May 8, 2024 • 42 mins
Claude catches up on the last couple weeks from Australia to Singapore and what he and Brooks' worked on that lead to of BK's win.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's the Son of a Boich podcast. We normally come
to you every Wednesday. Took a couple of weeks off
as I've been traveling and went down to the live
event in Adelaide, was at the live event in Singapore,
and currently recording this in Bangkok.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just here in Thailand.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm opening up a new academy here under my brand,
the Claude Harman Performance Golf brand. I've got one in Dubai,
opening them one here. Really really excited about it, and
it's really cool to get an opportunity to travel. And
I think the last three three weeks for me has
shown me that.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Global golf is.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It's so cool, right And I think there's a lot
of talk about growing the game, all the stuff going
on with live all stuff going on with the PGA
Tour and stuff. But when you get outside the United States,
when you travel, I'm lucky enough to get to do that,
you see that golf is a global game and there
is a passion for golf all over the world. Just
wanted to touch a little bit on the live of
(01:01):
that down in Adelaide. Listen, I know that it's crazy
times right now in golf, right and I know there
are people that are on the PGA Tour side, they're
fiercely anti live.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
There's the live people all of that. Listen.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I've been saying this, if you love golf and if
you want to watch golf, you can watch that anywhere.
You can consume it on the PGA Tour, DP World,
LPGA Champs Tour, Asian Tour Live. You can find all
that anywhere. You can find it on TV, you can
find it online. There were some great players down at
(01:40):
the Adelaide Tournament for Live, and it's kind of become
over the last two years, Lives kind of signature event.
And again, all of my players that I work with,
when I say this all the time, the three players
I work with, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Koepka, Pat Perez, they
made the choice to go to Live. I'm their coach.
I go where they go. So I think a lot
(02:00):
of I think one of the things that I think
it does kind of upset me and it makes me
mad that I think a lot of the To me,
it's just my opinion. A lot of the fiercely, fiercely
anti live people will openly tell you they don't watch,
they don't care, they've never been to an event, so
I try and use the podcast to say listen, make
(02:21):
up your own mind.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But the event Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Has become over the last two years kind of lived
signature event, and the crowds the first year were just
they're unbelievable. And Australia is starved, starved or professional golf, right.
It used to be a lot of players used to
go down there and a lot of players Australian Open.
(02:47):
There's been a rich, rich history down in Australia of
players going down there, but in a number of years
that that just kind of didn't happen. And so I
think one of the reasons why the event is so
so liked and so well attended is it's an opportunity
(03:11):
for players or for the fans to kind of see
some of the best players in the world and they
just don't see that many great players in one place.
The Australian fans get to see Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka,
Phil Mickelson, John Rahm, cam Smith, Bryson, d Chambeau, Wac
(03:34):
o'neman and then a bunch of other players. So for
the Aussie fans, I think it's so well attended because
it is an amazing tournament and it's an opportunity for them.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
To see a lot of great players in one place.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Now, yes, I saw online they were talking, you know,
the live guys. You know there are social accounts where
the live people are going, hey, first time great players
have been down there, And somebody said, yeah, well Jordan
Speith went down in twenty fourteen and won the Australian Open.
I got news for you. Jordan Speith was paid to
go down there, an appearance fee. He didn't go down
(04:11):
there for free. He didn't go down there because his
sole intention was to play Aussie golf. He did what
every great player does, what every great player should be
allowed to do. If you're the reigning Masters US, if
you're a reigning major champion, you can go outside the
United States. They will pay you to come to their event.
(04:33):
That has been going on for over thirty years. That's
not news, right, We've talked about I've talked about this
on the pod Dubai Abu Dhabi Quitar China. Appearance fees
are part of the game, right, So yeah, the live guys,
a lot of them, they got the bag. They got paid.
(04:55):
But that's been going on that's not news. So I
don't care which side you're on. If you love the
PGA Tour, fine.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
If you like live, that's fine. I don't care.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
But you don't have to choose, and you can watch
your golf wherever you want. If you want to watch
great players, if you want to watch John Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Koepka,
Phil Mickelson, Cam Smith, Bryson, you can watch them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
They just play on Live now, right.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So if you don't like that and you don't want
to watch because of that, in my opinion, I says,
I think that says more about you than.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It does about that.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
My job as I've got my own podcast, so I
can say whatever the hell I want. But I think
one of my jobs is I've been to every live
event and I work with the players. So if you
haven't been, if you don't know a lot about it,
or whatever side you're on. The event was amazing. It's
one of the coolest golf events I've been to. The
(05:58):
fans were great, the golf course, the grange. Yes, I'd
love for the tournament to be at Royal Adelaide across
the street, which is unbelievable. I'd love it to be
at Royal Melbourne, but the sand Belt golf courses and
the Grange is kind of old school. I posted a
video on my social and the bunkering in the sand
(06:21):
Belt region in Australia of these golf courses is just
so damn cool, right. The green complexes are cool. The
short game stuff is cool. So it's always great to
go down to Australia and see how cool the golf
courses are because it forces they're tight. If they're firm
and fast, you can run the golf ball. There's so
(06:43):
many different options coming into these green complexes, so it
forces you to kind of be a little bit of
a kind of old school shop maker. So the event
last year was well attended. There was a ton of people.
Fisher DJ he played last year, he played again this
(07:03):
year on the Saturday night. It was amazing. It was
just it felt like felt like a festival at a
golf tournament at night. It was cool. The fans were everywhere,
they were excited to see all these players. You could
see the kids trying to get views of their favorite players.
(07:25):
And then you know the way that live works. You've
got an individual winner every week and you've got the
team format. Cam Smith's team, the Rippers, all Australian. They're
in a playoff with.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The South Africans. That was cool.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
They the Australians ended up winning two man playoff leash
Mark Leishman and Cam Smith. I mean I talked to
Cam in Singapore and he was like, this is one
of the coolest things I've ever done.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right. It was one of the coolest things of his career.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Whether you like that or you don't, Whether you agree
with that or you don't, Cam wh Smith thinks it's
one of the coolest things he's ever done right. So
it was a great event. I couldn't believe how many
people showed up. I mean, they sold more tickets this
year than last year. And it was it was fun.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And for those of the players and the people involved
in Live, it's their biggest event. They don't have any majors, right,
so it's the biggest tournament they had And it was
great and it was cool to go down there, and
I thought it was a fitting end for Cam Smith
and the Rippers to win. They got up on stage
did the shoeye. It was fun and listen. If you
(08:41):
don't like that I'm okay with that. That's that's your choice.
But I think my job and what I try and
do in my podcast is to talk about what's going
on in the game of golf and talk about what's happening.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And it was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we went straight from Adelaide, went to Singapore and
brooks Kepka won last week and listen, I think it
was a big, big win for brooks Kepkah. He did
not He didn't have his best stuff at Augusta. He
said that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
He knew that those of us around him, we knew
that as well.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
He went in there obviously having won the PGA last year,
took a lead on Sunday last year into the final
group with John Rahm, didn't get it done. The Masters
is a tournament that Brook's Death desperately wants to win.
It is what he feels like, even though he's got
(09:42):
five majors now, he will feel at the end of
his career that if he doesn't have a Master's, if
he doesn't have a green jacket, that it will be
something that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
He wants that.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
He's been close twice, right, He's had two second place finishes,
one to nineteen when Tiger won, and then last year
with John Ramwuan. He has the game to win around there.
He knows that he has been so close. He knows
he can win that golf tournament. He didn't have his
best stuff a couple of weeks ago. He was struggling
with his golf swing and struggling with his setup. He
(10:17):
couldn't get comfortable on the range, he wasn't seeing his window.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It was just a really, really weird week.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I think, you know, Brooks was trying to psych himself
up to try and make things happen, and sometimes that
don't just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And you will not find anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
In competitive professional golf that's harder on themselves than Brooks.
I know, having been around him for over a decade
now and worked with him, he demands and expects so
much from himself, and I think that can sometimes come
across in his interviews and his persona and the way
(10:59):
he can himself. I think a lot of people look
at that as maybe being arrogant, as maybe being like
he thinks he's better than everybody else. I just think
he has incredibly high standards of himself. He is incredibly
high standards of all of us. On his team, and
there was a little bit of a reset after Augusta
(11:20):
and a little bit of a refocus, And what we
did over the last two weeks is just get back
down to basics. And that's why I wanted to talk
about this because I think it's something that everyone listening
can can look at in their own game. When Brooks struggles,
ninety nine percent of the time, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Set up related. And I've talked about this on the pod.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Before the ball position can get too far back, his alignment,
his stance can kind of get all all over the place,
and that's what was happening at Augusta. He kept saying
to me on the range. In all of the practice rounds,
in all of the practice sessions, in all of the
warm ups, he had a two way miss. He was struggling.
(12:04):
All of the stuff that we were trying to work on,
that we'd normally work on, didn't work. He was struggling
ball position. He couldn't get comfortable. No matter what we
were trying to tell him, he was just like I
just nothing feels right. And listen, as a player every
now and again, you know, the system doesn't work. They're
not robots, they're not perfect. They're never going to be
(12:25):
perfect as good as they are, as great as they are,
even on the runs that they're on. This historic run
that Scotty Scheffler is on right now playing golf that
we just haven't seen in so long, the amazing, amazing
golf that he's playing right now. Every now and again,
you know, the system doesn't work, it doesn't feel right.
(12:48):
We've seen that with Rory McElroy. When Rory gets on
these big, massive runs where it looks like he's basically
just gonna win every tournament right now, you can see
that Rory's searching. Rory didn't get the result he wanted
it at the Masters. He went out and saw my
dad did a little trying to get a little bit
of a reset. It happens with players, and you know,
there's all these cliches and sports, but one of my
(13:12):
favorites is the only thing that really matters after you
get knocked down is what you do next, because everybody's
going to get knocked down, right, Everybody's going to get
hit in the mouth. Mike Tyson has famously said, everybody's
got a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
Then the plan changes, and I think for Brooks how
much his focus and how much he defines his career
(13:34):
based off of the majors. The Masters was a punch
in the face and so we did a massive reset.
So he came to is Caddy and I Ricky Elliott,
and he said, Okay, we've got to get my set
up right. We've got to get my basics right. We've
got to get my ball position right. We've got to
get my alignment right. So he said to us early
(13:55):
in the week down in Australia, he said, listen, I
want the two of you to nag me and be
hyper focused and hyper vigilant on my ball position, my setup,
my alignment. So when Brooks's ball position gets back in
his stance, he has his strong grip, his hands can
(14:15):
get too far forward and that left arm can get high,
that right arm can get a little bit low, the
shoulders can get a little bit closed.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And what that does is it alters.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
The takeaway to where the takeaway no longer goes outside
and vertical, it starts to get inside. Even though he's
trying to do what he wants to do, what we
want him to do from a swing technique, when that
ball position gets back when his shoulders get too shut.
There's a domino effect. You've heard me talk about this
before on the pod. There's a domino effect of things
(14:47):
that happen. That is the domino that starts to cause
the other things on the downswing. That's the domino his setup,
his ball position, the things that he does before he
hits the golf ball, or is the domino that starts
to push all the other dominoes. So it doesn't matter
what he's trying to do with the backswing and the takeaway,
(15:08):
I'm telling him, get it more in front, get it
more front. We're also looking at the ball position and
he's struggling to get comfortable. So at a major championship,
it's hard to make changes because you know that these
players are going out and having to play at Augusta
like everyone else in the field.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
There was a lot of wind going on. He was
playing in a lot of wins.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So then the ball position, because he's trying to keep
the golf ball down, that's going to be even worse.
So he said to Ricky and I listen, I don't
care if I tell you. I don't want to hear
any more about my alignment. Ball position and set up.
Keep saying it, so this is no joke. Every single
(15:53):
shot he hit in practice, every single shot that I
was with him on the golf course in practice rounds
for the last two weeks, his caddy, Ricky and I
before he hit a golf ball, he would so we
would Ricky and I would tag team him. I'd go
down the line, so I'd stand behind him, kind of
where we see most of the television coverage from where
(16:13):
you're behind and they.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Get the shot tracer.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's what I call down the line, and then Ricky
would go over and stand as if he was looking
at what we would call face on. So every especially
on the range, there wasn't a shot that Brooks was
hitting where he wasn't like saying to Ricky before he
hit the shot, how's my ball position, How's my alignment?
He'd say, how's my alignment? To me? Every single shot.
We used a lot of video. Brooks is a very
(16:36):
visual learner. He likes to see what his body's doing.
He likes to see what his ball position is, how
things are working. So one of the things that I
always tell Brooks has listened, when your shoulders get too closed,
the left arm gets too high, the right arm gets
too low, that elbow kind of tucks down. That's great
if you're trying to hit a draw right. We try
and do that with the amateur. A lot of you
(16:57):
listening are in the position that we're trying to get
Brooks in. Your shoulders are open, that right arm is high.
So I'm sure a lot of people that are trying
to draw the golf ball are being told listen, close
your shoulders more, get that right arm high, tuck that
elbow in, and then on the downswing, try and keep
that right elbow close to your body. Try and swing
(17:17):
more into out, get that path more to the right.
All of that is great if you're trying to hit
a draw. It's not conducive to what Brooks is trying
to do. He's trying to hit fades.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He's trying to.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Hit fades that start left of his target. He's also
trying to hit fades with one hundred and twenty mile
an hour clubhead speed and over one eighty ball speed.
When that system and that process gets off with his speed,
he can get the double miss and he can hit
the golf ball a long way offline. So process and
(17:51):
sticking to the process. He went to every member of
his team who was down there that week, Pete Cowen
and Jeff Pierce, his putting instructor. Come, I was down
there and he said to us, okay, He said to
Ricky as Caddie, Mark Wallace trainer, doctor Arsapaya, who looks
after kind of his kind of team, and then Hamish,
his trainer. He said to all of us, listen, we
(18:15):
said to all of us internally, we've got to get
back to basics, and we've just got to really really
stick to the process. So I spent a lot of
time with the off course team. What is he doing
in the gym? How can we match what he's doing
in the gym with what we're trying to get him
to feel with the golf swing. And it was a
(18:35):
total reset. And he played good in Adelaide the final day,
shot in the sixties kind of I can't remember the
actual number, but played really good. Didn't feel like he
made any putts. Led Adelaide in greens and regulation, which
is a big stat for Books Brooks. When Brooks was
(18:56):
number one in the world and winning majors at a
very fast clip, everyone thought it was his driving. Yes,
Brooks is a good driver the golf ball. Yes, Brooks
hits the golf ball a long way, can hit high
bomb fades, he can dominate with the driver. When Brooks
was number one in the world, nobody really was paying
attention to the fact that he was one of the
best iron players in the game. And the players that
(19:19):
played with Brooks when he was number one in the
world would be like, dude, the guy's iron game is
a joke. So when Adelaide, what we started to see
was number one. We started to see Brooks hit a
lot of fairways right, a lot of fairways for someone
with his speed. Guys like Brooks DJ Rory, they're not
going to hit twelve thirteen fairways right because they're not
(19:41):
hitting a lot of drivers. So based off of how
many drivers he's hitting, the driver was better, the misses
were better, they were less destructive. But the iron game
started to come back. The quality of the strike started
to come back where he was catching it in the
face to come back. And in Adelaide, he started to
(20:02):
hit a lot of shots kind of pin high, not
pin high to two feet five feet, ten feet, pin
high to fifteen twenty feet, but they were quality golf shots.
And then the thing that he said before we got
to Singapore at the end of the week was his
off speed stuff felt normal again. Right, off speed stuff
(20:24):
means when he's trying to instead of hitting eight, he's
going to try and a little three quarter seven. Instead
of trying to nuke or hammer a nine, he's gonna
chip a little bit of an eight. Instead of trying
to hammer a wedge, he's going to three quarter the nine. Right,
So the off speed stuff started to get better as
(20:44):
the setup and the ball position and the process of
what we were doing with all of the basics. Everything
that we kind of did in the last two weeks
with Brooks was all before he hit the golf ball.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Then the domino effect of that allowed a lot of.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
The things that we're trying to work on in his
golf swing somewhat for lack of a better term, fall
into place without him having to think so much about it.
But every shot we were looking at the setup and
he was saying it was kind of a joint, and
(21:20):
he told me, listen, there is probably going to be
a point in the next two weeks where I'm going
to say, listen, I'm tired of hearing about my setup,
he said, I'm telling you and everybody on the team
you have permission if I tell you I'm tired of
hearing about the setup, stay with me, and stay on me,
and keep beating me up about my setup. If the
(21:40):
ball is half a ball, too far back, too far forward,
I want to know if my shoulders are half we're
not measuring, we don't have any three D on the
driving range. But if my shoulders need to be a
little bit more open, he said, tell me they need
to be a little bit more open. If they're a
little bit too closed, tell me they're a little bit
too close. So I think Brooks wanted to take ownership
(22:03):
of that and hold himself accountable for that, but also
he wants to hold us accountable for that as well.
For those of you that watched the live event, Adelaide
went to the first team playoff that live has had.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
There hasn't been a team playoff. There's been a couple
of other playoffs.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Brooks Is won in one of them, DJ's one and
one of them, but there hasn't really been a team playoff.
And the team playoff, I mean, what more of a
fitting playoff in Australia was Cam Smith's live team, Lucas
Herbert Australian, Mark Leishman Australian, Mattie Jones Australian, Cam Smith Australian.
(22:44):
The All Australian team in Australia playoff against the Stingers,
the All South African team. Right, the fans were going nuts.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It was crazy, right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So it was a great finish to the tournament and
everybody was watching. So the locker room in Adelaide was
kind of in you know, on the bottom floor, and
then upstairs where the player dining was was where everybody
was eating TVs and everything like that. So Sunday a
lot of guys are leaving, maybe catching a flight, packing
up everything out of the locker room. So you walk
(23:17):
down a hallway and there was a door on the
right and a door on the left, and the door
on the left there was a gym and the door
on the right was into the locker room. So the
majority of people were either packing up, the caddies are
packing up all the bags, they're putting the club gloves
all in the covers, everything, they're putting everything, they're locking
up everybody that was flying out that night. The locker
(23:37):
room's filled with suitcases and stuff like that. So guys
are showering, they're getting their stuff, they're catching flights. But
the majority of the people had just finished. They knew
there was going to be a playoff. The players, all
the people that are involved in the live teams, the caddies.
I was sitting with waco'nemen and Mito Pereira. We were
grabbing some food afterwards, and the playoff happened. So we're
(23:58):
all sitting and you know, a bunch of players and stuff,
and the playoff was going on. There's a couple holes
in the playoff and everything like that. I was upstairs.
I went downstairs to grab my phone charger out of
the locker, and I went past the gym.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Who's in the gym getting his.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Ass kicked by doctor Ahra and his trader Hamish Brooks Koepka.
I took video of it. Played good that day, shot
in the sixties. Led the week in greens and Regulation,
literally getting the shit kicked out of him by his trainer,
full workout hour. He was at the gym every night
after the rounds. He was working out after the rounds.
(24:36):
He wasn't leaving the golf course till eight o'clock. Listen,
lots of players do this, right, This isn't anything.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That is specific to Brooks.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
People do this in the NBA, people do this in
the NFL, people do this in the Premiership rugby, major
League baseball, Every professional athlete, in every professional sport, there.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Are people that do this. Brooks is one of them.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He was getting his ass handed to him by his
trainer in the gym and he said, I need to
do this. I need to kind of get beat up
to kind of refocus. That's kind of the way that
he operates. He's talked for the last two weeks how
sore he is because he's been getting his ass kicked
in the gym, which he asked for, which he wanted.
(25:22):
But my point is that's how much he wants to win.
That's how important winning is to him. And when he
doesn't win, he beats himself up and he holds himself accountable.
And I took a video of it. I was blown away.
I was like, I didn't even know he's working out.
And I walked in, looked at him, looked at the team.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
They shook their heads. He looked at me, shook his head.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Nobody said anything, and I walked out and we got
to Singapore.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Stay on me on the setup, stay on me on
the ball position, stay on me on the alignment. We
could start to see that things were starting to turn around.
Every team goes through this, right, Every instructor that works
with players goes through this. I've had instructors on the pod.
The hottest instructor in the game right now who's having
so much success, Mark Blackburn.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
He sees this.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You can tell when players have fallen down, when they've struggled,
when they've had to hit the reset button. You can
tell when they're doing the work, when they're putting in
the time, when they're committed, when they're.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Ready to go.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Brooks was ready to go. He wasn't happy with the
way he played Augusta, so I figured Singapore would be
a good week. It's a good golf course, it's a
fun golf course, and the practice sessions were good.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
He said.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Golf was starting to feel for him normal, starting to
feel the club in the places it needed to be,
starting to see the ball start in the windows. He
was hitting it really good in the practice rounds, but
he wasn't making a lot of potts, and he said
after Adelaide, Man, I feel like if I just could
make a few more putts, start to see some balls
(27:05):
go in. The ball striking is there. And I kept
saying to him in Adelaide, I know you're hitting it better.
You know you're hitting it better. You can feel it,
we can see it. You just have to be patient
because the good rounds are going to come. But it's
hard to do that as an athlete. It's hard to
do that as a player. So Singapore was was good
(27:26):
and we were out in the pro am. We did
a nine hole pro am on Thursday, and he played
the back nine and the fourteenth hole. In the fifteenth
hole or right along the water. So fourteenth hole is
part three, water all the way down the left hand side.
Fifteenth hole part four, water all the way down the
(27:46):
right hand side. So in the practice round started on
ten books, pipes it right down the middle, hits it's
about ten feet putt breaks, you know, it's breaking from
right to left. Hits a really good putt, maybe just
a little bit too hard, hits the lip, you know,
(28:07):
lips out, and you could just see him just go, man,
what do I have to do to make a putt?
He changed putters as well in the last month, which
is something that Brooks doesn't really do. He doesn't really
change his equipment. He's won all five of his majors
with the same style of putter, the blade kind of
Scotti Cameron Newport that you know from watching Tiger Woods,
(28:29):
but he's made the decision to kind of go to
a little bit more of a mallet, pretty much the
same putter that Justin Thomas is using. Right, we saw
that with Scotti Scheffler, Scotty Shuffler was struggling a little
bit with his putting. He went to a mallet and
it's helped. Right, We were making some changes to his
putting stroke to where the blade was. He was just
taking a little bit on the inside and then there's
(28:52):
a little bit of a loop. So we were doing
a lot of work to just try and feel like
for him that he wasn't using so much of his
hands that he was trying to feel like was letting
his arms swing a little bit better. So again, same
thing he kept saying, listen, stay on me about how
the putter is going back. Make sure that putter doesn't
get too inside on me. Make sure my ball position
doesn't get too far back on me. The same thing
(29:13):
happens with Brooks's putting, that happens with his full swing.
So we stayed on that. We sent a lot of videos.
Every single night. I'm videoing golf swings during the day,
set up driver, irons, putting ball positions. Every single night,
I'm sending those to him just so he can see them,
(29:33):
and he would send him back to me, say, starting
to look better, starting to feel better. I like this,
still think I could do this better. So we knew
we were kind of trending in a better place. So
practice round and again. Eleventh hole pipes, It hits, it's
about fifteen feet, one eighties, it lits it out again,
(29:54):
and you can see he's get more and more frustrated.
Twelfth hole, part four, hammer's drive down there, hits it
to about five feet, missus thirteen pipes of driver. Again,
this isn't the program. Hits one to about fifteen feet,
lips it out and just lost it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
You could sell.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
He's like, I'm so tired of not making any putts.
I'm working my ass off in the gym. I feel
like I'm doing all the right stuff, I just can't
make a putt. So we got to the fourteenth hole,
which is part three water all the way down the
left hand side, and as we were walking up, we
just talked about it and I said, man, and Ricky
and I is caddy Ricky Ellen, who's been on his
(30:34):
bag since day one, since he started playing on the
PGA Tour, since.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
He's won all these majors, And we just said, listen.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You're the best pressure putter, one of the best pressure
pressure punters I've ever seen. Definitely, Brooks is one of
the best pressure putters I've.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Ever seen in a major championship. He likes that.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
And I said, but when you're putting bad, it's not
always your technique right sometimes, so I said to him, listen,
your stroke looks better, you know, it looks better. Your
stroke is okay based off of what you've been doing.
Maybe it's just the speed and the line and we
(31:15):
just need to dial those in a little bit more.
And I said, listen, halfway through this practice round, you've
hit really good pots. It's not your stroke, it's just, hey,
you hit that one a little bit too hard. Hey
you hit that one a little bit too soft. Maybe
that broke a little bit more than you thought. So again,
that's execution, that's not technique. We're looking at the veils
(31:39):
he would miss. He missed a couple of potts in
that practice early and it's like, can you video my setup?
Can you video the punchy take. We showed it to
him and he's like, dude, that all looks good.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Right. We're like, it looks good.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
You could see him getting more frustrated, and I just
told him, I said, listen. Steph Curry plays for the
Golden State Warriors. One of the best three point shooters
the game's ever seen. He's so good at shooting three
points that a lot of people think he changed the
way the NBA is being played because the NBA is
now a lot of three pointers. He's the best at it.
(32:11):
If he's in the NBA Finals, Game seven, and he
goes from three point land in the first quarter, oh
for seven. And they start the second quarter and he
goes and he misses the first two, and then they
start getting him open looks and he starts passing it
taking shots. Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden
State Warriors, is going to call time out. He played
(32:34):
with Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls he's won championships,
He's going to call time out and pull Steph aside
and say, what the hell are you doing? Keep shooting.
And I said that story to Brooks. I'm like, you've
got to keep shooting. Steph Curry is not going to
stop shooting. He's going to keep taking his shot. And
I said, you just have to be patient and keep shooting.
(32:54):
And we were talking about that on the fourteenth hole.
We talked about it the rest of the round, and
so during his warm up even on Sunday, I took
some videos of his golf swing while he's warming up
and I just said, listen, take a look at this.
This where you are with your seven iron face on.
He's like, yeah, that ball position's good. Showed him one
down the line. I said, yeah, that setup's good. The setup,
(33:15):
we couldn't see that left arm. When Brooks gets a
little bit too closed with the setup, we see too
much of his left forearm from down the line, his
hips get a little bit too closed. In Adelaide, I
put an alignment rod through his belt loops so we
could set up and he could see where his hips
were and we were doing that. That's a great tip
if you're struggling with your alignment with your lower body.
(33:36):
Put an alignment rod through your belt loops and get
that set up, and you'll see where those hips are.
So if your hips are too closed or hips are
too open. So the last thing I said to him
before he went out on Sunday, Man, it's just keep shooting,
keep shooting, and so on. Sunday got off to a
really good I mean, the first round that he played
on Friday, I think it was five under through seven
(34:00):
and started to see some putts go in. One of
the leaders I think he was leading, if not one
of the leaders right near the lead, maybe one back.
And then Saturday, really good round of golf going, but
I think it was then on sixteen he three putted
and from like five feet he lipped one out, which
(34:21):
is what has been happening with his putting. And I
said to the guys on the team, it's going to
be interesting to see how he finishes.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
We're gonna know a lot about where his headspace is
based off of what we see. For the next two holes,
par three and then an easy par five. Right the
par three seventeenth, he made a bad swing, hit it
to the bunker, just got a little bit under it
and then hit it's about seven feet and then lipped
one in for par.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I thought that that was huge. I really did.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Mentally, I thought that that was a really really big deal.
And then Sunday kind of got to lead to about
two shots and then on the fourteenth hole, where in
the practice round on Thursday, his caddie Ricky and Elliot
and I started talking to him about you've got to
stay patient. But I said to him in that practice
round as well when he won the PGA at o'kill,
(35:18):
there's always going to be a point in the round
to where you have to make a putt. You have
to do something right, you have to do something special,
and you're probably going to be faced with if you
want to win the tournament, there's no real other option
other than to make a putt. And at Okill last
year in the PGA, that's what he had. He had
(35:40):
a downhill fast left to right, probably thirteen foot for
par on a par five. He made the pot and
I said to him in the practice round during the
prom I said, were you thinking about your stroke? Then
he said no. I said that was you as the
athlete saying if I want to win this golf tournament.
I've got to will this putt in the hole. Tiger
(36:02):
Woods did that. Tiger Woods told me, and it's funny.
We're going back to Valhalla for the PGA next week.
He told me to get into the playoff against Bob May.
And I think it was two thousand. He had a
putt that he had to make to get into a
playoff with Bob May. He's supposed to crush Bob May.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
He didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
He had to make a putt. I said, in your head,
what are you saying to yourself? And Tiger, I'll never
forget it to you. Tiger said to me. I said
to myself, I want to win another major. If I
want to hoist the Wannamaker, If I don't want to
get into a playoff and try and win this tournament,
there is no other option other than to make it.
And that's what we were trying to say to Brooks. Listen,
you've done this before. You know how to do this.
(36:41):
Turn your brain off and just putt. Just try and
make it, Try and make it. Sometimes we get into
that spell where we're trying not to miss it right,
try and make it.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
The green where we started talking to him about that.
Penn was back left water all the way down to
the right. He hit one to about forty feet, big
break fast right to left, left it about eight feet short,
maybe ten feet short, stood up for par hooped it
right in the center next hole. In my head, I'm
(37:16):
saying to myself, Okay, water on the left right, bunker's
right ball. It's not a long hole. He doesn't have
to pound driver down there. But you make a bad swing,
you're struggling to make a par. He took out his
three iron, roasted one right down the middle of the fairway,
and then stood up and hit a little three quarter
off speed, a little chip.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It was either a.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Wedge or a nine to about twelve feet pin high,
made it, then went to eighteen. Knew he had a lead,
think he had a two shot lead at that point.
Knew that he could take two. They always say, if
you could take two, take two. Didn't hit a great drive,
hit it to the right, had to lay up, hit
one over the green, didn't come down, and then finished
(37:57):
the tournament off by holing probably about a seven foot
birdie putt, which I think was huge.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And I said to him after the round, man he
putted great today and he said, I.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Just turned my brain off. I just quit thinking about
my stroke. I just turned my brain off. I think
that's an important lesson for everyone listening that sometimes you
can overthink it. Sometimes you're trying not to miss it.
You're not trying to make it. Sometimes you're trying to
not hit a bad shot, and you're not trying to
hit a good shot, You're just trying not to hit
(38:29):
a bad one. I think what we saw from Books
in Singapore is kind of the reset that he needed.
He's going to go into the PGA Championship at Valhalla
with a lot of confidence. He's I think he's gonna
play well.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I really do.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
I think I think he learned a lot over the
last month. I think he's done the work. I think
he's put his body through a lot. I think he's
punished himself. I think he's demanded a lot of himself,
demanded a lot from the team around him. And I
think the Masters was the reset he needed. I think
the Masters was a little bit of the reset that
(39:09):
I needed and the team needed. And I think it
just goes to show you, guys, everyone listening. Grip stance, posture, alignment,
the basics, the stuff that no one is making TikTok
Instagram videos, YouTube videos.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
It's not cool, it's not sexy.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's not laying it down, it's not shallowing it out,
it's not all that bullshit. We just went back to
basics with Brooks. We just went back to basics, posture, alignment, grip,
where he's aiming.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That started the dominoes going in the right direction. And
I don't care whether you think it was a statement
when for Brooks or not. I know it was, and
I know he knows it was. It was the confidence
he needed win on liv Listen, if you don't think
the competition's any good, I think that says more about
you than it does about the competition. He's beating some
(40:06):
of the best players in the world, and I really
don't care if you don't think that. I know that
because I see the golf that they're playing, I know
the players he's playing against, and I think it's a
good reset for Brooks. And we'll see what this brings
for the rest of the year. He's got three majors left,
and he believes in his goal this year. He's got five,
(40:30):
He's got three chances left. I know in his head
he's trying to get to eight by the end of
this year because he believes he can get to ten.
He believes he can get to double digits. And I
just thought I would share that story with you that
sometimes you have to hit the reset button. Sometimes you
have to go back to basics. Sometimes you can get
(40:52):
the dominoes to change by the things that you're doing
before you hit the golf ball. So so so proud
of him. I know how hard he works, I know
how hard he wants all of this and a really
really good win for him. And I'm really excited to
get to Valhalla. I'll fly back to the US tomorrow night,
(41:13):
get back on Thursday, and then we will head up
to Valhalla and the PGA on Sunday. Going to do
and record a little PGA preview show which will come
out next week with my dad, Butch Harmon talk about
obviously the favorite Scotti Scheffler. Can he get another major?
The run he's on is historic, I think, I mean
(41:34):
it is. He's playing unbelievable golf. Hopefully get his kind
of take on some of the stuff that he's been
working on.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
With Rory. Is this the opportunity ten years on last major?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Roy One? Was it the PGA Championship at Valhalla twenty fourteen?
And if I told anybody listening that in fourteen Brooks
Koepka would have more majors than Rory, you wouldn't believe it.
Why because you probably hadn't heard of yet, and maybe
he didn't think he was that good and he wasn't
that good at that point. And Rory in twenty fourteen,
(42:08):
I thought by now he'd have ten. That's how good
he is, That's how great of a player he is.
So I think there's a lot of storylines that we
could kind of see aligning at the PGA, and I'm
really excited to get to it. So yeah, two week
break from the pod, but we are back. Can't thank
everybody enough for listening, Rate, review, subscribe wherever you get
(42:30):
your podcast. Son of a Butcher comes to you almost
every Wednesday, but we will definitely see you next week.
It's the Son of a Boich podcast. We normally come
to you every Wednesday. Took a couple of weeks off
as I've been traveling and went down to the live
event in Adelaide, was at the live event in Singapore,
and currently recording this in Bangkok.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just here in Thailand.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm opening up a new academy here under my brand,
the Claude Harman Performance Golf brand. I've got one in Dubai,
opening them one here. Really really excited about it, and
it's really cool to get an opportunity to travel. And
I think the last three three weeks for me has
shown me that.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Global golf is.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
It's so cool, right And I think there's a lot
of talk about growing the game, all the stuff going
on with live all stuff going on with the PGA
Tour and stuff. But when you get outside the United States,
when you travel, I'm lucky enough to get to do that,
you see that golf is a global game and there
is a passion for golf all over the world. Just
wanted to touch a little bit on the live of
(01:01):
that down in Adelaide. Listen, I know that it's crazy
times right now in golf, right and I know there
are people that are on the PGA Tour side, they're
fiercely anti live.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
There's the live people all of that. Listen.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I've been saying this, if you love golf and if
you want to watch golf, you can watch that anywhere.
You can consume it on the PGA Tour, DP World,
LPGA Champs Tour, Asian Tour Live. You can find all
that anywhere. You can find it on TV, you can
find it online. There were some great players down at
(01:40):
the Adelaide Tournament for Live, and it's kind of become
over the last two years, Lives kind of signature event.
And again, all of my players that I work with,
when I say this all the time, the three players
I work with, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Koepka, Pat Perez, they
made the choice to go to Live. I'm their coach.
I go where they go. So I think a lot
(02:00):
of I think one of the things that I think
it does kind of upset me and it makes me
mad that I think a lot of the To me,
it's just my opinion. A lot of the fiercely, fiercely
anti live people will openly tell you they don't watch,
they don't care, they've never been to an event, so
I try and use the podcast to say listen, make
(02:21):
up your own mind.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
But the event Adelaide.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Has become over the last two years kind of lived
signature event, and the crowds the first year were just
they're unbelievable. And Australia is starved, starved or professional golf, right.
It used to be a lot of players used to
go down there and a lot of players Australian Open.
(02:47):
There's been a rich, rich history down in Australia of
players going down there, but in a number of years
that that just kind of didn't happen. And so I
think one of the reasons why the event is so
so liked and so well attended is it's an opportunity
(03:11):
for players or for the fans to kind of see
some of the best players in the world and they
just don't see that many great players in one place.
The Australian fans get to see Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka,
Phil Mickelson, John Rahm, cam Smith, Bryson, d Chambeau, Wac
(03:34):
o'neman and then a bunch of other players. So for
the Aussie fans, I think it's so well attended because
it is an amazing tournament and it's an opportunity for them.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
To see a lot of great players in one place.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Now, yes, I saw online they were talking, you know,
the live guys. You know there are social accounts where
the live people are going, hey, first time great players
have been down there, And somebody said, yeah, well Jordan
Speith went down in twenty fourteen and won the Australian Open.
I got news for you. Jordan Speith was paid to
go down there, an appearance fee. He didn't go down
(04:11):
there for free. He didn't go down there because his
sole intention was to play Aussie golf. He did what
every great player does, what every great player should be
allowed to do. If you're the reigning Masters US, if
you're a reigning major champion, you can go outside the
United States. They will pay you to come to their event.
(04:33):
That has been going on for over thirty years. That's
not news, right, We've talked about I've talked about this
on the pod Dubai Abu Dhabi Quitar China. Appearance fees
are part of the game, right, So yeah, the live guys,
a lot of them, they got the bag. They got paid.
(04:55):
But that's been going on that's not news. So I
don't care which side you're on. If you love the
PGA Tour, fine.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
If you like live, that's fine. I don't care.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
But you don't have to choose, and you can watch
your golf wherever you want. If you want to watch
great players, if you want to watch John Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Koepka,
Phil Mickelson, Cam Smith, Bryson, you can watch them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
They just play on Live now, right.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So if you don't like that and you don't want
to watch because of that, in my opinion, I says,
I think that says more about you than.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It does about that.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
My job as I've got my own podcast, so I
can say whatever the hell I want. But I think
one of my jobs is I've been to every live
event and I work with the players. So if you
haven't been, if you don't know a lot about it,
or whatever side you're on. The event was amazing. It's
one of the coolest golf events I've been to. The
(05:58):
fans were great, the golf course, the grange. Yes, I'd
love for the tournament to be at Royal Adelaide across
the street, which is unbelievable. I'd love it to be
at Royal Melbourne, but the sand Belt golf courses and
the Grange is kind of old school. I posted a
video on my social and the bunkering in the sand
(06:21):
Belt region in Australia of these golf courses is just
so damn cool, right. The green complexes are cool. The
short game stuff is cool. So it's always great to
go down to Australia and see how cool the golf
courses are because it forces they're tight. If they're firm
and fast, you can run the golf ball. There's so
(06:43):
many different options coming into these green complexes, so it
forces you to kind of be a little bit of
a kind of old school shop maker. So the event
last year was well attended. There was a ton of people.
Fisher DJ he played last year, he played again this
(07:03):
year on the Saturday night. It was amazing. It was
just it felt like felt like a festival at a
golf tournament at night. It was cool. The fans were everywhere,
they were excited to see all these players. You could
see the kids trying to get views of their favorite players.
(07:25):
And then you know the way that live works. You've
got an individual winner every week and you've got the
team format. Cam Smith's team, the Rippers, all Australian. They're
in a playoff with.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
The South Africans. That was cool.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
They the Australians ended up winning two man playoff leash
Mark Leishman and Cam Smith. I mean I talked to
Cam in Singapore and he was like, this is one
of the coolest things I've ever done.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Right. It was one of the coolest things of his career.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Whether you like that or you don't, Whether you agree
with that or you don't, Cam wh Smith thinks it's
one of the coolest things he's ever done right. So
it was a great event. I couldn't believe how many
people showed up. I mean, they sold more tickets this
year than last year. And it was it was fun.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
It was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And for those of the players and the people involved
in Live, it's their biggest event. They don't have any majors, right,
so it's the biggest tournament they had And it was
great and it was cool to go down there, and
I thought it was a fitting end for Cam Smith
and the Rippers to win. They got up on stage
did the shoeye. It was fun and listen. If you
(08:41):
don't like that I'm okay with that. That's that's your choice.
But I think my job and what I try and
do in my podcast is to talk about what's going
on in the game of golf and talk about what's happening.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And it was really really cool.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we went straight from Adelaide, went to Singapore and
brooks Kepka won last week and listen, I think it
was a big, big win for brooks Kepkah. He did
not He didn't have his best stuff at Augusta. He
said that.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
He knew that those of us around him, we knew
that as well.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
He went in there obviously having won the PGA last year,
took a lead on Sunday last year into the final
group with John Rahm, didn't get it done. The Masters
is a tournament that Brook's Death desperately wants to win.
It is what he feels like, even though he's got
(09:42):
five majors now, he will feel at the end of
his career that if he doesn't have a Master's, if
he doesn't have a green jacket, that it will be
something that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
He wants that.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
He's been close twice, right, He's had two second place finishes,
one to nineteen when Tiger won, and then last year
with John Ramwuan. He has the game to win around there.
He knows that he has been so close. He knows
he can win that golf tournament. He didn't have his
best stuff a couple of weeks ago. He was struggling
with his golf swing and struggling with his setup. He
(10:17):
couldn't get comfortable on the range, he wasn't seeing his window.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
It was just a really, really weird week.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I think, you know, Brooks was trying to psych himself
up to try and make things happen, and sometimes that
don't just doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And you will not find anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
In competitive professional golf that's harder on themselves than Brooks.
I know, having been around him for over a decade
now and worked with him, he demands and expects so
much from himself, and I think that can sometimes come
across in his interviews and his persona and the way
(10:59):
he can himself. I think a lot of people look
at that as maybe being arrogant, as maybe being like
he thinks he's better than everybody else. I just think
he has incredibly high standards of himself. He is incredibly
high standards of all of us. On his team, and
there was a little bit of a reset after Augusta
(11:20):
and a little bit of a refocus, And what we
did over the last two weeks is just get back
down to basics. And that's why I wanted to talk
about this because I think it's something that everyone listening
can can look at in their own game. When Brooks struggles,
ninety nine percent of the time, it's.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Set up related. And I've talked about this on the pod.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Before the ball position can get too far back, his alignment,
his stance can kind of get all all over the place,
and that's what was happening at Augusta. He kept saying
to me on the range. In all of the practice rounds,
in all of the practice sessions, in all of the
warm ups, he had a two way miss. He was struggling.
(12:04):
All of the stuff that we were trying to work on,
that we'd normally work on, didn't work. He was struggling
ball position. He couldn't get comfortable. No matter what we
were trying to tell him, he was just like I
just nothing feels right. And listen, as a player every
now and again, you know, the system doesn't work. They're
not robots, they're not perfect. They're never going to be
(12:25):
perfect as good as they are, as great as they are,
even on the runs that they're on. This historic run
that Scotty Scheffler is on right now playing golf that
we just haven't seen in so long, the amazing, amazing
golf that he's playing right now. Every now and again,
you know, the system doesn't work, it doesn't feel right.
(12:48):
We've seen that with Rory McElroy. When Rory gets on
these big, massive runs where it looks like he's basically
just gonna win every tournament right now, you can see
that Rory's searching. Rory didn't get the result he wanted
it at the Masters. He went out and saw my
dad did a little trying to get a little bit
of a reset. It happens with players, and you know,
there's all these cliches and sports, but one of my
(13:12):
favorites is the only thing that really matters after you
get knocked down is what you do next, because everybody's
going to get knocked down, right, Everybody's going to get
hit in the mouth. Mike Tyson has famously said, everybody's
got a plan until they get hit in the mouth.
Then the plan changes, and I think for Brooks how
much his focus and how much he defines his career
(13:34):
based off of the majors. The Masters was a punch
in the face and so we did a massive reset.
So he came to is Caddy and I Ricky Elliott,
and he said, Okay, we've got to get my set
up right. We've got to get my basics right. We've
got to get my ball position right. We've got to
get my alignment right. So he said to us early
(13:55):
in the week down in Australia, he said, listen, I
want the two of you to nag me and be
hyper focused and hyper vigilant on my ball position, my setup,
my alignment. So when Brooks's ball position gets back in
his stance, he has his strong grip, his hands can
(14:15):
get too far forward and that left arm can get high,
that right arm can get a little bit low, the
shoulders can get a little bit closed.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And what that does is it alters.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
The takeaway to where the takeaway no longer goes outside
and vertical, it starts to get inside. Even though he's
trying to do what he wants to do, what we
want him to do from a swing technique, when that
ball position gets back when his shoulders get too shut.
There's a domino effect. You've heard me talk about this
before on the pod. There's a domino effect of things
(14:47):
that happen. That is the domino that starts to cause
the other things on the downswing. That's the domino his setup,
his ball position, the things that he does before he
hits the golf ball, or is the domino that starts
to push all the other dominoes. So it doesn't matter
what he's trying to do with the backswing and the takeaway,
(15:08):
I'm telling him, get it more in front, get it
more front. We're also looking at the ball position and
he's struggling to get comfortable. So at a major championship,
it's hard to make changes because you know that these
players are going out and having to play at Augusta
like everyone else in the field.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
There was a lot of wind going on. He was
playing in a lot of wins.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
So then the ball position, because he's trying to keep
the golf ball down, that's going to be even worse.
So he said to Ricky and I listen, I don't
care if I tell you. I don't want to hear
any more about my alignment. Ball position and set up.
Keep saying it, so this is no joke. Every single
(15:53):
shot he hit in practice, every single shot that I
was with him on the golf course in practice rounds
for the last two weeks, his caddy, Ricky and I
before he hit a golf ball, he would so we
would Ricky and I would tag team him. I'd go
down the line, so I'd stand behind him, kind of
where we see most of the television coverage from where
(16:13):
you're behind and they.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Get the shot tracer.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's what I call down the line, and then Ricky
would go over and stand as if he was looking
at what we would call face on. So every especially
on the range, there wasn't a shot that Brooks was
hitting where he wasn't like saying to Ricky before he
hit the shot, how's my ball position, How's my alignment?
He'd say, how's my alignment? To me? Every single shot.
We used a lot of video. Brooks is a very
(16:36):
visual learner. He likes to see what his body's doing.
He likes to see what his ball position is, how
things are working. So one of the things that I
always tell Brooks has listened, when your shoulders get too closed,
the left arm gets too high, the right arm gets
too low, that elbow kind of tucks down. That's great
if you're trying to hit a draw right. We try
and do that with the amateur. A lot of you
(16:57):
listening are in the position that we're trying to get
Brooks in. Your shoulders are open, that right arm is high.
So I'm sure a lot of people that are trying
to draw the golf ball are being told listen, close
your shoulders more, get that right arm high, tuck that
elbow in, and then on the downswing, try and keep
that right elbow close to your body. Try and swing
(17:17):
more into out, get that path more to the right.
All of that is great if you're trying to hit
a draw. It's not conducive to what Brooks is trying
to do. He's trying to hit fades.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
He's trying to.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Hit fades that start left of his target. He's also
trying to hit fades with one hundred and twenty mile
an hour clubhead speed and over one eighty ball speed.
When that system and that process gets off with his speed,
he can get the double miss and he can hit
the golf ball a long way offline. So process and
(17:51):
sticking to the process. He went to every member of
his team who was down there that week, Pete Cowen
and Jeff Pierce, his putting instructor. Come, I was down
there and he said to us, okay, He said to
Ricky as Caddie, Mark Wallace trainer, doctor Arsapaya, who looks
after kind of his kind of team, and then Hamish,
his trainer. He said to all of us, listen, we
(18:15):
said to all of us internally, we've got to get
back to basics, and we've just got to really really
stick to the process. So I spent a lot of
time with the off course team. What is he doing
in the gym? How can we match what he's doing
in the gym with what we're trying to get him
to feel with the golf swing. And it was a
(18:35):
total reset. And he played good in Adelaide the final day,
shot in the sixties kind of I can't remember the
actual number, but played really good. Didn't feel like he
made any putts. Led Adelaide in greens and regulation, which
is a big stat for Books Brooks. When Brooks was
(18:56):
number one in the world and winning majors at a
very fast clip, everyone thought it was his driving. Yes,
Brooks is a good driver the golf ball. Yes, Brooks
hits the golf ball a long way, can hit high
bomb fades, he can dominate with the driver. When Brooks
was number one in the world, nobody really was paying
attention to the fact that he was one of the
best iron players in the game. And the players that
(19:19):
played with Brooks when he was number one in the
world would be like, dude, the guy's iron game is
a joke. So when Adelaide, what we started to see
was number one. We started to see Brooks hit a
lot of fairways right, a lot of fairways for someone
with his speed. Guys like Brooks DJ Rory, they're not
going to hit twelve thirteen fairways right because they're not
(19:41):
hitting a lot of drivers. So based off of how
many drivers he's hitting, the driver was better, the misses
were better, they were less destructive. But the iron game
started to come back. The quality of the strike started
to come back where he was catching it in the
face to come back. And in Adelaide, he started to
(20:02):
hit a lot of shots kind of pin high, not
pin high to two feet five feet, ten feet, pin
high to fifteen twenty feet, but they were quality golf shots.
And then the thing that he said before we got
to Singapore at the end of the week was his
off speed stuff felt normal again. Right, off speed stuff
(20:24):
means when he's trying to instead of hitting eight, he's
going to try and a little three quarter seven. Instead
of trying to nuke or hammer a nine, he's gonna
chip a little bit of an eight. Instead of trying
to hammer a wedge, he's going to three quarter the nine. Right,
So the off speed stuff started to get better as
(20:44):
the setup and the ball position and the process of
what we were doing with all of the basics. Everything
that we kind of did in the last two weeks
with Brooks was all before he hit the golf ball.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Then the domino effect of that allowed a lot of.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
The things that we're trying to work on in his
golf swing somewhat for lack of a better term, fall
into place without him having to think so much about it.
But every shot we were looking at the setup and
he was saying it was kind of a joint, and
(21:20):
he told me, listen, there is probably going to be
a point in the next two weeks where I'm going
to say, listen, I'm tired of hearing about my setup,
he said, I'm telling you and everybody on the team
you have permission if I tell you I'm tired of
hearing about the setup, stay with me, and stay on me,
and keep beating me up about my setup. If the
(21:40):
ball is half a ball, too far back, too far forward,
I want to know if my shoulders are half we're
not measuring, we don't have any three D on the
driving range. But if my shoulders need to be a
little bit more open, he said, tell me they need
to be a little bit more open. If they're a
little bit too closed, tell me they're a little bit
too close. So I think Brooks wanted to take ownership
(22:03):
of that and hold himself accountable for that, but also
he wants to hold us accountable for that as well.
For those of you that watched the live event, Adelaide
went to the first team playoff that live has had.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
There hasn't been a team playoff. There's been a couple
of other playoffs.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Brooks Is won in one of them, DJ's one and
one of them, but there hasn't really been a team playoff.
And the team playoff, I mean, what more of a
fitting playoff in Australia was Cam Smith's live team, Lucas
Herbert Australian, Mark Leishman Australian, Mattie Jones Australian, Cam Smith Australian.
(22:44):
The All Australian team in Australia playoff against the Stingers,
the All South African team. Right, the fans were going nuts.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It was crazy, right.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So it was a great finish to the tournament and
everybody was watching. So the locker room in Adelaide was
kind of in you know, on the bottom floor, and
then upstairs where the player dining was was where everybody
was eating TVs and everything like that. So Sunday a
lot of guys are leaving, maybe catching a flight, packing
up everything out of the locker room. So you walk
(23:17):
down a hallway and there was a door on the
right and a door on the left, and the door
on the left there was a gym and the door
on the right was into the locker room. So the
majority of people were either packing up, the caddies are
packing up all the bags, they're putting the club gloves
all in the covers, everything, they're putting everything, they're locking
up everybody that was flying out that night. The locker
(23:37):
room's filled with suitcases and stuff like that. So guys
are showering, they're getting their stuff, they're catching flights. But
the majority of the people had just finished. They knew
there was going to be a playoff. The players, all
the people that are involved in the live teams, the caddies.
I was sitting with waco'nemen and Mito Pereira. We were
grabbing some food afterwards, and the playoff happened. So we're
(23:58):
all sitting and you know, a bunch of players and stuff,
and the playoff was going on. There's a couple holes
in the playoff and everything like that. I was upstairs.
I went downstairs to grab my phone charger out of
the locker, and I went past the gym.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Who's in the gym getting his.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Ass kicked by doctor Ahra and his trader Hamish Brooks Koepka.
I took video of it. Played good that day, shot
in the sixties. Led the week in greens and Regulation,
literally getting the shit kicked out of him by his trainer,
full workout hour. He was at the gym every night
after the rounds. He was working out after the rounds.
(24:36):
He wasn't leaving the golf course till eight o'clock. Listen,
lots of players do this, right, This isn't anything.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That is specific to Brooks.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
People do this in the NBA, people do this in
the NFL, people do this in the Premiership rugby, major
League baseball, Every professional athlete, in every professional sport, there.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Are people that do this. Brooks is one of them.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
He was getting his ass handed to him by his
trainer in the gym and he said, I need to
do this. I need to kind of get beat up
to kind of refocus. That's kind of the way that
he operates. He's talked for the last two weeks how
sore he is because he's been getting his ass kicked
in the gym, which he asked for, which he wanted.
(25:22):
But my point is that's how much he wants to win.
That's how important winning is to him. And when he
doesn't win, he beats himself up and he holds himself accountable.
And I took a video of it. I was blown away.
I was like, I didn't even know he's working out.
And I walked in, looked at him, looked at the team.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
They shook their heads. He looked at me, shook his head.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Nobody said anything, and I walked out and we got
to Singapore.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Same thing.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Stay on me on the setup, stay on me on
the ball position, stay on me on the alignment. We
could start to see that things were starting to turn around.
Every team goes through this, right, Every instructor that works
with players goes through this. I've had instructors on the pod.
The hottest instructor in the game right now who's having
so much success, Mark Blackburn.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
He sees this.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You can tell when players have fallen down, when they've struggled,
when they've had to hit the reset button. You can
tell when they're doing the work, when they're putting in
the time, when they're committed, when they're.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Ready to go.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Brooks was ready to go. He wasn't happy with the
way he played Augusta, so I figured Singapore would be
a good week. It's a good golf course, it's a
fun golf course, and the practice sessions were good.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
He said.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Golf was starting to feel for him normal, starting to
feel the club in the places it needed to be,
starting to see the ball start in the windows. He
was hitting it really good in the practice rounds, but
he wasn't making a lot of potts, and he said
after Adelaide, Man, I feel like if I just could
make a few more putts, start to see some balls
(27:05):
go in. The ball striking is there. And I kept
saying to him in Adelaide, I know you're hitting it better.
You know you're hitting it better. You can feel it,
we can see it. You just have to be patient
because the good rounds are going to come. But it's
hard to do that as an athlete. It's hard to
do that as a player. So Singapore was was good
(27:26):
and we were out in the pro am. We did
a nine hole pro am on Thursday, and he played
the back nine and the fourteenth hole. In the fifteenth
hole or right along the water. So fourteenth hole is
part three, water all the way down the left hand side.
Fifteenth hole part four, water all the way down the
(27:46):
right hand side. So in the practice round started on
ten books, pipes it right down the middle, hits it's
about ten feet putt breaks, you know, it's breaking from
right to left. Hits a really good putt, maybe just
a little bit too hard, hits the lip, you know,
(28:07):
lips out, and you could just see him just go, man,
what do I have to do to make a putt?
He changed putters as well in the last month, which
is something that Brooks doesn't really do. He doesn't really
change his equipment. He's won all five of his majors
with the same style of putter, the blade kind of
Scotti Cameron Newport that you know from watching Tiger Woods,
(28:29):
but he's made the decision to kind of go to
a little bit more of a mallet, pretty much the
same putter that Justin Thomas is using. Right, we saw
that with Scotti Scheffler, Scotty Shuffler was struggling a little
bit with his putting. He went to a mallet and
it's helped. Right, We were making some changes to his
putting stroke to where the blade was. He was just
taking a little bit on the inside and then there's
(28:52):
a little bit of a loop. So we were doing
a lot of work to just try and feel like
for him that he wasn't using so much of his
hands that he was trying to feel like was letting
his arms swing a little bit better. So again, same
thing he kept saying, listen, stay on me about how
the putter is going back. Make sure that putter doesn't
get too inside on me. Make sure my ball position
doesn't get too far back on me. The same thing
(29:13):
happens with Brooks's putting, that happens with his full swing.
So we stayed on that. We sent a lot of videos.
Every single night. I'm videoing golf swings during the day,
set up driver, irons, putting ball positions. Every single night,
I'm sending those to him just so he can see them,
(29:33):
and he would send him back to me, say, starting
to look better, starting to feel better. I like this,
still think I could do this better. So we knew
we were kind of trending in a better place. So
practice round and again. Eleventh hole pipes, It hits, it's
about fifteen feet, one eighties, it lits it out again,
(29:54):
and you can see he's get more and more frustrated.
Twelfth hole, part four, hammer's drive down there, hits it
to about five feet, missus thirteen pipes of driver. Again,
this isn't the program. Hits one to about fifteen feet,
lips it out and just lost it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
You could sell.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
He's like, I'm so tired of not making any putts.
I'm working my ass off in the gym. I feel
like I'm doing all the right stuff, I just can't
make a putt. So we got to the fourteenth hole,
which is part three water all the way down the
left hand side, and as we were walking up, we
just talked about it and I said, man, and Ricky
and I is caddy Ricky Ellen, who's been on his
(30:34):
bag since day one, since he started playing on the
PGA Tour, since.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
He's won all these majors, And we just said, listen.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
You're the best pressure putter, one of the best pressure
pressure punters I've ever seen. Definitely, Brooks is one of
the best pressure putters I've.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Ever seen in a major championship. He likes that.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
And I said, but when you're putting bad, it's not
always your technique right sometimes, so I said to him, listen,
your stroke looks better, you know, it looks better. Your
stroke is okay based off of what you've been doing.
Maybe it's just the speed and the line and we
(31:15):
just need to dial those in a little bit more.
And I said, listen, halfway through this practice round, you've
hit really good pots. It's not your stroke, it's just, hey,
you hit that one a little bit too hard. Hey
you hit that one a little bit too soft. Maybe
that broke a little bit more than you thought. So again,
that's execution, that's not technique. We're looking at the veils
(31:39):
he would miss. He missed a couple of potts in
that practice early and it's like, can you video my setup?
Can you video the punchy take. We showed it to
him and he's like, dude, that all looks good.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Right. We're like, it looks good.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
You could see him getting more frustrated, and I just
told him, I said, listen. Steph Curry plays for the
Golden State Warriors. One of the best three point shooters
the game's ever seen. He's so good at shooting three
points that a lot of people think he changed the
way the NBA is being played because the NBA is
now a lot of three pointers. He's the best at it.
(32:11):
If he's in the NBA Finals, Game seven, and he
goes from three point land in the first quarter, oh
for seven. And they start the second quarter and he
goes and he misses the first two, and then they
start getting him open looks and he starts passing it
taking shots. Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden
State Warriors, is going to call time out. He played
(32:34):
with Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls he's won championships,
He's going to call time out and pull Steph aside
and say, what the hell are you doing? Keep shooting.
And I said that story to Brooks. I'm like, you've
got to keep shooting. Steph Curry is not going to
stop shooting. He's going to keep taking his shot. And
I said, you just have to be patient and keep shooting.
(32:54):
And we were talking about that on the fourteenth hole.
We talked about it the rest of the round, and
so during his warm up even on Sunday, I took
some videos of his golf swing while he's warming up
and I just said, listen, take a look at this.
This where you are with your seven iron face on.
He's like, yeah, that ball position's good. Showed him one
down the line. I said, yeah, that setup's good. The setup,
(33:15):
we couldn't see that left arm. When Brooks gets a
little bit too closed with the setup, we see too
much of his left forearm from down the line, his
hips get a little bit too closed. In Adelaide, I
put an alignment rod through his belt loops so we
could set up and he could see where his hips
were and we were doing that. That's a great tip
if you're struggling with your alignment with your lower body.
(33:36):
Put an alignment rod through your belt loops and get
that set up, and you'll see where those hips are.
So if your hips are too closed or hips are
too open. So the last thing I said to him
before he went out on Sunday, Man, it's just keep shooting,
keep shooting, and so on. Sunday got off to a
really good I mean, the first round that he played
on Friday, I think it was five under through seven
(34:00):
and started to see some putts go in. One of
the leaders I think he was leading, if not one
of the leaders right near the lead, maybe one back.
And then Saturday, really good round of golf going, but
I think it was then on sixteen he three putted
and from like five feet he lipped one out, which
(34:21):
is what has been happening with his putting. And I
said to the guys on the team, it's going to
be interesting to see how he finishes.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Now.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
We're gonna know a lot about where his headspace is
based off of what we see. For the next two holes,
par three and then an easy par five. Right the
par three seventeenth, he made a bad swing, hit it
to the bunker, just got a little bit under it
and then hit it's about seven feet and then lipped
one in for par.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I thought that that was huge. I really did.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Mentally, I thought that that was a really really big deal.
And then Sunday kind of got to lead to about
two shots and then on the fourteenth hole, where in
the practice round on Thursday, his caddie Ricky and Elliot
and I started talking to him about you've got to
stay patient. But I said to him in that practice
round as well when he won the PGA at o'kill,
(35:18):
there's always going to be a point in the round
to where you have to make a putt. You have
to do something right, you have to do something special,
and you're probably going to be faced with if you
want to win the tournament, there's no real other option
other than to make a putt. And at Okill last
year in the PGA, that's what he had. He had
(35:40):
a downhill fast left to right, probably thirteen foot for
par on a par five. He made the pot and
I said to him in the practice round during the
prom I said, were you thinking about your stroke? Then
he said no. I said that was you as the
athlete saying if I want to win this golf tournament.
I've got to will this putt in the hole. Tiger
(36:02):
Woods did that. Tiger Woods told me, and it's funny.
We're going back to Valhalla for the PGA next week.
He told me to get into the playoff against Bob May.
And I think it was two thousand. He had a
putt that he had to make to get into a
playoff with Bob May. He's supposed to crush Bob May.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
He didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
He had to make a putt. I said, in your head,
what are you saying to yourself? And Tiger, I'll never
forget it to you. Tiger said to me. I said
to myself, I want to win another major. If I
want to hoist the Wannamaker, If I don't want to
get into a playoff and try and win this tournament,
there is no other option other than to make it.
And that's what we were trying to say to Brooks. Listen,
you've done this before. You know how to do this.
(36:41):
Turn your brain off and just putt. Just try and
make it, Try and make it. Sometimes we get into
that spell where we're trying not to miss it right,
try and make it.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
The green where we started talking to him about that.
Penn was back left water all the way down to
the right. He hit one to about forty feet, big
break fast right to left, left it about eight feet short,
maybe ten feet short, stood up for par hooped it
right in the center next hole. In my head, I'm
(37:16):
saying to myself, Okay, water on the left right, bunker's
right ball. It's not a long hole. He doesn't have
to pound driver down there. But you make a bad swing,
you're struggling to make a par. He took out his
three iron, roasted one right down the middle of the fairway,
and then stood up and hit a little three quarter
off speed, a little chip.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It was either a.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Wedge or a nine to about twelve feet pin high,
made it, then went to eighteen. Knew he had a lead,
think he had a two shot lead at that point.
Knew that he could take two. They always say, if
you could take two, take two. Didn't hit a great drive,
hit it to the right, had to lay up, hit
one over the green, didn't come down, and then finished
(37:57):
the tournament off by holing probably about a seven foot
birdie putt, which I think was huge.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
And I said to him after the round, man he
putted great today and he said, I.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Just turned my brain off. I just quit thinking about
my stroke. I just turned my brain off. I think
that's an important lesson for everyone listening that sometimes you
can overthink it. Sometimes you're trying not to miss it.
You're not trying to make it. Sometimes you're trying to
not hit a bad shot, and you're not trying to
hit a good shot, You're just trying not to hit
(38:29):
a bad one. I think what we saw from Books
in Singapore is kind of the reset that he needed.
He's going to go into the PGA Championship at Valhalla
with a lot of confidence. He's I think he's gonna
play well.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I really do.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
I think I think he learned a lot over the
last month. I think he's done the work. I think
he's put his body through a lot. I think he's
punished himself. I think he's demanded a lot of himself,
demanded a lot from the team around him. And I
think the Masters was the reset he needed. I think
the Masters was a little bit of the reset that
(39:09):
I needed and the team needed. And I think it
just goes to show you, guys, everyone listening. Grip stance, posture, alignment,
the basics, the stuff that no one is making TikTok
Instagram videos, YouTube videos.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
It's not cool, it's not sexy.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's not laying it down, it's not shallowing it out,
it's not all that bullshit. We just went back to
basics with Brooks. We just went back to basics, posture, alignment, grip,
where he's aiming.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
All of that.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That started the dominoes going in the right direction. And
I don't care whether you think it was a statement
when for Brooks or not. I know it was, and
I know he knows it was. It was the confidence
he needed win on liv Listen, if you don't think
the competition's any good, I think that says more about
you than it does about the competition. He's beating some
(40:06):
of the best players in the world, and I really
don't care if you don't think that. I know that
because I see the golf that they're playing, I know
the players he's playing against, and I think it's a
good reset for Brooks. And we'll see what this brings
for the rest of the year. He's got three majors left,
and he believes in his goal this year. He's got five,
(40:30):
He's got three chances left. I know in his head
he's trying to get to eight by the end of
this year because he believes he can get to ten.
He believes he can get to double digits. And I
just thought I would share that story with you that
sometimes you have to hit the reset button. Sometimes you
have to go back to basics. Sometimes you can get
(40:52):
the dominoes to change by the things that you're doing
before you hit the golf ball. So so so proud
of him. I know how hard he works, I know
how hard he wants all of this and a really
really good win for him. And I'm really excited to
get to Valhalla. I'll fly back to the US tomorrow night,
(41:13):
get back on Thursday, and then we will head up
to Valhalla and the PGA on Sunday. Going to do
and record a little PGA preview show which will come
out next week with my dad, Butch Harmon talk about
obviously the favorite Scotti Scheffler. Can he get another major?
The run he's on is historic, I think, I mean
(41:34):
it is. He's playing unbelievable golf. Hopefully get his kind
of take on some of the stuff that he's been
working on.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
With Rory. Is this the opportunity ten years on last major?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Roy One? Was it the PGA Championship at Valhalla twenty fourteen?
And if I told anybody listening that in fourteen Brooks
Koepka would have more majors than Rory, you wouldn't believe it.
Why because you probably hadn't heard of yet, and maybe
he didn't think he was that good and he wasn't
that good at that point. And Rory in twenty fourteen,
(42:08):
I thought by now he'd have ten. That's how good
he is, That's how great of a player he is.
So I think there's a lot of storylines that we
could kind of see aligning at the PGA, and I'm
really excited to get to it. So yeah, two week
break from the pod, but we are back. Can't thank
everybody enough for listening, Rate, review, subscribe wherever you get
(42:30):
your podcast. Son of a Butcher comes to you almost
every Wednesday, but we will definitely see you next week.
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