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