he went and shot 11 under on a weekend and played good. And that was the only time I've ever seen him.

Now, he has sent me some film. And so what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And Cam is his coach. And Ken will always be his coach and should be. But see, I always told my guys there's nothing wrong with getting another opinion. If you don't feel we're doing something right, go ask somebody else. You're not going to hurt my feelings.

I'm telling you what, sometimes people will tell you the same thing. things only a different way. And you get it. I mean, I told Gary Woodland when he was struggling with his wedge game, and Pete Cowan's a really good friend of mine who I think is one of the best coaches in all golf. And I said, look, Pete's great with his short game. Why don't you just let me call him for you, see if he can have time for it. He did. And so he's helped him a lot with his short game. Pete's helped Brooks Kevka a lot with his short game. So there's nothing wrong with getting another opinion. And when he called me, he just wanted another opinion. He wasn't looking to leave his coach

like they're trying to make it on TV or now he goes to Butch Harmon No, he doesn't go to Butch Harmon I saw him for an hour and a half Before he teed off He drove over here and then drove out to Shadow Creek You know, and Rory came and spent About four hours with me that week

It doesn't mean because Michael Bannon His coach couldn't get into the country And so for me, I do a lot of work like that With a lot of different players They'll come and I'll just give my opinion Here's what I think If you want to do it The one that we've had the most success with

has been a Webb Simpson. And a lot of people don't know I work with Webb Simpson. And I may only see him three times a year. But he'll come and get a checkup and get a checkup and get a check up. He won the Barden Trophy last year. He actually sent me a replica of the Varden Trophy, which was pretty nice. I had something in all the cool things that have happened to me in my career, all the zillion majors, my guys have won and everything.

I had Webb Simpson win the Barden Trophy. And Daniel Kang, who I teach one of the Vair Trophy for the lowest scoring average. So I had two of them in one year. I never had that before. So that was pretty cool. And Webb is such a nice guy. He's one of the wonderful. He sent me a replica of the Varden Trophy.

I have it at home. The guy with all my current drugs and stuff, the guys that have had made for me, it's pretty neat. What a legend. Just an absolute legend. I mean, but it was very nice. But see, you know,

and that's just me giving him opinions. He sent me a film the other day. I had to feel it, and the club was back inside again a little bit. I said, no, no, you're too narrow. That's why you're in your own way. And so, you know, people said, do you work with Webb Simpson?

Yeah, I help him. When he needs help. But now that I've semi-retired and I don't travel the tour anymore, I don't have a contract with a player. Like I used to have contracts with all the players. They would pay me X amount. I'd take a percentage of their winning. I don't do that anymore. So I can teach anybody.

Anybody who wants to come and get an opinion, I just charge them an hourly rate and we move on. That's interesting. And if it does good, they like it, they want to come back, come back. Or with these things, it's easy because you just, they can film. They're swinging any place in a world they can send me a film of it. And I can pick up the phone or I just text them right back. And no, this is it. and I keep a log of all the ones that I've done,

and I send them a picture of their swing when they were good, put it next to what they are now, and you can see the difference. And so that's kind of how it works. I always wondered that because in your field, you know, if someone asks you for an opinion, that's,

they got to pay for it. You know what I mean? I always wondered if someone's like, hey, Butch, what are you thinking here? Like a pro, like, that's, is there ever,

like infringing over lines and stuff like that? Well, it's easier now because I can do that with anybody because I don't have a contract with that. Right, in the past, like, I had the contract with Phil and Ricky and DJ and, you know, Gary Woodland and Jimmy Walker.

So if someone else said, can you give me an opinion so I can look at you and say, I think this or that, but I really wasn't had the ability to have them say, come see me above. Now I can do anything. I can do with anybody, and it doesn't matter who they are, and they'll come. And I'm just giving them my opinion. This is what I think. Whether you do it or not, it's totally up to you. I'm not locking you.

you in anything. This is just what I see, what I think. And, you know, and like I say, then they'll all just send me, like, Rory and the boys, they send me pictures of their swing. Harry Diamond, Rory's Caddy, who was a good player. You mean, I know that. The kid that catty swarmed was a hell of a player as an amateur. And Harry and I talk all the time. He'll say, hey, did you watch today? I said, yeah, what did you think? I said, yeah, damn it, I told him that. But why don't you call him and tell him? I said, I'm not call him and tell him. He's your man. I always find that so interesting, too, like you said, almost trying to convince players that it's their idea.

And even we talk with... You're dealing with egos. Right. You know, you're dealing with... It's no difference. If you think the greatest football coach of all time, Vince Lombardi, probably couldn't coach today. Because the players are making more money than him,

so they wouldn't want to listen to them. You know, and so, you know, it's just you're dealing with egos. And you've got to know, for me, it's why I say I'm more of a coach for tour players in it. teacher, teacher with amateurs, because I'm coaching them. You got to know when to kick them in the ass. You got to know when to give them a hug. You got to know when to make them laugh. You've got to know when to give them some space. And they're all different. They all have touchy personalities. Some of them want you to kick them in the ass. Others don't really want that. And you've got to know

which buttons to push and when to push them. And in the video that I gave you guys today, you'll see there's a segment in there. A lot of the great players that I've talked, interviewing them on what they learned when they work with me. And Tiger had an interesting thing. He said that he said that Butch has the ability to send you to the first tee thinking you're playing the best you've ever played in your life even though you might not be. And that was a great compliment because you got to get inside their head and you got to know when to say what and you've got to know how to say it. And because I'm brutally honest and they know that, if I say something they don't like, they will think about it. They may not do it, but they will think about it.

Well, God, if he's telling me that, maybe I do need to do that. And so, you know, I'm very proud of the work I've done with everybody. I'm not upset when someone leaves and goes to someone else. You know, I've done everything I could do. Maybe they just want to hear it a different way. And I've stayed friends with all my players because they're like my family. I spend so much time with them. In 97, was there anything you'd like kick Tiger in the ass or something before he went out there? No, I would always challenge him. I learned a long time ago with Tiger Woods that if I told him he couldn't do something, that was the best way to get him to do something. I give you an example.

We were playing the match play at La Costa. And we were trying to hit some high fades with some long irons. And he was struggling doing it. The club was a little underneath, and he wasn't getting it. And he was getting frustrated. And at the end of this, if you ever play at La Costa, it's kind of a funky range. You've got fence all around and stuff. And at the far end, at about 260 yards or 70 yards,

there's a gate down there where the cart comes through. And so he wasn't really getting. what we were doing, he wasn't feeling it. And so I just took a $100 bill out of my pocket, and I put it down next to his ball. I said, I'll give you five balls, but you can't hit it. I said, I'm not even going to bet you.

I'll just, if you can do it, you can take the 100. That you can't hit a ball. See that fence down there, it's the right. I bet you can't hit a high fade goes through the fence. First ball, right through the gate. He just snatched up the 100. Well, it's the best 100 I've ever sent because he wanted to turn. And so with him, I just used to challenge him

and tell him he couldn't do something and that would make him work harder. Now with others, that wouldn't work. You know, they would take offense to that. But he was going to show you he could do it. Oh, really? You don't think I can do that? Damn right, I can do it.

Well, shit, show me. I'll see it. God, that is cool. But that doesn't work with everybody. You got to know who you're working with and what buttons to push. And, you know, I've done this my whole life, but you've got to realize how I grew up.

My father was a legend. My father was a major championship. His best friend was Ben Hogan. They played every round or every practice round together, every major. And since I was this big, look at me in these pictures, how little I was going on these tournaments. I would walk every practice round with my dad and Ben Hogan, every one of them.

And there was no ropes even in the tournaments in those days. You just walked down the fairways. I mean, it's just so I grew up seeing the greatest players of all time play, my whole life. Now, I didn't realize until I was about 40 or 45 years that I had a master's degree in golf, watching the greatest players in the world play. I was like a doctor in and everything I had seen and didn't know it.

And I grew up as a kid at Wingfoot caddying. Started when I was about 12 or 13. My dad would play golf every day with members. He'd teach in the morning and have lunch playing afternoon. So I'd carry it for my dad every day. And I'd watch him play. And I'd watch these great players come to town and play with him. And I'd just try and learn.

I can remember seeing Ben Hogan hit his shot on the 8th hole in the West Coast in a practice round with my dad. And the tournament wasn't even there. He was just in town, and he came to play with Dad and see him. And he hit the most beautiful cut four wood up out of the rough, kind of rounded trees in the middle of the green. Heck, when that round was over with, I took my little carry bag, and I went out to that spot, and I threw my balls down there and took my forewood, and I said, well, I saw Ben Hogan do it this way. Boy, the cut face was really open, and he picked it up, and he hit down.

And I'm out there trying these shots. I said, I'm like 14 or 15 years old. I said, man, I saw the greatest ball tracker of all time doing this. I saw him do it. What would you learn from that? And I'm out there trying to do it. And so I had grew up, myself and my three younger brothers and we're all golf pros, we grew up in this environment and didn't even know it.

And, you know, it may sound arrogant saying that, but we didn't look at it that way. That was just who we were and who our dad was and where he was at Wingfoot and stuff. And we just saw the best players. I mean, I literally have seen every great player, even as a kid, Craig Wood and Tommy Armour were members at Wingfoot. And I used to play golf with him as a teenager. Play with Tommy Armin. Play with Craig.

The first time I played with Ben Hogan, I was 16, I think. And so we just, that was just the way it was. We weren't trying to be arrogant about saying, hey, I played with Ben Hogan today or Tommy Armour. Well, we did. Now, today, somebody said, hey, yeah, fuck you, you know. Well, no, I mean, it's, I'm looking at, you know, your dad's scorecards here from the 1948 master.

So it's a pretty cool thing. They gave me that, the Floridian had that made. for us. The same thing with the Seminole one. That's 60, still the course record at Seminole. Really? He's still got both course records at Wingfoot, 61 on both courses there. Seminole 60. He still holds, even though he's been dead ever since 89, he still holds a ton of course

records. He could play. It was amazing. And you were telling us a little bit about like why he wasn't playing pro, right? He was just playing majors. Can you expand? Well, because you know, if you go back to the 50s and 60s, there wasn't a lot of money in tournaments. And my father had the two best jobs in the country.

Wingfoot and Seminole. Two of the finest clubs you could be at, two of the best pro shops to sell merchandise. He was making more money than a leading money winner was making. And so he was just playing major championships every year or local stuff in the Met Area. But he was a great player, not just a great teacher. He could really play.

The great line is when he won the Masters in 48, and he was leading after three rounds. And Hogan used to come down to Seminole every year for a month before the Masters and play every day. That's how he got ready to go to Augusta. He played Seminole every day, and he played in my dad just about every day. And a reporter asked Mr. Hogan, he said,

Ben, you surprised as club pro, he's leading a master's. He has no, he's been beating a hell out of me in Seminole for 30 days. I'm not surprised at all. That's phenomenal. We spoke a little bit about earlier, but looking at the other side of your office, you obviously served in Vietnam, and then you guys did the trip over to Iraq in 2007.

Tell us a little bit about that trip. It was a great trip. group called Troops First Foundation, which I have done, Faradie and I have done a bunch of stuff with and try and help disabled veterans and make their life better for them and buy them homes and stuff. And I've done a lot of stuff in my foundation. And we had a great time. It was Farity and I and Tom Watson and Tom Lehman, and we had the best time. We did, I think we did nine bases in seven days over Thanksgiving in 2007, all out in the Anbar province.

The thing that was just hit with the missiles from Iraq yesterday, Air Force Base, I was there. I've been there. I've been to that place. I mean, we had the best trip. The one thing I came back from that trip with was our military is very young, 18 to 25. There's no draft. They all signed up for it. This is their job. They love what they're doing. They believe 100% in what they're doing. And I was fascinated by our soldiers when I was there. You know, I can only go back to 63 to 66 when I was in the Army. The weaponry wasn't as sophisticated as now. But these guys are so well trained.

And all they kept telling us, every base we go, please, when you go home, just tell the government to leave us alone. If they'll just let us do our job, we can take care of this. And, you know, it's sad because what you don't realize is that there have been more Iraqi in Afghanistan veterans that have committed suicide that have done. then have died in that war. And that's sad. And we as a country, and especially as a government

and the Veterans Administration, we have to do something to take care of these kids because this is all they know how to do. Take an 18- or 19-year-old kid, goes in the service. He's been in the service for five years, so he's 23 now. He's moved out for some sort of sergeant

or if he's an officer or something. And he loses an arm or leg, and he's out. He doesn't have any job skills. This is the only job he's known since high school. Most of them come out of high school, don't go to college or anything, unless they're officers. This is always known. And he doesn't have any skills. That's why they all want to go back.

Even when they get injured, they want to go back because they're part of a team. And that team is the thing that's important to them. Because I know you've got my back and I got your back and you got my back. And we got each other's back. And at home, I come home. I have no job skills now. What do I do? And they get into alcohol and drugs.

And the other sad thing is a lot of their wives divorce them because they can't handle having to deal with them. it's sad. I mean, it's just so sad because these kids are such great kids, and they love what they do. And it's sad to see what happens. It's why I can do it. I do everything I can for the military. Any outing I can do, any money I can raise. When I had my foundation, we bought houses for them. It was called Harmon's Heroes. And we did it in a small way, 10, 12 guys at a time, bring them to Vegas. I have friends of mine with their private jets, would give us the private jets to fly them out here and put them up for long weekends. play golf with them and let them have a good time. Because golf can get them back into the mainstream of society in their town,

those that have actually played golf before they got injured. And, you know, anything we can do to help them. I mean, anything you guys can do to help military people. You have to because they're the reason we're sitting here doing what we're doing. Right. Oh, yeah. And nobody seems to care. Well, the government, damn sure doesn't care.

VA administration needs to do a hell of a lot more than they do, that's for sure. Well, yeah, I mean, you guys going over there and you're using kind of your status and the connections that you've made to help them out. I'll tell you one of the great stories. We followed the Washington Redskins cheerleaders, I think, into five different bases. So we're thinking ourselves, well, shit, they ain't going to want to see us, a bunch of old golf pros and stuff. Oh, hell, no. They're like, hell, we can't do anything with them.

Oh, yeah, it was great. They got nets set up and camelmed. They're ready to go. And they had old balls and clubs. And now, well, you can help us. We can dream about that and go home and take care of ourselves or something. But I need some help with my golf swing. That's so good.

We do see a good amount of tweets and Instagrams from, you know, from service members. Every student, they're always, it's amazing how many guys, women are out there just trying to find. They're just chipping in the desert. This Elside Air Force space I was telling you about, We were on the far side of it on the marine side where the Harrier jets were, and they had built a little plywood thing with some AstroTurf on it and then set to hit balls off of when they'd come back off of missions. And they had this big picture about this big out there,

about 150 yards of Farity, of just Faradys' head. And they used that for target practice. So these guys have just come back from a mission. They still got on their flight suits, and they're up there, hitting balls. And, you know, and Faradys saying, well, come on, hit me out there. you know, and none of them could hit him, you know. So Faradie says, you guys are terrible, and Faradies crazy.

And he runs out about 120 yards, and he just drops Trow and moons them. And said, can you hit this? Well, with that, Lehman and Watson got up with five irons, and they were peppering that Farity ass like going out of style. And one of the funny things I've ever seen is David Faradie running across the Iraqi desert trying to pull his pants off. And these balls are whizzing by his ass. It was great.

And Farity is so good with the troops. It's unbelievable. He does so much for him. And he's freaking hilarious. When we were over there, we'd be at night to have a dinner with these guys. And he'd be in these little wreck rooms and some of the stuff they built for in their home bases. And he'd be up there, turn the lights off. And he'd light off farts instead of when he was.

David's crazy. But he was so good with those guys. And he loved him. And he's done so much. And there's actually a picture out there in the corner I saw on the cameraman looking at it. I got a ribbon pinned on me by a four-star general. General O'Darioner was the head of the Army at the time, the service of the things I've done with disabled veterans.

And I can't do enough. I mean, anything, any guy that I need, there's a guy who's a really good player, Chad Pfeiffer, his name is. He's got one leg. You're probably seeing him playing a celebrity stuff. He can really play that box from Scotty Cameron as a putter for him. He asked me if I could get him a putter, so I called Scotty. And Scottie said, oh, yeah, I know who Chad is.

He's a military guy. He lost his leg. I said, he's a hell of a player. He said, what does he want? I'll make it for him. And that's it. So I'm sending that to Chad in the morning. Anything we can do for him or anything you guys can do for him is awesome.

It's amazing. The impact, just the Harmon family has had on golf. And now you see, I mean, 1944-masters, and now it's 2021. You're still coaching and teaching the best players in the world. That's a pretty impactful, awesome thing that your family has been a part of this game and the sport. and being able to help veterans and all you've been able to do. You know, it's interesting when you grow up in a family where your father's a legend and he's still alive, you wouldn't think having four boys, like there's four of us.

Or was, my brother Dick passed away a while ago now. And we're all golf pros, all very successful golf pros. And people say that's very unusual because most people, they would go in a different direction. I said, well, we admired our dad so much. You know, I'm the oldest, Billy's the youngest, and we were the two rebels of the family. the nutty ones, the ones doing all the crazy shit, and Dick and Craig were the two sane ones in the middle, and we all turned out good.

It was very interesting. We did a deal many years ago. You can go on the Golf Channel's website, and they filmed it in the grill room, a wink-foot with the four of us. And it was a whole show about our family, and there was an old member there, old crusty guy sitting there,

and we were doing a break from the filming, and we were just sitting in the grill room, drinking a beer, and he said, yeah, you know, I thought your dad was really, hard on you boys when when you were younger and dicky looked at the guy he says well he must have done something right because we all turned out pretty damn good yeah that's right it's amazing it's just like when you see the years up there she's like 1948 master's champion now we're sitting here with you we're talking about tiger woods in 1999 and then now you're talking to players in 2021 it's

it's it's just so many years of golf when i decided i was going to walk away from the tour because the grind just got to be too much. The travel, you know, I'm 77. I'm in good shape. I've taken good care of myself. I don't have any. I've had back problems off and on. You watch you hit a fucking drive today. A couple. Oh, with the grunt? You like the grunt one?

Oh, you like the grunt. Grunt might be my new swing. You smoked it with the grunt. I was my best drive for the day. Because if you would have asked us, I would have said you were fucking, I don't know, 45 with the way you're hitting that drive. I can still play all right. You know, as the older you get, it's much easier to shoot your age.

So I can do that no problem. If I can't shoot better than 77, I ain't playing. Everyone will see it on the video. He had us doing this grunt, and I definitely hit my best drive of the day. I mean, it was a poke out there. The story was I told these guys a story about two years ago because of my affiliation with Rolex,

I was at the Wimbledon ladies semifinals, and four of the best women players in the world. Serena was one of them. And they grunt every time they hit, and I mean, it's so loud in there. You hear this. It's almost irritated. because so I came back and I said you know I'm tweaking my swing trying to get like like you do

trying to get extra yardage and stuff can I get faster and I said I'm going for the grunt so I started oh I went damn I hit that pretty good so I just started doing it's a funny story a couple years ago my brother Billy and I were playing at Augusta National with a couple friends of ours that are members and I'd been telling Billy about this grunt and stuff so we're down the first tee at Augusti goes let's see how big your balls are bro you're going to grunt on the first tee I said no I'm waiting There's a second T. I'm not doing this on the first hole in Augusta with all these green coats coming out to watch us.

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Speaking of grunting and big balls, can we talk about Bryson for a little bit? What do you think about this guy? Well, how about what he's done? I mean, what he did at Wingfoot, having grown up at Wingfoot, have been there my whole life place that I love. I mean, I never thought that anyone could overpower that golf course.

And he actually didn't do it with his overpowering. And he did it with how good his wedge play was, his iron play out of the bunker. he putted his tail off. Now we look at last week. He wins at Bay Hill. Another hard course, hard conditions. Yeah, the shot on six was, you know,

I don't know if that was the right shot to hit or not, but he was going to do it. If there had been no fans, he might not have done it. You know, but they're all like in them on and they wanted to do it. And it was fun to watch. Oh, it was great. Once the wind got down on six, I couldn't wait.

Now, he's not the first guy that ever do that. Hank Keeney knocked it on the green. Hank Keeney in a practice round, if you remember the name, because he played the tour. He was the longest hitter when he played the tour. He actually knocked it on the green one. Same T-box location and everything?

They may have moved it back 10 or 15 yards, but yeah, pretty much the same shot. He knocked it on the green doing it, but Bryson's amazing what he does. Now, I don't know from a teaching standpoint, is his body going to be able to handle that aggressive motion? Because the spine is not made for that much torque. All of us that have played golf our whole life have bad backs,

because it's just you've hit millions of golf balls. But I mean, you got to admire him. Whether you think it's good or bad, I think it's fun to watch. I'm not sure his body will hold up and how long he can do it. I know he's doing all the right things and doing all the right exercises and stuff. But still, that's a lot of torque on that body. But damn, it's fun to watch. Right.

It's creating interest for the sport. Well, and we needed it with no fans. Right. During this pandemic, you know, we're in March now. It's one whole year we've been on lockdown, it seems. Golf is the first sport to get out. And people starting to be able to see it again. And, you know, and golf courses were the first places we could go

where you didn't have to wear masks because you get out in the open air. You know, at our course, everybody rides in their own cart. You know, you leave the pin in. You don't really take it out, so you're not touching it. You only wear a mask when you come around the clubhouse or when you come around the holding air if you come inside. Like if we were out of my office here and we weren't filming, we'd have to put our masks on to go over in the other part.

But golf is what brought everybody back because that's all you could do is play golf. And Bryson added a lot of energy to it. You know, he's different. The Ryder Cup at Paris. He was playing a practice around with Ricky, and I was walking with him. And on the, let's see, the third holes in the park,

dog light to the right, and you can't see the greens they're hitting in. He hit this guy in the head. I mean, he split this guy's head open with his second shot. He hit it to the right, because he didn't know where it went. And he's over there,

and, you know, he's talking to the guy signing gloves and balls out. I always say, why don't you give him 500 bucks or something? I'm going to love the shit. Yeah, but that's the glove to just be like. So then he comes back on the green and he goes, hey, Butch, look at this.

It's got blood all over my ball. And he did. He's a golf ball. You know, he plays a bridge to a golf ball. I had blood all over it before he smacked the guy in the head. So I was being kind of a smart ass. I said, well, Bryson, I got to ask you. So if you were to play that ball aerodynamically,

would the blood on the ball change it as it goes through the air? Well, he starts to go in this dissertation. Well, you know, actually, I said, dude, I'm only puck. I'm just messing with you. I'm not serious. You don't have to go into this whole dissertation. But he's smart. He took physics and stuff,

and I think he still puts all his golf balls and water and Epps and salts and spins them because he says they're not round all the time. And I'm like, really? God, these guys are good if they're not playing with a round golf balls. But he's different. And because he's different, I think it's good for the game.

I really do. I think it's great for the game. I think we need personalities in the game. We need them to, which one made Trevino so popular. Yes, he was such a great player, but he had a personality, you know, and he was fun. He was always giving everybody shit. You know, you go back and look at the playoff between he and Nicholas at Marion in the U.S. Open, and he throws the rubber snake at him on the first tee, but what you don't know is they talked about in the locker room.

And he said, hey, how about we have some fun on the first tee, and I kind of throw the rubber snake at you? Jack's like, oh, sure, whatever. But we need characters like that. You know, you look at the Pat Perez's of the world, who's a fun guy to be around, will just literally say anything. He's great to be around. He's played better at 40 than he did at 25, you know,

and I love Pat. You know, there's guys who get a bad rap. Patrick Reed gets a bad rap. He's done a few iffy things, you know, but he's still a great player. And, you know, in Tiger's era, Not everybody was a tiger fan. You know, so people used to go to the course because they loved to watch Tiger, or they didn't want to watch Tiger.

They wanted to see him play back, but he brought people to the game. And that's what our game does. It brings individuals into the sport because all the average person all plays golf. So they try and relate to these guys. And the beauty of playing our game, and we're the only game in the world that this can happen. Number one, you can play it your whole life. It doesn't matter how young or old are you. play. But here's something no one thinks about it. It's the only sport in the world. You can go

right down on the arena and play the same holes the pros played. And you know, you can go to TPC at Sawgrass and you can play the 17th hole to the island green. You can hit your eight or nine iron on the green and feel wonderful. I mean, we can't go play tennis at Wimbledon or play basketball Madison Square Garden or hockey in whatever place you want to talk about or something. I mean, you can't. This doesn't happen. But in golf, you can do that. I have friends of mine who say, well, I can't go to August. I say, well, if you know the right people, you know, people you can. I go there every year. I play there every year. Well, your dad won. I said, well, I still have to play with a member. But I think that's a part of our game. People don't realize. You can

literally go play the same courses you just watched on TV. I mean, you just watch Bay Hill. You could go there and play there and pay the money and get a tea time and go play. Well, Trent, what did you do at Pebble Beach? Well, yeah, we just watched Burger Win at Pebble Beach. And I mean, we just played at Pebble Beach and, you know, I beat Riggs in a match. One up on 18. Made birdie. What happened on 17? What about the third hole?

Third hole I made a birdie. Oh, yeah. I mean, I made a better score than Tiger Woods did. And, you know, when he... Yeah, he made a seven. I made a three. I know, I saw that. People forget that.

He hacked it. Hacked it. And how many do you win by? Oh, 15. Right. Yeah. To your point, like Trent Ryan, 24 handicap,

played it from the same T essentially as Tiger Woods. Exactly. He made a three, and Tiger was made a seven. And he can always say on that hole, obviously different conditions, but I made a better school in Tiger with on the same home. People ask me all the time when you play Augusta, what do you enjoy the most about playing Augusta other than when you go there for the Masters and your follow?

I said, oh, I get to go to the 12th Green. Because when you're gallery in, you've got to go from 11 to behind the T and up 13th farewell. I said, oh, I get to hit a ball on 12, a walk across the bridge and go and look back, go, hey, I'm over here. For a guy like you even still, when you go play Augusta, when you, you know, hit a shot on 12 or playing in the corner, like, do you get all... Oh, yeah, I love that. Yeah, I mean, having grown up there my whole life, I mean, how old was it?

My dad won in 43, and I wasn't quite six yet. I was still five. I was there. I don't remember it, but I've been to the Masters. Somebody asked me a few years ago, how many Masters do you think you've been to? I said, boy, it would probably be easier to figure out how many times I haven't been there. Right. And I said, I think I'm close to maybe 60.

50 to 55 for sure you know I was in army for three years I played the tour it wasn't there when I was really young but I said I've been going there my whole life so it's I love going there I love playing there I usually go at least once a year and play sometimes twice a year I'm going about 10 days after the masters this year with a friend of mine that's never been there I'm taking them down there to play how cool is that got to be to watch people play for the first time oh it's the best we took Natalie Gulvis and her husband there she had never been there and I took her there about a year and a half ago, and they were like dying and being in heaven, you know. And it's amazing how many tour players, both tours, LPEGA, more than the regular, have not played there. And a lot of guys said, no, I don't want to play there until I'm in the tournament.

And so, well, that's okay, but I think I'd want to play there. Right. Right. And it is Augusta the greatest course in the world? No. There's probably better golf courses. And if you built that set of greens today,

they might kick you out of the architecture business with all the humps and bumps and stuff in them. But the tournament's always there. It's always been at the same place. And every time you go there and play, you remember what you saw somebody do on TV or when you were there watching and you say, I saw so-and-so.

Like when you were there, when my brother Billy and I played there a year ago, September, last September. And we went over to 13, and I showed him where Phil was when he hit that shot between the trees, then knocked it stiff. remember then he missed the pot but i said this is this is it right here and he goes damn he actually

went for that you know that's a great story that bones told me that i don't know whether phil would own up to it but bones said that we were talking about it afterwards and because i had walked ahead and i was talking to his brother then who was in catting for him and i had walked ahead because i know how to follow at augusta i can see every shot on every hole because i know where to go where i can and usually you're looking back and i saw i walked up and saw his life so he's just going to pitch out. And so I walked ahead, walked all the way up, the fairway was talking to a friend of mine

and wasn't paying much attention. And I kind of walked across in front of the 14th T and stood in front of the fans there because then there's nobody in front of you. And I'd heard a roar and looked up on the green and I didn't pay attention to his ball was. We'd get over there and I see Phil up there. And he's talking to his brother standing right next to me.

And he's got this little six-footer, four or five-footer. I thought it was for a birdie. I didn't know he'd gone for it. too. Even though I was there, I wasn't paying any attention. I was talking a friend of mine and he missed a putt and I said to his brother, I said, son of a bitch, I just hate it when you don't Bernie 13. He goes, that was for an eagle. I said, you mean he went for it? That's where he hid it. And so, you know, Billy and I were up there looking at it and he goes, so anyway,

Bones told me the story. He said, because Bones wanted him to lay up. Have you ever had him on your podcast? Because he's the best. Jim McKay, he's one of my best friends and he's the best. and he knows the inside stuff. He's done a good job as an announcer on TV. Yeah, he's really good. He said that he wanted him to lay up and they're talking back and forth. And you know they got a microphone right there.

You can see the guy standing over there. And Phil knows the microphone's there. So Phil leans into him very quietly so the microphone guy can't catch this. And he goes, Bones, there comes a point in time in every great championship where you've got to suck it up and hit the right shot and win this tournament.

He says, I'm hitting his shot and we're winning this tournament. And he did. How about that, right? On my body just stood up. And Phil knew that there was a mic there. So he said it very quietly, but he just wanted to let bones know. No, this is what we're doing. Wow.

And he's letting him know, like, I'm present. I know what's happening. And Mickelson, whether you're a Mickelson fan or not, he's a modern day Arnold Palmer. Because he just goes for everything. And he's lost as many times as he's won. and Arnold did too. He lost as many times he won. And Jack's more conservative, and that was made him so good, you know. But watching those guys hit those great shots, man, that's something. If you haven't played in big tournaments or you haven't played golf, you don't understand the pressure they're under and how they handle it and how they deal with it so well.

Really the difference between great ones and really good ones is mental. It's how they handle the pressure. The decision making when the heat's really on. Do they make the right decision? Do they make the wrong? decision. Their choices, knowing their abilities, knowing their strengths, knowing their weaknesses, know what they're good at, knowing what they're not good at, how they judge doing that. That's really the difference between great ones and really good ones because they're all good. But the great ones have the mind. They have the golf mind and they have ice water in their veins. I had a guy asked me a few years ago on a podcast we were doing and said, what makes Dustin Johnson so good. I said, you know what makes him so good? He takes his balls to the first tea in a

wheelbarrow. That's what makes him so good. The guy looked at me, I said, he's not afraid of anything. He's not afraid of any shot at any time. And the beauty of Dustin Johnson is he has no long-term memory. Whatever's over with, it's over with. He gets asked all the time, how many times do you

think about thinking at Chambers Bay, three put in the last toll from 12 feet to lose the U.S. Open? He goes, I never think about it. Why would I think about it? They're not going to let me go back and do it again. That would have ruined most golfers. You'd have never heard from him after that because they blew it. That's one of DJ's greatest strengths.

He's like a cornerback in the NFL who gets beat as many times as he doesn't, but he's got to strap it up and go the next play. The last shot never happened. For Tiger Woods, the last shot never happened. For Phil Mickelson, believe me, the last drive never happened, because it's always out in the junk somewhere. But that's what separates those guys that are so good. They have the ability, think about when you play,

and you've got a good round going, and you hit a bad shot. Three holes later, you may be thinking about it. Wow, three putted that green. Lurch is still thinking about seven years. You know, and you all of a sudden, you're three holes later, you're still thinking about it. The great ones, it's gone. I mean, I can't do it.

I'm still, I played the other day with some of my buddies and shot 75, and I was so mad because I had made three bogeys with a wedge, and I was thinking about it after I made the first one on the other two and hit bad shots because, well, let's say, you hit this shot bad on three. Now you got, you got trying to do this. It's so hard to do, and it's so amazing. It's what separates the great ones.

from the good ones. It's all mental. You're saying the great ones, and we've talked about this a lot and bring this to Phil. Do you think, in your opinion, Phil Mickelson looks at the Tiger Woods in his era and sees like, oh man, if that guy Tiger Woods was never around,

I'd be the greatest of this era. Oh, the two greatest American players of modern time were Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. Do you think that eats away of Phil at all? No, because I think Phil will be the first to tell you that he became Phil Mickelson because of Tiger Woods, because Tiger pushed him because he was so good.

Think about this. Phil Mickelson's won, what, 44 tournaments, five majors. In the Tiger Woods era, no one even close. That's amazing. No one even in the ball game for that. So I don't think Phil gets the credit he should get. Yeah, he doesn't drive the ball like great. That's kind of how he was, you know.

But look at what he's done. Look at all the tournaments he's won. He has won five majors. Five majors. Well, yeah, I hear those numbers, and I see Tiger Woods, and I'm like, man, Phil would have had fucking 80. I'll tell you a great story between the two of them. Phil has this thing in majors when he's in contention,

when he's going to play late on Sunday. He likes to do two warm-ups. He likes to do a warm-up in the morning, go have lunch and relax, and then come back and do his normal one. So this was maybe six, seven years ago. And Phil and Tiger were playing the last round together. And they were maybe five or six shots back,

so they were playing a little bit. But if they shoot 64 or 65, which either one of them can shoot, they could still win, and they know it. So Phil calls me up Saturday night at the hotel and he says, hey, but you could you meet me at the range about 10.30 tomorrow? He says, I want to work on some of this stuff we're working on and then we'll go have lunch and then we'll do our normal work. I said, sure. So we go out and we work until almost two hours and we're going to go have lunch.

So he said, why don't you come up in the Champions locker room and have lunch to me? I said, sure, I'll do that. And it's a small locker room if you've ever been in it. I mean, there's only three tables in it. And so Phil's in the middle table. And there was somebody sandwich on the first table. sit down, we're sitting down to, and Phil's taking his pants off. And Tiger walks in, and that's the Tiger sandwich. The Tiger doesn't sit with us. He sits there, and about this time,

Phil's standing there in his underwear, and he's folding his pants over this chair. And Tiger goes, dude, what do you do it? He goes, hey, look, I don't wear that cheap Nike shit like you do. Tom Ford makes my pants. I don't want him wrinkled when I'm kicking your ass this afternoon when we play. And Tiger Woods without missing a beat says, I don't care who makes your pants cover your shit up so I can eat my sandwich. And I wish the press could hear these two guys needle each other because they're grown men now

and there's tremendous respect between the two of them. And Phil will be the first to tell you that he credits his success for a tiger pushing him. But it was so cool to sit there and listen to that and Tiger then looks at me and gives me that shitty green. And that's our inside banner that people just dream of. Like, they just want it so much

because it's so interesting. It's so genuine. And so, like you said, they've been around the block. They've been battling forever. They respect each other. And they're just, Tiger's like,

I'm just trying to eat my sandwich. But it was this, the little line. Cover your shit up. It's cold. That's so good. But the line was, I don't wear that cheap Nike shit like you do.

Well, Tiger doesn't wear Nike pants. They're tailor-made, and they just sew a swoosh on them, you know. And Phil knew that, but he was just going to give him a little shot. That's so good. Tom, makes these 1500 a pair

I mean like Frankie alluded to earlier it's just your guys family the decades and decades of huge impact on golf and beyond golf it's really really impressive even just sitting in your office we've been very lucky in our family golf has been so wonderful to us

to have to have what I have in my life and what I've experienced and when you read my book that I gave you the pro I talk about in the 80s when I was down and out and divorced and not a good person, and I was lost. And my brothers and my father saved me.

And my brother Dick, unfortunately, he's not with us anymore. He's the one. So get in your car, come to Houston. I'll find your job. You can live with me. You ain't going out this way, but you're not the oldest, and Dickie was third. And I did.

And I went to work for Dave Marr and Jay Revere, building golf courses, driving bulldozers and stuff. And I can remember the conversation that Dave Mar had. had worked for my dad. Jay Revere had worked for my dad at Wingfoot. Dave Marr was like my big brother because I didn't have a big brother. And he went to work at Wingfoot when he was young. And so I've known Dave my whole life. So Dickie called him and said, hey, Butch he's down and out.

How about we give him a construction job? He said, one thing about Butch, he'll work. He's not afraid to work. And Dave said, oh, yeah, we'll kick his ass. We'll get him back in shape. So I can remember sitting in their office. And the walls were really thin. And Dave is over there talking to Jay Revere, who was actually running, doing the work.

And David was the name behind it. he says look butch butz needs some help he's down and out he's going down the wrong road we need to we need to work him and shape him up and jrbriere said day we don't have a place for him on our crew and i heard dave marce say this well you find a place for him he's claude's son dan you remember what claude did for us do you think claude would have turned us away like that we're who we are because of his dad now let's take care of him and i did i work i started building golf courses for three years driving dozers and shaping greens and tea And I've always been a workaholic. That's what saved me. And it made me miss golf by doing that. And I couldn't wait to get back into it. And that's really, if my brother Dickie hadn't called me, I probably would have, who knows what it would happen to know it.

And here I am today, done what I've accomplished in a pretty short time, really, when you go back to 1980s, say. And it's just because of family. It's just because my family stuck beside me, and they helped me out when I really needed it, when I wasn't listening to anybody. I was throwing in the towel. The beauty of the four of us, Harmon boys, is people, when Dick was alive and the four of us

would play, we'd always go to Wingfoot and play in these various places. They think we hate each other because the needles are beyond belief. They're brothers being brothers. And Billy and I, I'm the oldest and the youngest. We'd always play the two middle ones, and it was brutal, the shit we would say to each other. We would just screw with each other. We'd say we were playing $1,000 one downs, but we're playing no pay, but we're not telling anybody. So we go inside, we're having a beer. You lost

3,000 last time we played a towel. You owe me $4,000, you cheap son of a bitch, and you better start paying it. People, they say, these Harmon brothers, they must hate each other. The beauty of our family was, if any one of us was ever in trouble, the other three were there. We may not have seen each other in two or three years. There, what do you need? What can I do for you? How can I help you?

You look at my brother got cancer, and he was at MD Anderson, and we were all there for him. We were handling everything he needed to handle and stuff. And Billy, You'll love this one. Dickie passed away. Freak accident really is walking pneumonia and didn't know, and he was very young. He's been dead 15 years now.

And we're having a service in a church in Houston. And Dick was loved in Houston. They loved him. Dick was the greatest golf pro. He's great with juniors. I mean, he just had the greatest reputation. And this church was overflowing. There must have been eight or nine hundred inside, another 500 outside.

And we're sitting my brothers and I was sitting on the altars. And I was just distraught because Dick literally saved my life. And I say that in the book. And I couldn't talk. I said, guys, I can't go first. Billy, you go first. You go first. I can't talk.

And I'm sitting there and I just got my head down. Everybody in the church is sad. They're all crying. Billy starts off. He never told Craig and I he was going to say this. And he goes, you know, I know what dad said to Dick when Dick walked into heaven the other day. He looked at Dick and said, Dick, how to what screw up that tag of wood's deal? And I mean, the whole.

church cracked up and then it became what it should have been a celebration of a great guy's life and my head was down and I looked up up with my little brother and he turned around and he went gotcha and I just smiled that's fantastic but that's how we were we were close but not close we were only we grew up together but I left home when I was 18 and stuff you know we're all lived in different parts of the country we're all golf pros with different jobs and stuff and But if one of us needed something, the other three couldn't get there fast enough. And you didn't even have to ask.

You were told. That's what it's all about. You get your ass in your car, you drive to Houston, I'll take care of you. That's just what it's all about. Yeah, family is what it's all about. And our family, golf, is what it's all about for us. Well, yeah, I mean, you guys have an incredible history impact.

Just as us being four fans of the game, I mean, any time, like, Bush Harmon said, what happened? What? Harmon's working with it. It's just like it's impactful. It matters and it carries a ton of weight. And all of you guys and your whole family.

And it's just really cool. It's cool. It's been time with you. Hear these stories. And I mean, I speak for these guys. We appreciate a lot. I admire what you guys do. You bring fun into stuff.

And I like fun. I like having a good time. And that's what I love about your Instagram and your stuff you do and your podcast. They're fun. I mean, it's good shit. People are going to love this. So we appreciate it. Anybody got anything else?

I was just going to say it's great to hear you talk. I mean, I'm lucky enough to have a brother. And thank you for spending the time with us. I mean, it was like truly remarkable and awesome. You're a legend of the game. The fact that you're walking fairways with, you know, Hogan's of the world and everybody, and we got to walk nine holes with you and play a few.

You guys are great. No, but it's just very cool. You never offered me a beer. That's our fault. We were nervous. No, we didn't know what to do. Well, it was a surprise. We didn't know he was going to be out there.

We pulled up to the second T and there's Butch Harmon. It's like, whoa. It was a great day. It really was. Oh, we planned it that way. I didn't want to go to the first Tee. I wanted to ambush you. Yeah.

He said you showed up to the number one handicap. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's fucking bullshit. I think we all just made pars on one, too. Oh, you guys were awesome. Oh, no. Well, we made pars on one.

Oh, yeah. You're on two. You're great on that all. We played the two pretty well, actually, for us. Well, you want to impress the guy. I mean, you did. I'm hard to impress, and you did. All right.

We'll take that. Especially the big man here with that drive. He hit off the tea. Holy shit, he drove it down there where there's just enough room for your ball. And his ball was right there. People aren't going to believe when this video comes out how cool you were with us. And the banter. And it's going to be probably one of our best videos we've ever put out.

I'm just like you guys. I like having a good time. Life is short. I've got a great family. I've got to finally have a great wife. It took me a long time to get there. And Christy and I'll be married 20 years at the end of this year. Congratulations.

I'm a very, very happy person. I've got a wonderful life, a great family. And I love being around golf. Yeah, I'm 77 years old. Be 78 this year. I'm semi-retired, but I still teach a lot. I actually play more now than I usually did because I don't have to work, especially this pandemic, we haven't been able to work very much.

And so I've been playing more golf, and I enjoy it better. And I'm just like you, man. I have days where I just play so bad and I'm so pissed off. And, you know, hell is. with this game. I'm never playing again. What time we're playing tomorrow guy? You just got to keep grunting. Yeah, the grunt works. The grunt works. It does. I put one of them on

Instagram playing with Daniel Kang. You guys may have seen that. It was on the 18-0 at CPC Summerlin. And I went through you know, here's what you got to do. I hit that thing about for me, because I can't carry it 225, 2.30 in the year. I must have hit that one about 275. And I'm I got to keep doing this. That's perfect. Well, you're a legend of the game,

Butch Harmon. We appreciate it very much. And thank you again. My pleasure. And thank you for having me. I love what you guys do. Keep doing it.