Fresh off his first Masters since 2019, Butchie is back and breaking down all things Augusta! He doesn’t hold back as he shares more about his catch up with Tiger Woods, thoughts on Scottie Scheffler’s hot streak and the biggest takeaways for the rest of the season.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's episode fifty. The Big five oh of Off Course
with Claude Harmon comes to you every Wednesday Postmasters week
and who better talk about it my dad butch arm
And he was there, came back out of retirement. Uh,
first time he's been to Augusta since two thousand and
nineteen he was doing commentary for British Telvin Sky Sports.
So it'll be fascinating for all of you to listen
(00:30):
to all the things that he saw and get his takes.
You always know if Butcher's on the pod, you're gonna
get the hot takes. Before we jump in, let's take
a second to talk about our friends at Cobra Golf
coming off last week in Augusta. You know, a bunch
of you are ready to get out there and tee
it up for the first time in a while. But
before you do, you should check out the new Cobra
(00:52):
l T d X drivers. There's the l t d
X l S driver, with the LS standing for low Spin.
It's their lowest spinning driver designed for skilled players with
fast clubhead speed. There's also the ltd X Max driver,
which is the most forgiving in the lineup. They're both
really good you've heard me talk about them all season.
(01:14):
You will see a bunch of the Cobra guys on
tour loving it. You can check them out at Cobra
golf dot com, Backslash ltd X. And now let's get
to the interview with Butch Harmon. So my guest today
is Butch Harmon. Dad. I thought, seeing as we just
got through the Masters, Um, there's a lot to unpack
(01:37):
in this. Um, I mean it was. It was fun
to watch you were there doing commentary for Sky Sports. Um,
first time you've been back at the Masters since. On
a personal note, first time you've been back since two
thousand and nineteen. Um, semi retired. Now what what did
you enjoy being back? Yes, and no. I always love
(01:58):
going to the Masters. Obviously it would be a full place.
Uh you know it was. That's probably the last TV
spot I'm gonna do. You'll be the first one to
hear that I doubt whether I'll do anymore. It was
a little much for me now that I've gotten to
be almost seventy nine years old. I was pretty worn
out at the end of each day and really tired
(02:18):
when I got home late last night. So, uh yeah,
but you gotta love it. I mean, it's the Masters.
It's a great place. I've been going there in my
whole life, So I enjoyed that part of it. But
you know, the last two I've actually done from right
here in my office at home. If they let me
do that, hell, I do every effect. You were there
working um with your boy Harold Varner. The third you
(02:39):
must be proud of. How long you tell me how
long you've been working with Harold? Oh my gosh, we've
been about seven eight months. He's playing. It came about
because he's friendly with Daniel Kang, and he asked Daniel
Kang if if he thought I would help him, and
she said, well, I ask him if I give you
his number, and she did, and I said, sure, come
on out. He is a joy to be around. He's
(03:00):
a joy to work with. He struggled on Saturday and
ADDI and Nosta reminds me a little tiger, would you
know how Tiger says he hates to swing and a
rain jacket and all that. And because Harold swing is
kind of short and a little quick, he felt really
locked up and he just never got any freedom. And
I said, well, why the heck didn't you just take
it off like in between shots. We saw Scotty Scheffer
(03:22):
putting the vest on and off and he goes, you,
I didn't think of that. I'll do that next time.
But you know he finished finished strong. He bought you
the last hole for sixty nine. So he played well.
His caddie Rice, he said, he said to me this morning,
I'm in Hilton Head and I saw him. He said,
your old man is unbelievable. He said. He said, Harold said,
but you want to talk to me on Sunday. He said.
You went right to him and said, okay, what the
hell happened tomorrow? Yesterday? Yeah, I said to him, I
(03:44):
let's talking about this two way miss It was funny called.
I texted him and I said I'll be you know
he played at eleven. I said I could be on
the range of ten waiting for you. And he came
up and says, well, I knew when you said you'd
be on the range you had something to say. I said, no,
I just got a question, what the hell's up with
the two way miths? That's exactly that's exactly what he's
Catty tol him the sport, he said. Harold came up,
he said, Butch, he said he wanted to see me,
(04:05):
and he said, I knew it wasn't gonna be good.
It wasn't that it was bad. I was just I
just needed his feedback, you know. I mean I saw
him out there and he was struggling hit in both ways,
and he had a good warm up on the range
and stuff. So you know it goes you get out
there and you get the heat of battle, and you know,
he was blaming it on the clothes. Okay whatever. You know,
it could never be anybody, anybody's fault, but the clothes. Um.
(04:28):
What this run that Scotty shufflers on? I mean, this
is this is an unbelievable run of golf. This kid
is on. There's no doubt about it. You know that.
We talked about it on our Sky broadcast after and
they said, who does you remind you? Are? What what
player does he remind you? And I said, Well, one
of the things I like about him, and one of
(04:48):
the things that Randy Smith has done so well with
him because he's he's coached him ever since he was
a junior golfer, is he let he's let him own
his own swing, which is something you and I believe
a hundred percent in but the person, and he reminds
me of the most. You're gonna be surprised as Jack
Nicholas if you watched him go about his business the
way he went about and no highs, no lows, very
(05:08):
much on an even keel, didn't get over excited when
he did something good, didn't get over excited or upset
when he did something bad. He just stuck to doing
what he does best. And that that was one of
Jack Nicholas's greatest secrets, that the last shot never happened.
Un let's just go forward. And I thought Scottie showed tremendous,
tremendous confidence in his own ability. And it was very
(05:29):
interesting when you saw his interview. He said that Saturday
night and Sunday morning he wasn't even sure that he
would be able to handle it. That's how up tidy was,
but you'd never know it by looking at him. You
mentioned Randy Smith, who's been his long time only coach.
Randy's been coaching him since he was a junior. Used
to go to Royal Oaks and and see him in
Dallas Um. Randy's kind of going on record on this
(05:52):
run that Scotty's been on and talking about that. He
thinks a lot of instructors take away young kids footwork
and they plant their feet on the ground and it
takes it away. Scotty's footwork reminds me a lot of
the right foot is exactly what Greg Norman used to do.
And I think when people look at his feet and
(06:13):
they're moving around a lot, he also does a little
bit dad what the long drivers are doing. Now. It's
not like he's going up on his toes. I think
that's the one thing that people need to realize when
they look at Scotty's footwork. He's not kind of going
up on his toes, which means that lower bodies moving closer,
that right foot slides back and then he gets very
much into his heel. But Randy is very much like yourself.
You know, Randy's had a great career. He has worked
(06:34):
a lot of players, justin Leonard, I mean, did a
fantastic job in coaching. But I love, like you said,
he's got a little bit of a kind of a
unique old school move. You know, we're in in the
days where everybody's trying to get the left wrist flat
and get that club face because it's a little bit
open at the top. The follow through looks sometimes a
little crazy. But I think Randy, like yourself, realized that
(06:57):
that you can you can mess it up, you can out,
you can take the greatness out. And you've always said
to me that that great coaches don't necessarily change a
ton of stuff. They add things. Um, when you look
at that move, it might look like it's kind of
all over the place. Was very very repeatable, and he
(07:18):
hits it miles too. Well. You you just said the
right word. Repetition. God is a game of repetition if
you can make the same swing every single time. Look
at the Hall of Fame. If you go to the
Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, you'll see some bizarre
looking swings in there, but they all worked. The beauty
about Randy did it. And what my dad has always
told me, and what I've told you is never take
(07:39):
with someone does naturally away. Just make it better because
it's always going to come back in. You know, in
the modern the modern every year there seems to be
some kind of slogan or some kind of saying, you know,
now it's use the ground for its ground force. It's
got to use ground. For I've been walking on the
ground for seven eight years old. You think I'm not
using the freaking ground? And you kid me, what do
(08:00):
you think I'm elevated trying to hit balls. I mean,
it's just it's unbelievable. The thing that I loved about
what he does. He's got a lot of old school
movement in him. Clubs a little in and he comes
out over just a little because he's a fader and
that's why the cup faces open and he can hit
a release fate and you know his his bad shot
is when he gets a little quick from the top
and he hits that little poll. He did that when
(08:21):
he was on eighteen on Saturday. You know that's in there.
But I mean, the guy, he hits it far too.
He's not short. He can vomit out there, but he
puts beautifully. I think he led if you looked at
the numbers. I didn't realize this, but Paul McGinley told
me this in our broadcast on Sunday. He led every
stat He was number one in every stat driving the
(08:44):
fairways closer to the whole approximity strokes game putting. I mean,
that's impressive if you think about it. And six months ago,
nobody who knew the guy, who the guy was. We
all knew who he was because we knew how good
he was. He knew it was just a matter of
time that he would get things going. But now that
he's got to go, and I mean, he's on a
tiger road right now, this is impressive. I thought that
(09:05):
shot he hit it on eighteen where he got he
hooked it off the tea on Saturday night. Um, he
gets a good break, he gets the drop, but people
don't realize one how far back he was and how
much uphill that that hole is to get it all
the way back. There was just an enormous effort and
a hell of a shot. Well I think I think
(09:26):
the number was about twenty eight something like that. He
was way back and he hit a five iron. I
believe what the club I thought. I heard Test Scott say,
And if you're watching on TV like we were doing TV,
I was doing the commentary, what had happened? The shot
tracer was off, It looked like he was going to
the right and all of a sudden you see the
ball landing right by the whole. I said that the
interesting thing was called when he took his drop. Before
(09:48):
he even dropped it, he was trying to look at
would he be able to make a swing? Was the
tree there? You know, he's looking at his back, didn't
have a club, but he's trying to make a swing.
And then he took his two club links and he
got his two club links, which is total legit. It
was two perfect comblings because the rules rules, and fish
right was right there and made him do it two
times he did. And he could clear out a spot
of the pine needles because that you're allowed to do that.
(10:10):
And he put it there, and as he said in
his interviews, gotta got him a great yardage and he
could make a full swing at it. Now. Was he
trying to hit him right at the flag and let
it carry there? Who knows. He was trying to get
it out of there the best he could. And he
just absolutely knoked this five iron up hill two over
two twenty yards like it wasn't even there. And and
and that day it was so cold, the air's cold,
(10:32):
the ball's not going there. It was a hell of
a shot. Um. You did you you watched the Wryder Cup.
You did the Wryder Cup for sky Um. How important
do you think a win in a team competition for
a rookie like Scotty Shuffer who had been close before.
A lot of people have thought that, you know, he
was going to be a kid that was going to win,
it was just a matter of time. But to take
(10:52):
down John Ram and the singles in that environment, because
I was there and you could see the team rally
around him, do you think that is a huge, huge
part of the stepping stone that's helped him go on
this massive run. You could make the case that he
was the star of the Ryder Cup, that he was phenomenal,
he won points, that he was a rookie. Uh, this
(11:15):
kid has been good for a long time. This this
isn't so it's surprising that he got the number one
in the world as quick. I will say that he
got the number one in the world, I think quicker
than Tiger Woods did. And that's impressive alone. That might
be the only thing somebody's passed Tiger Woods on. But
I'm not surprised that he won the Masters. That he's
won four of what his last seven or eight tournaments
(11:37):
is pretty dog gone impressive, especially the way he did it. Yeah,
I mean if if we go through and just look
at so they win the Ryder Cup. He misses the
cut in Vegas, thirty eight out in the second Vegas,
finishes fourth at Majacoba, second in Houston, then fifty seven
at the RSM, second at Tiger's event in the Bahamas,
(12:00):
a fountain in Palm springs in um San Diego, and
then wins Phoenix, seventh in l A, wins a p
I UMT five that the players and wins the match
play and the Masters. So I guess the question is
I heard Steve Sans asked this question. Is he a
(12:20):
great player or is he just on a just serious heater? Well,
first of all, it's the private one. Was the fifties
something that that the players? What happened that week? Did
he get some bad food or something? I would say
that Scotty after the way I describe him, I wouldn't
say he's the type player to say that he's the
(12:41):
best driver in the world. He's the best iron player
to the best what he is. He's really good at everything.
He doesn't really have a weakness. Uh, well, he's on
a run right now. That's unbelievable. They really only guys
like Tiger Woods get on runs like this. Whether he
can continue that, I don't see any reason why he can't.
He has a wonderful demeanor, he has a wonderful work ethic,
(13:03):
He's got a great coach and Randy Smith. I mean
he yeah, right now, he's got everything going for him.
Everything's going his way. I mean, he could have lost
that ball in the a T poll on Saraday and
who would have known what would have happened. There's a
lot of what ifs that you can go into it,
but the bottom line is he's winning these tournaments and
in this day and age, look at look at the
top ten players in the world right now. It's got
(13:25):
number one and you have Cam Smith. They're the only
two that I won a tournament this year. John rom
hadn't won a tournament. Justin Thomas had one tournament. Mark
Howa hasn't want to turn him hasn't want to turn.
We can go down the list as far as you
want to go. That alone is impressive that he's way
up there. Abong all of these now is just gonna
happen every week. Well, let's just wait and see. He's
(13:49):
made ten million dollars and there's twenty events left on
the PGA tour. About that? How about Ted Scott as caddy?
You think it's a good mood for him? How much
he's made. He says he and Bubba Slip split up.
He didn't think he was going to caddy him. I
would be a lot of people don't know. Ted Scott's
a good players, scratched goff for I mean, he could play.
It's not like he doesn't know what he's talking about,
(14:10):
you know. And that that ends, and all of a sudden,
Scotty Scheffer talks him into coming back and working for him,
which was a great move for Scottie. And Gosh was
here comming factor out there too, and Ted Scott, I mean,
he gets a lot of ink about it, but I
was very impressed with the way he handled it. And
you're talking about how much money steffords when how about
that ten percent? About those winds? Any too chevy either, Claude.
(14:30):
You know, I was talking to a couple of caddies
this morning and we were talking about Ted Scott and
they said, listen, I mean the heater that he's been on,
anybody could have probably caddy for him. But all the
coddies today said the job that Teddy Scott did getting
him around Augusta National having caddy for Bubba for the
two tournaments to two times he one here, I thought,
I thought Teddy did a great, great job. Well. Saturday
(14:53):
I think was the Italian one for me because you
know how cold and windy it was. And I watched him,
I think three different times on broadcast call him off
and shot and say, hold on a minute, it's gusting.
Let's just let the gusts go away, and he put
the club back and they'd go back and forth. He says, Okay,
we're ready to go. You've got the right number, you
got the right shot. We're good, let's go. And a
normal caddy sometimes wouldn't do that. They'd be afraid to
(15:15):
call the guy off. That's what makes Steve Williams of
the world, the Jim Bones Mackay of the world, the
Billy Fosters of the world, the upper echelon of caddies.
This is what makes them so good because they have
the confidence in their player that the player understands what's
going on and he could call him off on certain things.
I saw him doing on a level on Saturday when
(15:35):
he got he was just about to play and he
got hit with a gust and Ted Scott said, hold on, man,
we're getting gusted. Let's just let it come by. That's
a great caddy. And as you said, he's won twice
with Bubba there. I think I heard him in an
interview say that was his fourteenth Masters. I don't know
who the hell the other guys where he was caddying for,
but he knows that golf course. It's I mean, I
(15:56):
don't think people when they're watching golf that aren't in
the you know, aren't close to players like you and
I are, and and the caddies are. That's not an
easy thing to do. As you said, your players in
the zone. He's getting ready to go on the twelfth hole.
It's a difficult situation as well to have the guts
and the balls religion to say, hey, listen, we gotta
we gotta take a look at that. Um. I don't
(16:17):
think caddies that when they do do that, get enough
credit for. That's a tough call to make. And you know,
and I was done about number eleven, and we talked
about number twelve. He just watched the guy hitting the
water get a birdie eleven and started sneaking back up
on him hitting the water, and he got a lucky
break there, Caude, because I mean his ball went up
into these alias and came rolling back out of there. Yes,
(16:38):
he made a bogey, but it was a decent bogeye
And you know in the bogie he made on Sunday
night on the last hold a lot of times, and
you and I talked about this a lot, especially in
major championship. There's such thing as a great bog. He
made the greatest bogie of all time on on twelve,
and then what he did on eight team to make
a part and bogie after the drop. You know, to
(17:01):
think about where he was over the green. We had
just seen Tiger Woods and Justin Leonard back there and
they pitched it and they ended up going all the
way down to the front of the green. He putted it,
and I think Ted Scott had a lot to do
with that. So there's a lot of things that have
to happen. Caddy is a huge asset, but the player
has to believe in the caddy and for this player
(17:21):
caddy relationship to work that quick, they haven't been that
many tournaments together. I think it's tells you what a
great Caddy said Scott is excuse me, and what a wonderful,
wonderful players Scotty Chef for his um Cam Smith. How
impressed are you with this kid? I mean, I really
(17:43):
like his game. Well, he's he's hard to look at
with the with the lack of mustache, and I don't
know what that thing is hanging out of the back
of the hat. I wish he'd put in a ponytail
or something. That's my god, that's awful. But this kid
is impressive. I mean what he did at the Players
Championship after hitting in the water, trying to lay up
and come back and bridge and stiff, I mean, he
put himself right back. He comes right out berdie in
(18:05):
the first two holes. Boom boom boom. Wow, here we go.
Game on. Then they both hit it way left on three,
which was very surprising out of both of them, and
they're getting drops away from the big scoreboard over there,
and both of them hit it up and came back
down and Cheffer got to hit first and he freaking
holds him. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're thinking he's
gonna make six here and you know, and then all
of a sudden things changed, and all of a sudden
(18:26):
here comes Smith again. And the birdie out eleven was important,
But even more important was he ran in at fifteen
footer or whatever it was for birdie. Cheffer stood with
a ten footer they had for part and made it.
And then the shot on twelve, he was from the
camera angle, you could see he was aiming at the flag.
He was not going to hit it into the middle
of the green like they tell you, but it didn't matter.
(18:47):
He hit it so bad it wasn't gonna get over
the lake. If he was aiming at the bridge. It
wasn't try to kid over the lake. He he just
made a bad swing at the wrong time. You know,
we've seen over the years that so, I mean, I
always think the story of the show is his wach
the winner of the golf tournament, and it's Augusta National.
The golf the golf course is the star of the
(19:08):
show every single year. On the twelfth hole, I mean,
it's he's hitting a nine iron. It's you. You you
played there about what about month and a half maybe two,
I mean, and and you know that on Sunday if
you go at that pin and you don't execute and
hit the absolute perfect shot, you're gonna hit it in
(19:29):
the water. Why do you think every single year on
that whole we see this kind of drama. Well, Cam,
it just made a great birdie on eleven, which is
a whole. It's a hell of a lot harder than
the twelve best damn sure. The beauty of the twelve pole.
It just shows you that these architects and make these
part three, two fifty yards. It doesn't matter. Just thing.
(19:50):
I think it was playing one sixty on the under
sixty yards on Sunday. Now the wind comes down thirteen,
it swirls around in there and goes like this. And
the key is if you watch the old timers, they
would always look over their left shoulder and they look
back at the flag on eleven. And there was a
great view on on TV. I don't know if it
(20:11):
went out in America that we had that we could
see it. And when they were playing that whole, we
could see a picture of the flag on twelve and
in the picture were right over to eleven green and
they're going in two different directions. I mean, it's a
tough shot and the hardest part in the world is
to be the first guy up, because the first guy
up has got the best chance for for a disaster.
And unfortunately it happened. Uh Tiger Woods made ten. There
(20:34):
it's last time you played it until this week a
freaking ten. Kidding me, I mean, anything can happen on
that whole Okay, let's take a quick break and want
to thank our partner Elijah Craig. If you had a
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(20:55):
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(21:16):
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with the code Golf Mag five. Of course, with Claude Harmon,
He's brought to you by Elijah Craig. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Bardstown, Kentucky.
Alcohol by volume Elijah Craig reminds you to think wisely,
drink wisely. I didn't see it, but um, somebody said
(21:41):
they saw it on TV that you were on the range.
Saw Tiger. You gave him a hug. What did he say? What? Um? What? What?
He same? He came and I saw him walking over.
I hadn't seen him all week, and I saw him
walking over from the chipping Green. I was on the
punning Green with Harold. I went over. I just and
he stuck his hand out to shake hands. I said,
the hell that give me a hug. Man, it's so
(22:02):
happy to sue you. I said, number one, I'm just
happy that you're here, that you're getting healthy. That and
then I said to him that you're even still alive
because fifteen months ago that wreck could have killed him.
He could have lost his leg, he could have fixed
his leg and never walked again, never played golf again.
And we just had a wonderful little, you know, one
or two minute conversation and he was great. I'm not
(22:25):
gonna go into everything we talked about. It was great
to see him. Uh, you know, everybody. It's funny how
people are. They said, well, you know, Scottie chefferd one
to term it, but it was more of the Tiger
Wood show. Look, Tiger Woods drives the needle. He's the man,
has been the needle for twenty five years, twenty six years.
He's the man. When if he's playing, there's gonna be
(22:46):
a lot of stuff about him. And they say, well,
there's too much Tiger on TV. But here's here's the thing.
People don't realize. TV ratings are driven by certain superstars.
He's the one that drives it the most. In golf,
you have all the people that love Tiger Woods, and
then you have all the people that don't like Tiger
was for whatever reason that is. But guess what they're
all watching and they all want to see what happens
now for him to make the cut. I thought it
(23:07):
was phenomenal. I didn't think he'd be able to walk
seventy two holes, especially, but he opens with seventy one
one at a part are you kidding me? And then
on Friday he gets off to a terrible start, what's
the three over? After four and and brings it back.
I mean, it was very impressive. You could see on
the weekend that he was labored. It was very difficult. Uh.
(23:29):
You know Tiger not as well as I do, but
you know that he has a tremendous threshold for paint pain.
I can't tell you. I saw him in tournaments for
the sprained ankle, and he would just take it up
so tight. There was hardly any blood going down there
because he didn't want anybody to see him limping. When
it was all over with yesterday, he was really limping
bad trying to get to the Scores building over there
(23:50):
because he was worn out. I mean, heck, yeah, I'm old,
but I couldn't walk seventy two holes around here and
I got two good legs. Um. He said to Carl
Robinson what she was doing some work for Sky that
he kind of let out of the bag that he
is going to play the Open Championship, which is the
one tournament I thought. I didn't think we'd see him
at Augusta. Um, but I figured we would see him there. Um.
(24:13):
That's not a hundred and fiftieth anniversary. He's won there before.
That is going to be so cool to see him
at that tournament. And hopefully the body's in better shape
by that point. Well, I'm with you. I I really
was surprised he played at Augusta. I knew when he
was there, and all of a sudden we didn't know
until Thursday morning if he was gonna te if when
(24:34):
he teed off, I knew that he felt that he
could walk and number. When you know him, he's not
gonna play us. He feels like he can compete, and
for for a while there he competed quite nicely. Southern
Hills the next one that PG. That's a tough course.
It's hot and humid. There, there's up and down hills. Uh.
St Andrews is relatively flat. There's a lot of humps
and bumps and stuff. If he gets some funky live.
(24:55):
The only thing concerns me about St. Andrews if he
gets into HU on Sunday and let's just say he's
coming up the eighteenth hole, tied for the lead and
they left ten thousand people in and he's got to
get through the gallery. Somebody can bump into him, but
knock him over. Please don't let that happen. Early in
the week, I thought the golf swing looked really, really good.
(25:18):
I mean, I thought he had the golf club in
a really good position. You and I were talking about that.
What'd you think about his golf swing and how it looked.
I like that he looked a little bit like in
the old age at the top of the swing, got
the clubs set in a beautiful position. Obviously, he's had
what five spine operations, back operations. He's not going to
rotate his body as fast as he used to do that.
(25:39):
That's not possible. Uh. He probably couldn't get off of
that push off of that right leg as much as
he wanted to. But if you watched him, he was
still hitting shots. He was hitting high lo he was
hitting cups, he was hitting draws, especially the first two rounds,
and then I think fatigue took over. I think the
fatigue factor. If you listen to his interview, and he
listened to every word he said, and for a change,
(26:01):
he actually gave us some history of what he's been
going through. He never has done that in the past.
He thanked his whole team, the physical therapist, his trainer,
his doctors, and everything they've done. And for the last
fourteen fifteen months, seven days a week. Once he got
to where he could get out of bed after what
two or three months and he could get up, and
so he started training, and you know him, He's gonna
(26:23):
work his tail off every single day, seven days a week,
months upon months amount months. I don't know if I
can walk, I can chip in pot, I don't know
if I can swing. I don't know if I'm strong
enough to make And I'll tell you what all you
gotta do is say never. This is the guy I'll
never play again, and he will surprise you every time
because if there's anything humanly possible he can do to
(26:46):
try and make it, he does it. His his work
ethic on himself that nobody sees his unlike anybody. I
saw his trainer, Um and the guy he works out with,
Kobe Tollier Um. He works with Joey d and and
and the boys. I all him. I was leaving about
the same time on on Thursday night and I said
to Kobe, where you're going to the house? He goes.
He said, I'm going straight to the house and we'll
(27:07):
get And then I saw him again that morning. He
said Tiger woke up at five am and they went
through all of the stuff that they were doing. He
said the leg was fine, but what what what? What
the real issue is is the foot that he has
got a lot of pain and then as a result
of the foot, it goes up to the knee and
then it goes up to the back. Um do you
think it was? I mean, obviously you you were around
(27:29):
when Ben Hogan had that horrific car accident, almost died
and then came back and and one do you think
Tiger just playing golf again is something that hopefully we're
going to see and if we see it three, five,
eight times a year, Um, I think it's it's it's
(27:49):
amazing for the sport. Well, he said in his interview. Look,
I'll never be able to play play a false schedule again.
He said that that can't happen. I can't practice as
much as I need to need to be competitive, and
you know how he is. He wants to be competitive.
But I know he'll put in the work to be
able to do it. That's how he is. I think
he's gonna pick and choose his events maybe just and
(28:10):
I'm not sure he'll even play in the p G A.
He left that one open. Uh. He said, yeah, just
I've got a lot of work to do before that. Uh,
and you're right. Carr did ask him in the interview
she did on Sky, will you be at the the Open?
It's a hundred and fifty US Open, at the Home
of Golf, saying, and he says, I will be at
at the Open Championship. So I hope it's true. I
(28:31):
hope he is there. Hey, every time he shows up,
it's great. And the interesting thing about all the other
players love it when he's there. You know, they get
to hang with him, they get to talk with him.
You know, we weren't ever sure we'd never see him
again when this happened. Cud do you know how lucky
is that he's still alive. Forget that he still has
a leg and he can walk and play. I mean,
this could have been deaths. I mean, we just saw
(28:54):
an NFL quarterback twenty four year old get hit by
a truck the other day and he's dead now, so
anything can happen. But I was impressed, and I don't
mean to take away from anything Scottie Schefferd did and
Rory McIlroy, who we should talk about. I thought it
was phenomenal what he did on Sunday. I think that's
gonna give him a lot of confidence, and I think
we'll see Rory racing up those leaderboards again in majors.
(29:16):
So you know, people would say too much Tiger, Tiger,
Tiger will get over yourself. He's Tiger Woods for dmc hum.
I talk to Colby, his trainer, and he said the
problem earlier in the week as he played those practice
rounds for Freddie, and Freddie walked so fast that Tiger
was trying to keep up to him because you know,
Freddy's holding court and everything. So Colby, Colby said, if
you when you get into the tournament, you've really really
(29:38):
got to scale back how fast you walk. Um. You
mentioned Roy mclroy unbelievable final round. Um, that is the Rory.
I know you're a huge, huge fan that Rory. That.
I mean, I wish we could get to see that
in a major championship when he's in contention as opposed
to it wasn't that he wasn't in contention, but I
(30:00):
mean he knew that to make some noise, he was
gonna have to go out and shoot. You you said, um,
Roy needs to go out shoot sixty four, and he's
not gonna go out and shoot sixty four. And then
he goes out and shoot six. What do you think
is the difference between when Rory is in full flow
like that, Because when he is, I mean, he's arguably
the best player in the game. I mean when he
(30:21):
plays like he played on Sunday with all the things
that he does, well, um, he's tough to beat and
and and what do you think he needs to do
to to play like that that freedom more often? This
to me was the shot in the arm he needed.
He needed a finish like he had on Sunday to
(30:41):
shoot sixty four. You know the bunker shot last time, Well,
both of them, two guys hold, It's not that said,
the second hold the same bugger. That was impressive. But
he I think he was losing his confidence. I think
his confidence was down. He was trying different things, going
a few different coaches, trying to get different things to go.
I think he went back to being Rory. I think
he went back to just in his shots and hitting
(31:01):
the shots. And he needed that last round for confidence.
He needed to shoot eight under. He needed that confidence.
And I said on the end of the show, on
our closing show for thirty forty minute show we did,
I said, this is exactly what Roy McIlroy needed He
needed this for his confidence. He needed this to show himself,
not anyone else, just to show himself that he can
(31:23):
do this. And I think now when we get to
the p G A and and the Open at St. Andrew's,
I think it's gonna be a different story. I think
Roy's gonna be in hunting all of them. I saw
him um last year at the match play UM he
made the decision to go start working with Pete and
he wasn't working with Michael Bannon anymore. And he got
beat in the first round and you could see that
he was really really dejected on the punning green and
(31:45):
I walked up to him and I said, you know,
please do me a favor. Please, regardless of all the
stuff that you're trying to do with whoever you work with,
whatever you're trying to do with your golf swing, please
just remember that you're Rory McElroy. You are one of,
if not the greatest player in the game, and you
can't lose sight of that. Well, you gotta go back
(32:07):
to just playing golf. I mean, my gosh, you gotta
he You know, he was playing golf swing. He was
trying this, trying that, and I'm not putting down anybody
went to he came to see me. I tried. I
spent some time with him, But just go back to,
like you said, go back to being Roy McIlroy. Look
in the mirror every morning when you brush your teeth,
you're taking a look at Royan McElroy. That's that's who
you are. Don't try and be somebody you're not. Don't
(32:28):
don't worry about growing your brand and all this stuff.
He was like, he's got more money you could ever spend.
It's not about money, it's about winning championship. And he's
won a bunch of majors. And what he won, four majors,
four majors, he knows and he won him early and
one one and what's seven eight years now, Valhalla. Yeah,
it's been a while. That's why I say this last
(32:49):
round is a shot in the arm for him. This
is a shot of confidence that he all of a sudden,
he hit. He hit all the shots that he used
to be able to hit. He made the putts that
he used to be able to make, and those were
the things we weren't seeing him do. And I think
he was thinking too much about golf swing he You know,
he talked about a few years ago, I'm trying to
grow my brand and stuff like that. We winning takes
(33:10):
care of all that. You don't have to try. You
you start winning majors. Guess what brand one? Going straight up?
What do you think of the changes? Obviously big changes
at eleven? They moved the tea back in fifteen. As
I said earlier, you would just played there about a
month before. Um, did you like the changes? Did you
like what they did? I mean the other thing that
(33:31):
that not a lot of people know. And I only
found about this because DJ played with I'm his brother
A J on Sunday and we took some local caddies.
They relayed. They took the entire first green up relayed
the first screen. I think they did that on three.
I think they did that on fifteen. I think they
did that on thirteen. Um, what do you think of
the changes? Were the only one that I I saw
(33:53):
and I knew they did all that because I was
there and the gentleman who is my host every year,
that Nick Evans, who I played with every time I
played there, we were going around and we were talking
about all the changes. Uh, you know, really in the
first green is time. But they yeah, they softened some slopes,
but the actual slopes and stuff were still there. The
one I like the best was thirteen. You know that
back pin placement all the way it used to It
(34:14):
used to almost go straight up to a plateau. Well
they soften that a little and made it not just
straight up. They made it angle to the right a little,
so that if your ball came off of it, it
was gonna run down towards the right side of the green.
I like that one a lout. I love what they
did eleven. You know, yeah, they moved it back whereak
and play five twenty five never goes Oh my god,
(34:34):
the part five, part four or five. These guys can
care less. They're hitting it out there. Three nothing for
these guys. Taking the trees out was a necessity. They
actually made the fairy wider because they pushed more fairway
out on the left hand side, and they even let
it slope up a little, so not so many balls
but run into the pine straw. The big change was
(34:55):
to the right of the green. They raised the green
on the razor green a little and uped it a
little away from the right side. But then they put
a swale in there over there where Larry Mis hit
his pitch in against Greg Norman. That that one wasn't
there then, And we saw guys down there, and that
was a tough little shot. Boy. That wasn't easy. I know,
I hit it there two days in a row. That
(35:16):
was not easy, whether you putted it, whether you chipped it,
whether you're trying to hit it in the here. And
then on Sunday the pin was right up against that
right side and we saw just about it. Everybody that
went over there really struggled getting it up and down fifteen.
They moved it back and then it was lower. It
was below the fairway, so they were hitting a little uphills.
So the yard is fight a little longer. Here's an
interesting path. There wasn't one eagle on fifteen all week.
(35:39):
That's hard to believe in it. So maybe maybe adding
a little difference and changing the angle they moved it
back to the left, maybe that made a little difference.
I know that, I know the masters. I know Augusta,
Nashville is one of your favorite places. You've got a
long history there, obviously, your father having one there. Um
you have a lot of your very close friends that
are members there. Um, you think it's the best run
(36:01):
sporting event in in any sport. Um, how do they
get it right? What in your opinion makes the Masters
so special and what makes it, in your opinion the
best run event in sports. I think it's the best
run event anywhere. You can even take sports out of it.
There's nothing like it. They don't leave anything to chance.
(36:23):
They think of everything. If the average person could see
what's behind the scenes, what's on the outside that you
don't see from the golf course, whether it's Berkman's place,
whether it's the various buildings, administration buildings and everything. It's
unbelievable that they have built all of this for one
week out of the year. There's tunnels that run under
(36:43):
part of the driving range is a tunnel that goes
under Washington Road to a new TV compound. I mean,
what they do is amazing. They do it all in
eight months too, when they when they decide they're going
to change something. Now you've got an unlimited budget, you
can do whatever you want. But what you see in
Augusta right now is all Billy Payne. Everything you see there,
anything that's new there was all Billy Payne's idea, not
(37:06):
not just the drive chipping pot, not just the ladies Amateur,
not just the the what the Far East Amateur and
all these things. All the infrastructure you see around there,
everything that's been built was all Billy Payne, and I
don't think he gets enough credit for it. It is
the finest run golf tournament by far. Now, it's pretty
easy when it's always at the same place. You know,
(37:28):
the other three majors or they moved them around. I
mean I I talked to the guys on our broadcast
team all the time. I said, I know you guys
are against this, but it wouldn't bother me if the
Open Championship was always at St Andrews. It's the home
of golf. It's great now. I'd hate to miss Cardinal's,
d m Murefield and all these other courses. But Augusta
is special because number one, it's always been there, and
everybody that watches on TV, even the players for the
(37:51):
first time we'll talk about, got to remember seeing Fred
Couple's balls stay on the bank at twelve when they're
out there playing. How the hect did a ball stay there?
And so well the golf god just and you're winning
this week. Fred, That's all it is. I tell my
friends all the time when I was there, you get
a kick out of this car and you've never played there.
And I told no, I'm just I'm putting it out there.
I have never played there. I'm just putting it out there.
(38:13):
That's too bad. You know, maybe you'll know somebody who
get you. I tell the friends that I bring there
every year and we get on the twelfth Green and
I said, hey, you know the greatest thing about where
you are now? They said, what the city been to
a lot of masters, but you've never been over here.
You've always been back on whatever. So I said, on
the green, I said, let's just look back away at
the people that nobody there. Obviously because you mentioned, um
(38:38):
all the things that Augusta does um, I think the
addition of the the anwall um with the ladies, the
drive chip and putt um. I watched I watched all
the ladies playing. I mean the girl that one that
Anna Davis, sixteen years old, she looked out like she
was just walking around and had no clue what she
(38:58):
was doing. Did you watch any of that or you know,
how impact do you think what Augusta is doing in
the women's game, the ten twenty thirty year legacy of
what they're doing with with champions. Because Jennifer cup Show
just won her first tournament and it was a major
and she was the first winner of the end. Will well,
(39:20):
let's let's go back and look at that ground. I
did a deal at the role actually the night with
Maria Fassey, the other girl that when cup Show one
they went head to head coming down the stretch, they
literally were Burnie in an eagle every home. Now, yeah,
they're playing from the same teams I played from. But hell,
I was having hard time making parts. I thought it
was phenomenal the way these girls played. I think it's
a great thing. I felt sorry, and I'm drawing a
(39:42):
blank on the girl's name. They had the two shot
lead and went double bogey bogey. I felt really bad
for her, but it just shows you what pressure does.
The other girl was ahead of earn't got in the
house and she had to find with you Birdie's sixteen
it looked like the thing was over, and even drove
it in the fairway on seventeen and then missed it
in no man's land to the left of the left
bunker and had no way to pitch in and then
(40:02):
eight teens she messed that up with a pretty simple chip.
You know, she drove it in trouble, but she had
a beautiful second shot just off the front of the green,
just a basic little chip and she you know, she
chipped it fifteen twenty ft by and that's nerves, you know.
But they learned. These girls learned from this, so when
they get to the lp g A it makes them better.
We've seen that with cops over sure, Scotty Scheffler wins
(40:25):
the Masters. I mean you've worked I mean, you've worked
with Tiger when he won the master's, UM, Phil Mickelson
when he was winning a Master's. You know, we've worked
with DJ he's won one. UM is just such a
cool thing, such a small fraternity to be a part of,
To be a twenty five year old kid and have
a green jacket, the magnitude of that just must be enormous. Well,
(40:49):
I think it's the greatest fraternity in golf. I was
talking to Paul McGinley about that. I said, I know
you're from Ireland and I know how much the Open
Championship means to you, and it means a lot to me.
I think it's the greatest the championship in golf because
they play on such difficult courses and they had players
from all over the world. I said, if you could
only win one major, only gonna win one in your life,
(41:10):
what would it be. He said, well, it would between
the Open and the Masters. And he said, quite frankly,
I'd like to have a green jacket and being up
in that other building where the locker room is, because
I think it's the best fraternity in golf. And before
we go a little further, how about the defending champion
At the dinner on Tuesday night, the decky Mansiyama gave
his whole speech in English, and the guy said it
(41:31):
was great. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he you know, in
talking to some of the guys, he got up and
he talked about, you know, watching the Masters as a
kid growing up in Japan. And you know, I talked
to Trevor. I talked to dj Um. He got a
standing ovation. I mean he gave it. You know, Bob
his interpreter, he's always there, Um you and I talked
to there by the way, Caude. He wasn't there. He
(41:52):
wasn't allowed into the dinner, so he had to go
for we went over you and I went over and
on Wednesday morning and went over and talked to her
DECKI on the range really quickly. And and unfortunately I
wish people. I mean, Haddecki's English obviously isn't great. But
Hudecki can understand what you're saying to him. And he's
such He's such a cool kid. He's been out in
and to Vegas and you've worked with them a little,
(42:14):
um talk about what what a cool character he is.
I really like him And and didn't he get in
as an amateur the first time he played by winning
that he won the Asia Pacific Asia Pacific Amateur. If
people forget about that, he actually came there as an amateur.
And that's another Billy paint thing that he invented for
to make the thing better. Yeah. I enjoyed working with Heddeki.
(42:35):
I've watched him play for years. I really knew his
old Caddy before a lot when I used to head
go to terms and stuff. He's pretty funny too, is Yeah.
Hadecki is just a really really nice person. And my gosh,
does he work hard? Man? This guy works hard. He
didn't and I'll tell you a nothing. But he had
(42:55):
the worst head back at impact I've ever seen. I've
shown you the Phil moment. It's just I said to him,
do you have neck problems? He goes, yeah, so my
next hurt and watching you hit balls, I said, and
I can show you the film the difference when and
you watch him now how he tries to let it
go as he goes through it. I love this kid,
and he works his tail off, this this guy, and
(43:16):
you talk about a guy that's probably to be a
Master champion, and you know how much the Japanese love golf,
and to have the first guy ever when the Masters,
or maybe the first guy I ever to winning major,
I don't think because Okay Son never won a major.
I don't think so. I mean here there are a
lot of pressure on him, and you see it every week.
There's a zillion photographers running around everywhere you go. The
(43:37):
part guy didn't even go to the port aloto without
five guys following him with the camera. Who is gonna
be going the bathroom? You know they go over there.
And I love the guy. I think he's a wonderful guy.
I think he's a great asset for for World Golf
and he could play. He's gonna win more majors too.
I think one of the other cool things that you
see at Augusta obviously nobody has their phones. You're not
(43:57):
allowed to take your phone, so you run into the
amount of people athletes from other sports. I saw Jimmy Garoppolo,
I saw Paul Gasol, I saw Luish Figo. Harry Kane
was here. I know you you spent some time with him.
Um Nile Horrn, who was a golf management company, was
out following a couple of his players. I mean the
reverence that people in other sports have for Augusta and
(44:19):
they get to come, and it's not that they get
to come and they sit in courtporate hospitality, because one
of the great things about Augusta and the tournament at
the Masters is there aren't the type of corporate hospitality
that there are regularly. So the people that go there,
whether they're an NFL quarterback or a soccer superstore, they
have to go out and they have to follow and
they want to Yeah, well, Harry Kane, I've never met
(44:41):
him before. I know he's England. He's England captain for
the football team. He's a big guy. He's a good player. Well,
he's scratch, he's just and he was playing on Monday
Morne and I think it's his day off. Time was
seven two and he said, I don't think I'm gonna
sleep tonight Sunday nighties. I don't think I'm gonna be asleep.
He's I can't wait to plays. I watched it on
you Be all the time. And he said to me
(45:02):
when we when we weren't on the air, and he said,
I've watched you and I've watched all your stuff on YouTube.
You've got any tips? I said, yeah, don't three puts,
don't hit in the water, go for it. Um. Lastly,
John Rom I mean he looked basically unbeatable last year.
And we've seen this before from players to where you know,
(45:22):
gets the number one in the world, wins his first major.
Did so much last year, not on the form that
we're used to seeing him, anything that you kind of
see in his game that you notice that's different, No,
I don't think so. I think you know, John can run, Uh,
he's got that Spanish blood, so he can run a
little hot every now and then. I think he's worked
on that. I don't think he's playing that bad. I
(45:45):
just don't think the puts are going in like they
used to. You know, when you're on those roles and
you're number one in the world, you're making all the puts.
You saved the buggies and stuff. If you get the
good breaks and stuff, don't worry about John Rome. He
could really play and he may win the next three Majors.
Who knows. The one that upset me the most, Clutter
and I got to talk about is what he said
after the Masters. So well, maybe the only way I
(46:07):
should come back here is at a caddy because I
can't play this course. And you know, you hit a
good shot and it goes off a green into a bunker.
Well what Mr Hatton doesn't understand, just because you're eligible
doesn't mean you get an invitation to be interesting to
see what happens next year. Um, are we gonna see
you on tour more? Or was this just you coming
(46:27):
back for the Masters since the one time thing? Did
you enjoy it, because obviously you spent pretty much the
majority of your life traveling around on tour and stuff.
It was great to see you back. Um, there was
a buzz around, you know, all the caddies, all the players.
The fact that you were back, um you got to
probably see a lot of people, and you know, it
was it was almost like a procession for you. You
(46:49):
were on the range, everybody was giving you hugs. Did
did you enjoy it? Well, we see you back out.
I did. And no, you will not see me back
out the terments in in Vegas. You're not gonna see
me out there again. The thing I loved about because
I hadn't been there since nineteen And did I miss it? No,
not ready. I'm I've really gotten this COVID thing has
made me a home body. I really like being homes
in back when way it's about, oh, you know, whatever
(47:12):
time it is, I'm gonna probably jump in the cart
and go play a few holes tonight before it gets
starts back home again. I did enjoy being on the
range again, even though I didn't get to spend much
time out there because of my TV dutios. I love
working for Sky. Twenty five years I've worked for a Sky.
I will say it's the first time I can say
it really took a toll on me. Uh, not so
(47:33):
much physically, it's mentally. You know, you gotta stay in
tune and stay in tune. I'm not a young man anymore,
even though I feel like I'm only sixteen. Mentally, I
was pretty worn out at the end of every day.
So now you probably won't see me anymore cause it's
all you ple all right. Well, I appreciate taking time
to talk to us. It was great to see you,
and uh, it was definitely a better event with you there.
(47:55):
And I know a lot of people felt the same thing.
So I was happy to see you, and uh, we'll
look for to seeing you again soon. You got it.
I love you, hanging love you too. So that was
but charmon And as I said at the beginning, hot takes,
you always know that you're gonna get Butchy to give
(48:16):
you his opinion. Still no chance that Butchie is going
to take me to Augusta National. I keep trying. I
would love to play at Augusta National with my father
fifty two years old, not getting any younger. He's not
getting any younger. So hey, Dad, if you want to
make that happen, jump right in and make the offer.
(48:38):
So listen, you guys. Hear me talk about this every
single week on the podcast. Eleventh Place finished last week
for DJ triple bogey on Sunday for three puts. Shane
Lowry triple on Sunday. I mean, obviously everybody's gonna have
three parts at Augusta National. But in keeping with the
constant theme, I'm gonna stay on this. I'm gonna keep
(49:00):
pounding this into you guys listening. DJ seven shots the triple,
the four three parts, that is seven shots. That is
the difference between finishing eleventh and finishing a hell of
a lot higher. Obviously, it's probably not gonna win, but
double Shane Lowry right in the mix on Sunday, cruising
(49:22):
along makes a triple. Yes, Cam Smith makes a big number.
Rory mclroy made a big number. It happens, um But
these guys are good enough. So you think about Shane Lowry.
Shane Lowry makes a triple on the fourth hole, goes back.
I think he went all the way back to even par,
and then he spends the rest of the day has
to shoot lights out, fights his way back. DJ did
(49:45):
the same thing. DJ's triple bogey on eleven comes after
birdieing seven, eight and nine. He's on a roll, he's
playing good, he's trying to get himself in the mix,
move up the leader board and gets out of position,
off off the t on eleven to the right, goes
to try and chip out, hits the tree, goes sideways.
(50:05):
Then he tried to chase one down there down the
right hand side and overhooks it in the water and
ends up making triple bogie. We saw camp Smith Birdie's
eleven right in it. You can put the pressure on um,
Scottie Scheffler. You've got two par five left. You don't
know what's gonna happen. A lot of things can happen,
and rinses one in the water, takes big number and
(50:27):
the race is over. So you're going to continue to
hear me talk about it the easiest single way for
everybody listening, whether you are a person trying to break
a hundred ninety eight seventy, trying to win a green jacket,
trying to win a major, trying to win the club championship.
Big numbers, double and triple bogies destroy your score. Do
(50:51):
everything you can think about your way around the golf course.
Scottie Shuffler could have made a disaster on Saturday night.
Yes he got a lot key break, but he didn't
compound and hit an unbelievable shot, gets out of there
with the bogey. And every single week on tour, every
single year at Augusta National, in a major championship, bogies
(51:13):
you can survive doubles and triples. You gotta do a
lot of work to get those back and it's just
a huge, huge part of the development of all golfers.
If you can eliminate those big numbers, scores are going
to get better. Off course with Claude Harmon comes to
you every Wednesday, Busy week. We did a great podcast
(51:35):
with Adam Scott, the bonus episode. Um My Dad, I
want to thank everybody for listening. It's always my favorite
time of the year on on Tour and uh, I
hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did. We
will see everybody next week
It's episode fifty. The Big five oh of Off Course
with Claude Harmon comes to you every Wednesday Postmasters week
and who better talk about it my dad butch arm
And he was there, came back out of retirement. Uh,
first time he's been to Augusta since two thousand and
nineteen he was doing commentary for British Telvin Sky Sports.
So it'll be fascinating for all of you to listen
(00:30):
to all the things that he saw and get his takes.
You always know if Butcher's on the pod, you're gonna
get the hot takes. Before we jump in, let's take
a second to talk about our friends at Cobra Golf
coming off last week in Augusta. You know, a bunch
of you are ready to get out there and tee
it up for the first time in a while. But
before you do, you should check out the new Cobra
(00:52):
l T d X drivers. There's the l t d
X l S driver, with the LS standing for low Spin.
It's their lowest spinning driver designed for skilled players with
fast clubhead speed. There's also the ltd X Max driver,
which is the most forgiving in the lineup. They're both
really good you've heard me talk about them all season.
(01:14):
You will see a bunch of the Cobra guys on
tour loving it. You can check them out at Cobra
golf dot com, Backslash ltd X. And now let's get
to the interview with Butch Harmon. So my guest today
is Butch Harmon. Dad. I thought, seeing as we just
got through the Masters, Um, there's a lot to unpack
(01:37):
in this. Um, I mean it was. It was fun
to watch you were there doing commentary for Sky Sports. Um,
first time you've been back at the Masters since. On
a personal note, first time you've been back since two
thousand and nineteen. Um, semi retired. Now what what did
you enjoy being back? Yes, and no. I always love
(01:58):
going to the Masters. Obviously it would be a full place.
Uh you know it was. That's probably the last TV
spot I'm gonna do. You'll be the first one to
hear that I doubt whether I'll do anymore. It was
a little much for me now that I've gotten to
be almost seventy nine years old. I was pretty worn
out at the end of each day and really tired
(02:18):
when I got home late last night. So, uh yeah,
but you gotta love it. I mean, it's the Masters.
It's a great place. I've been going there in my
whole life, So I enjoyed that part of it. But
you know, the last two I've actually done from right
here in my office at home. If they let me
do that, hell, I do every effect. You were there
working um with your boy Harold Varner. The third you
(02:39):
must be proud of. How long you tell me how
long you've been working with Harold? Oh my gosh, we've
been about seven eight months. He's playing. It came about
because he's friendly with Daniel Kang, and he asked Daniel
Kang if if he thought I would help him, and
she said, well, I ask him if I give you
his number, and she did, and I said, sure, come
on out. He is a joy to be around. He's
(03:00):
a joy to work with. He struggled on Saturday and
ADDI and Nosta reminds me a little tiger, would you
know how Tiger says he hates to swing and a
rain jacket and all that. And because Harold swing is
kind of short and a little quick, he felt really
locked up and he just never got any freedom. And
I said, well, why the heck didn't you just take
it off like in between shots. We saw Scotty Scheffer
(03:22):
putting the vest on and off and he goes, you,
I didn't think of that. I'll do that next time.
But you know he finished finished strong. He bought you
the last hole for sixty nine. So he played well.
His caddie Rice, he said, he said to me this morning,
I'm in Hilton Head and I saw him. He said,
your old man is unbelievable. He said. He said, Harold said,
but you want to talk to me on Sunday. He said.
You went right to him and said, okay, what the
hell happened tomorrow? Yesterday? Yeah, I said to him, I
(03:44):
let's talking about this two way miss It was funny called.
I texted him and I said I'll be you know
he played at eleven. I said I could be on
the range of ten waiting for you. And he came
up and says, well, I knew when you said you'd
be on the range you had something to say. I said, no,
I just got a question, what the hell's up with
the two way miths? That's exactly that's exactly what he's
Catty tol him the sport, he said. Harold came up,
he said, Butch, he said he wanted to see me,
(04:05):
and he said, I knew it wasn't gonna be good.
It wasn't that it was bad. I was just I
just needed his feedback, you know. I mean I saw
him out there and he was struggling hit in both ways,
and he had a good warm up on the range
and stuff. So you know it goes you get out
there and you get the heat of battle, and you know,
he was blaming it on the clothes. Okay whatever. You know,
it could never be anybody, anybody's fault, but the clothes. Um.
(04:28):
What this run that Scotty shufflers on? I mean, this
is this is an unbelievable run of golf. This kid
is on. There's no doubt about it. You know that.
We talked about it on our Sky broadcast after and
they said, who does you remind you? Are? What what
player does he remind you? And I said, Well, one
of the things I like about him, and one of
(04:48):
the things that Randy Smith has done so well with
him because he's he's coached him ever since he was
a junior golfer, is he let he's let him own
his own swing, which is something you and I believe
a hundred percent in but the person, and he reminds
me of the most. You're gonna be surprised as Jack
Nicholas if you watched him go about his business the
way he went about and no highs, no lows, very
(05:08):
much on an even keel, didn't get over excited when
he did something good, didn't get over excited or upset
when he did something bad. He just stuck to doing
what he does best. And that that was one of
Jack Nicholas's greatest secrets, that the last shot never happened.
Un let's just go forward. And I thought Scottie showed tremendous,
tremendous confidence in his own ability. And it was very
(05:29):
interesting when you saw his interview. He said that Saturday
night and Sunday morning he wasn't even sure that he
would be able to handle it. That's how up tidy was,
but you'd never know it by looking at him. You
mentioned Randy Smith, who's been his long time only coach.
Randy's been coaching him since he was a junior. Used
to go to Royal Oaks and and see him in
Dallas Um. Randy's kind of going on record on this
(05:52):
run that Scotty's been on and talking about that. He
thinks a lot of instructors take away young kids footwork
and they plant their feet on the ground and it
takes it away. Scotty's footwork reminds me a lot of
the right foot is exactly what Greg Norman used to do.
And I think when people look at his feet and
(06:13):
they're moving around a lot, he also does a little
bit dad what the long drivers are doing. Now. It's
not like he's going up on his toes. I think
that's the one thing that people need to realize when
they look at Scotty's footwork. He's not kind of going
up on his toes, which means that lower bodies moving closer,
that right foot slides back and then he gets very
much into his heel. But Randy is very much like yourself.
You know, Randy's had a great career. He has worked
(06:34):
a lot of players, justin Leonard, I mean, did a
fantastic job in coaching. But I love, like you said,
he's got a little bit of a kind of a
unique old school move. You know, we're in in the
days where everybody's trying to get the left wrist flat
and get that club face because it's a little bit
open at the top. The follow through looks sometimes a
little crazy. But I think Randy, like yourself, realized that
(06:57):
that you can you can mess it up, you can out,
you can take the greatness out. And you've always said
to me that that great coaches don't necessarily change a
ton of stuff. They add things. Um, when you look
at that move, it might look like it's kind of
all over the place. Was very very repeatable, and he
(07:18):
hits it miles too. Well. You you just said the
right word. Repetition. God is a game of repetition if
you can make the same swing every single time. Look
at the Hall of Fame. If you go to the
Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, you'll see some bizarre
looking swings in there, but they all worked. The beauty
about Randy did it. And what my dad has always
told me, and what I've told you is never take
(07:39):
with someone does naturally away. Just make it better because
it's always going to come back in. You know, in
the modern the modern every year there seems to be
some kind of slogan or some kind of saying, you know,
now it's use the ground for its ground force. It's
got to use ground. For I've been walking on the
ground for seven eight years old. You think I'm not
using the freaking ground? And you kid me, what do
(08:00):
you think I'm elevated trying to hit balls. I mean,
it's just it's unbelievable. The thing that I loved about
what he does. He's got a lot of old school
movement in him. Clubs a little in and he comes
out over just a little because he's a fader and
that's why the cup faces open and he can hit
a release fate and you know his his bad shot
is when he gets a little quick from the top
and he hits that little poll. He did that when
(08:21):
he was on eighteen on Saturday. You know that's in there.
But I mean, the guy, he hits it far too.
He's not short. He can vomit out there, but he
puts beautifully. I think he led if you looked at
the numbers. I didn't realize this, but Paul McGinley told
me this in our broadcast on Sunday. He led every
stat He was number one in every stat driving the
(08:44):
fairways closer to the whole approximity strokes game putting. I mean,
that's impressive if you think about it. And six months ago,
nobody who knew the guy, who the guy was. We
all knew who he was because we knew how good
he was. He knew it was just a matter of
time that he would get things going. But now that
he's got to go, and I mean, he's on a
tiger road right now, this is impressive. I thought that
(09:05):
shot he hit it on eighteen where he got he
hooked it off the tea on Saturday night. Um, he
gets a good break, he gets the drop, but people
don't realize one how far back he was and how
much uphill that that hole is to get it all
the way back. There was just an enormous effort and
a hell of a shot. Well I think I think
(09:26):
the number was about twenty eight something like that. He
was way back and he hit a five iron. I
believe what the club I thought. I heard Test Scott say,
And if you're watching on TV like we were doing TV,
I was doing the commentary, what had happened? The shot
tracer was off, It looked like he was going to
the right and all of a sudden you see the
ball landing right by the whole. I said that the
interesting thing was called when he took his drop. Before
(09:48):
he even dropped it, he was trying to look at
would he be able to make a swing? Was the
tree there? You know, he's looking at his back, didn't
have a club, but he's trying to make a swing.
And then he took his two club links and he
got his two club links, which is total legit. It
was two perfect comblings because the rules rules, and fish
right was right there and made him do it two
times he did. And he could clear out a spot
of the pine needles because that you're allowed to do that.
(10:10):
And he put it there, and as he said in
his interviews, gotta got him a great yardage and he
could make a full swing at it. Now. Was he
trying to hit him right at the flag and let
it carry there? Who knows. He was trying to get
it out of there the best he could. And he
just absolutely knoked this five iron up hill two over
two twenty yards like it wasn't even there. And and
and that day it was so cold, the air's cold,
(10:32):
the ball's not going there. It was a hell of
a shot. Um. You did you you watched the Wryder Cup.
You did the Wryder Cup for sky Um. How important
do you think a win in a team competition for
a rookie like Scotty Shuffer who had been close before.
A lot of people have thought that, you know, he
was going to be a kid that was going to win,
it was just a matter of time. But to take
(10:52):
down John Ram and the singles in that environment, because
I was there and you could see the team rally
around him, do you think that is a huge, huge
part of the stepping stone that's helped him go on
this massive run. You could make the case that he
was the star of the Ryder Cup, that he was phenomenal,
he won points, that he was a rookie. Uh, this
(11:15):
kid has been good for a long time. This this
isn't so it's surprising that he got the number one
in the world as quick. I will say that he
got the number one in the world, I think quicker
than Tiger Woods did. And that's impressive alone. That might
be the only thing somebody's passed Tiger Woods on. But
I'm not surprised that he won the Masters. That he's
won four of what his last seven or eight tournaments
(11:37):
is pretty dog gone impressive, especially the way he did it. Yeah,
I mean if if we go through and just look
at so they win the Ryder Cup. He misses the
cut in Vegas, thirty eight out in the second Vegas,
finishes fourth at Majacoba, second in Houston, then fifty seven
at the RSM, second at Tiger's event in the Bahamas,
(12:00):
a fountain in Palm springs in um San Diego, and
then wins Phoenix, seventh in l A, wins a p
I UMT five that the players and wins the match
play and the Masters. So I guess the question is
I heard Steve Sans asked this question. Is he a
(12:20):
great player or is he just on a just serious heater? Well,
first of all, it's the private one. Was the fifties
something that that the players? What happened that week? Did
he get some bad food or something? I would say
that Scotty after the way I describe him, I wouldn't
say he's the type player to say that he's the
(12:41):
best driver in the world. He's the best iron player
to the best what he is. He's really good at everything.
He doesn't really have a weakness. Uh, well, he's on
a run right now. That's unbelievable. They really only guys
like Tiger Woods get on runs like this. Whether he
can continue that, I don't see any reason why he can't.
He has a wonderful demeanor, he has a wonderful work ethic,
(13:03):
He's got a great coach and Randy Smith. I mean
he yeah, right now, he's got everything going for him.
Everything's going his way. I mean, he could have lost
that ball in the a T poll on Saraday and
who would have known what would have happened. There's a
lot of what ifs that you can go into it,
but the bottom line is he's winning these tournaments and
in this day and age, look at look at the
top ten players in the world right now. It's got
(13:25):
number one and you have Cam Smith. They're the only
two that I won a tournament this year. John rom
hadn't won a tournament. Justin Thomas had one tournament. Mark
Howa hasn't want to turn him hasn't want to turn.
We can go down the list as far as you
want to go. That alone is impressive that he's way
up there. Abong all of these now is just gonna
happen every week. Well, let's just wait and see. He's
(13:49):
made ten million dollars and there's twenty events left on
the PGA tour. About that? How about Ted Scott as caddy?
You think it's a good mood for him? How much
he's made. He says he and Bubba Slip split up.
He didn't think he was going to caddy him. I
would be a lot of people don't know. Ted Scott's
a good players, scratched goff for I mean, he could play.
It's not like he doesn't know what he's talking about,
(14:10):
you know. And that that ends, and all of a sudden,
Scotty Scheffer talks him into coming back and working for him,
which was a great move for Scottie. And Gosh was
here comming factor out there too, and Ted Scott, I mean,
he gets a lot of ink about it, but I
was very impressed with the way he handled it. And
you're talking about how much money steffords when how about
that ten percent? About those winds? Any too chevy either, Claude.
(14:30):
You know, I was talking to a couple of caddies
this morning and we were talking about Ted Scott and
they said, listen, I mean the heater that he's been on,
anybody could have probably caddy for him. But all the
coddies today said the job that Teddy Scott did getting
him around Augusta National having caddy for Bubba for the
two tournaments to two times he one here, I thought,
I thought Teddy did a great, great job. Well. Saturday
(14:53):
I think was the Italian one for me because you
know how cold and windy it was. And I watched him,
I think three different times on broadcast call him off
and shot and say, hold on a minute, it's gusting.
Let's just let the gusts go away, and he put
the club back and they'd go back and forth. He says, Okay,
we're ready to go. You've got the right number, you
got the right shot. We're good, let's go. And a
normal caddy sometimes wouldn't do that. They'd be afraid to
(15:15):
call the guy off. That's what makes Steve Williams of
the world, the Jim Bones Mackay of the world, the
Billy Fosters of the world, the upper echelon of caddies.
This is what makes them so good because they have
the confidence in their player that the player understands what's
going on and he could call him off on certain things.
I saw him doing on a level on Saturday when
(15:35):
he got he was just about to play and he
got hit with a gust and Ted Scott said, hold on, man,
we're getting gusted. Let's just let it come by. That's
a great caddy. And as you said, he's won twice
with Bubba there. I think I heard him in an
interview say that was his fourteenth Masters. I don't know
who the hell the other guys where he was caddying for,
but he knows that golf course. It's I mean, I
(15:56):
don't think people when they're watching golf that aren't in
the you know, aren't close to players like you and
I are, and and the caddies are. That's not an
easy thing to do. As you said, your players in
the zone. He's getting ready to go on the twelfth hole.
It's a difficult situation as well to have the guts
and the balls religion to say, hey, listen, we gotta
we gotta take a look at that. Um. I don't
(16:17):
think caddies that when they do do that, get enough
credit for. That's a tough call to make. And you know,
and I was done about number eleven, and we talked
about number twelve. He just watched the guy hitting the
water get a birdie eleven and started sneaking back up
on him hitting the water, and he got a lucky
break there, Caude, because I mean his ball went up
into these alias and came rolling back out of there. Yes,
(16:38):
he made a bogey, but it was a decent bogeye
And you know in the bogie he made on Sunday
night on the last hold a lot of times, and
you and I talked about this a lot, especially in
major championship. There's such thing as a great bog. He
made the greatest bogie of all time on on twelve,
and then what he did on eight team to make
a part and bogie after the drop. You know, to
(17:01):
think about where he was over the green. We had
just seen Tiger Woods and Justin Leonard back there and
they pitched it and they ended up going all the
way down to the front of the green. He putted it,
and I think Ted Scott had a lot to do
with that. So there's a lot of things that have
to happen. Caddy is a huge asset, but the player
has to believe in the caddy and for this player
(17:21):
caddy relationship to work that quick, they haven't been that
many tournaments together. I think it's tells you what a
great Caddy said Scott is excuse me, and what a wonderful,
wonderful players Scotty Chef for his um Cam Smith. How
impressed are you with this kid? I mean, I really
(17:43):
like his game. Well, he's he's hard to look at
with the with the lack of mustache, and I don't
know what that thing is hanging out of the back
of the hat. I wish he'd put in a ponytail
or something. That's my god, that's awful. But this kid
is impressive. I mean what he did at the Players
Championship after hitting in the water, trying to lay up
and come back and bridge and stiff, I mean, he
put himself right back. He comes right out berdie in
(18:05):
the first two holes. Boom boom boom. Wow, here we go.
Game on. Then they both hit it way left on three,
which was very surprising out of both of them, and
they're getting drops away from the big scoreboard over there,
and both of them hit it up and came back
down and Cheffer got to hit first and he freaking
holds him. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're thinking he's
gonna make six here and you know, and then all
of a sudden things changed, and all of a sudden
(18:26):
here comes Smith again. And the birdie out eleven was important,
But even more important was he ran in at fifteen
footer or whatever it was for birdie. Cheffer stood with
a ten footer they had for part and made it.
And then the shot on twelve, he was from the
camera angle, you could see he was aiming at the flag.
He was not going to hit it into the middle
of the green like they tell you, but it didn't matter.
(18:47):
He hit it so bad it wasn't gonna get over
the lake. If he was aiming at the bridge. It
wasn't try to kid over the lake. He he just
made a bad swing at the wrong time. You know,
we've seen over the years that so, I mean, I
always think the story of the show is his wach
the winner of the golf tournament, and it's Augusta National.
The golf the golf course is the star of the
(19:08):
show every single year. On the twelfth hole, I mean,
it's he's hitting a nine iron. It's you. You you
played there about what about month and a half maybe two,
I mean, and and you know that on Sunday if
you go at that pin and you don't execute and
hit the absolute perfect shot, you're gonna hit it in
(19:29):
the water. Why do you think every single year on
that whole we see this kind of drama. Well, Cam,
it just made a great birdie on eleven, which is
a whole. It's a hell of a lot harder than
the twelve best damn sure. The beauty of the twelve pole.
It just shows you that these architects and make these
part three, two fifty yards. It doesn't matter. Just thing.
(19:50):
I think it was playing one sixty on the under
sixty yards on Sunday. Now the wind comes down thirteen,
it swirls around in there and goes like this. And
the key is if you watch the old timers, they
would always look over their left shoulder and they look
back at the flag on eleven. And there was a
great view on on TV. I don't know if it
(20:11):
went out in America that we had that we could
see it. And when they were playing that whole, we
could see a picture of the flag on twelve and
in the picture were right over to eleven green and
they're going in two different directions. I mean, it's a
tough shot and the hardest part in the world is
to be the first guy up, because the first guy
up has got the best chance for for a disaster.
And unfortunately it happened. Uh Tiger Woods made ten. There
(20:34):
it's last time you played it until this week a
freaking ten. Kidding me, I mean, anything can happen on
that whole Okay, let's take a quick break and want
to thank our partner Elijah Craig. If you had a
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(20:55):
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(21:16):
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with the code Golf Mag five. Of course, with Claude Harmon,
He's brought to you by Elijah Craig. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Bardstown, Kentucky.
Alcohol by volume Elijah Craig reminds you to think wisely,
drink wisely. I didn't see it, but um, somebody said
(21:41):
they saw it on TV that you were on the range.
Saw Tiger. You gave him a hug. What did he say? What? Um? What? What?
He same? He came and I saw him walking over.
I hadn't seen him all week, and I saw him
walking over from the chipping Green. I was on the
punning Green with Harold. I went over. I just and
he stuck his hand out to shake hands. I said,
the hell that give me a hug. Man, it's so
(22:02):
happy to sue you. I said, number one, I'm just
happy that you're here, that you're getting healthy. That and
then I said to him that you're even still alive
because fifteen months ago that wreck could have killed him.
He could have lost his leg, he could have fixed
his leg and never walked again, never played golf again.
And we just had a wonderful little, you know, one
or two minute conversation and he was great. I'm not
(22:25):
gonna go into everything we talked about. It was great
to see him. Uh, you know, everybody. It's funny how
people are. They said, well, you know, Scottie chefferd one
to term it, but it was more of the Tiger
Wood show. Look, Tiger Woods drives the needle. He's the man,
has been the needle for twenty five years, twenty six years.
He's the man. When if he's playing, there's gonna be
(22:46):
a lot of stuff about him. And they say, well,
there's too much Tiger on TV. But here's here's the thing.
People don't realize. TV ratings are driven by certain superstars.
He's the one that drives it the most. In golf,
you have all the people that love Tiger Woods, and
then you have all the people that don't like Tiger
was for whatever reason that is. But guess what they're
all watching and they all want to see what happens
now for him to make the cut. I thought it
(23:07):
was phenomenal. I didn't think he'd be able to walk
seventy two holes, especially, but he opens with seventy one
one at a part are you kidding me? And then
on Friday he gets off to a terrible start, what's
the three over? After four and and brings it back.
I mean, it was very impressive. You could see on
the weekend that he was labored. It was very difficult. Uh.
(23:29):
You know Tiger not as well as I do, but
you know that he has a tremendous threshold for paint pain.
I can't tell you. I saw him in tournaments for
the sprained ankle, and he would just take it up
so tight. There was hardly any blood going down there
because he didn't want anybody to see him limping. When
it was all over with yesterday, he was really limping
bad trying to get to the Scores building over there
(23:50):
because he was worn out. I mean, heck, yeah, I'm old,
but I couldn't walk seventy two holes around here and
I got two good legs. Um. He said to Carl
Robinson what she was doing some work for Sky that
he kind of let out of the bag that he
is going to play the Open Championship, which is the
one tournament I thought. I didn't think we'd see him
at Augusta. Um, but I figured we would see him there. Um.
(24:13):
That's not a hundred and fiftieth anniversary. He's won there before.
That is going to be so cool to see him
at that tournament. And hopefully the body's in better shape
by that point. Well, I'm with you. I I really
was surprised he played at Augusta. I knew when he
was there, and all of a sudden we didn't know
until Thursday morning if he was gonna te if when
(24:34):
he teed off, I knew that he felt that he
could walk and number. When you know him, he's not
gonna play us. He feels like he can compete, and
for for a while there he competed quite nicely. Southern
Hills the next one that PG. That's a tough course.
It's hot and humid. There, there's up and down hills. Uh.
St Andrews is relatively flat. There's a lot of humps
and bumps and stuff. If he gets some funky live.
(24:55):
The only thing concerns me about St. Andrews if he
gets into HU on Sunday and let's just say he's
coming up the eighteenth hole, tied for the lead and
they left ten thousand people in and he's got to
get through the gallery. Somebody can bump into him, but
knock him over. Please don't let that happen. Early in
the week, I thought the golf swing looked really, really good.
(25:18):
I mean, I thought he had the golf club in
a really good position. You and I were talking about that.
What'd you think about his golf swing and how it looked.
I like that he looked a little bit like in
the old age at the top of the swing, got
the clubs set in a beautiful position. Obviously, he's had
what five spine operations, back operations. He's not going to
rotate his body as fast as he used to do that.
(25:39):
That's not possible. Uh. He probably couldn't get off of
that push off of that right leg as much as
he wanted to. But if you watched him, he was
still hitting shots. He was hitting high lo he was
hitting cups, he was hitting draws, especially the first two rounds,
and then I think fatigue took over. I think the
fatigue factor. If you listen to his interview, and he
listened to every word he said, and for a change,
(26:01):
he actually gave us some history of what he's been
going through. He never has done that in the past.
He thanked his whole team, the physical therapist, his trainer,
his doctors, and everything they've done. And for the last
fourteen fifteen months, seven days a week. Once he got
to where he could get out of bed after what
two or three months and he could get up, and
so he started training, and you know him, He's gonna
(26:23):
work his tail off every single day, seven days a week,
months upon months amount months. I don't know if I
can walk, I can chip in pot, I don't know
if I can swing. I don't know if I'm strong
enough to make And I'll tell you what all you
gotta do is say never. This is the guy I'll
never play again, and he will surprise you every time
because if there's anything humanly possible he can do to
(26:46):
try and make it, he does it. His his work
ethic on himself that nobody sees his unlike anybody. I
saw his trainer, Um and the guy he works out with,
Kobe Tollier Um. He works with Joey d and and
and the boys. I all him. I was leaving about
the same time on on Thursday night and I said
to Kobe, where you're going to the house? He goes.
He said, I'm going straight to the house and we'll
(27:07):
get And then I saw him again that morning. He
said Tiger woke up at five am and they went
through all of the stuff that they were doing. He
said the leg was fine, but what what what? What
the real issue is is the foot that he has
got a lot of pain and then as a result
of the foot, it goes up to the knee and
then it goes up to the back. Um do you
think it was? I mean, obviously you you were around
(27:29):
when Ben Hogan had that horrific car accident, almost died
and then came back and and one do you think
Tiger just playing golf again is something that hopefully we're
going to see and if we see it three, five,
eight times a year, Um, I think it's it's it's
(27:49):
amazing for the sport. Well, he said in his interview. Look,
I'll never be able to play play a false schedule again.
He said that that can't happen. I can't practice as
much as I need to need to be competitive, and
you know how he is. He wants to be competitive.
But I know he'll put in the work to be
able to do it. That's how he is. I think
he's gonna pick and choose his events maybe just and
(28:10):
I'm not sure he'll even play in the p G A.
He left that one open. Uh. He said, yeah, just
I've got a lot of work to do before that. Uh,
and you're right. Carr did ask him in the interview
she did on Sky, will you be at the the Open?
It's a hundred and fifty US Open, at the Home
of Golf, saying, and he says, I will be at
at the Open Championship. So I hope it's true. I
(28:31):
hope he is there. Hey, every time he shows up,
it's great. And the interesting thing about all the other
players love it when he's there. You know, they get
to hang with him, they get to talk with him.
You know, we weren't ever sure we'd never see him
again when this happened. Cud do you know how lucky
is that he's still alive. Forget that he still has
a leg and he can walk and play. I mean,
this could have been deaths. I mean, we just saw
(28:54):
an NFL quarterback twenty four year old get hit by
a truck the other day and he's dead now, so
anything can happen. But I was impressed, and I don't
mean to take away from anything Scottie Schefferd did and
Rory McIlroy, who we should talk about. I thought it
was phenomenal what he did on Sunday. I think that's
gonna give him a lot of confidence, and I think
we'll see Rory racing up those leaderboards again in majors.
(29:16):
So you know, people would say too much Tiger, Tiger,
Tiger will get over yourself. He's Tiger Woods for dmc hum.
I talk to Colby, his trainer, and he said the
problem earlier in the week as he played those practice
rounds for Freddie, and Freddie walked so fast that Tiger
was trying to keep up to him because you know,
Freddy's holding court and everything. So Colby, Colby said, if
you when you get into the tournament, you've really really
(29:38):
got to scale back how fast you walk. Um. You
mentioned Roy mclroy unbelievable final round. Um, that is the Rory.
I know you're a huge, huge fan that Rory. That.
I mean, I wish we could get to see that
in a major championship when he's in contention as opposed
to it wasn't that he wasn't in contention, but I
(30:00):
mean he knew that to make some noise, he was
gonna have to go out and shoot. You you said, um,
Roy needs to go out shoot sixty four, and he's
not gonna go out and shoot sixty four. And then
he goes out and shoot six. What do you think
is the difference between when Rory is in full flow
like that, Because when he is, I mean, he's arguably
the best player in the game. I mean when he
(30:21):
plays like he played on Sunday with all the things
that he does, well, um, he's tough to beat and
and and what do you think he needs to do
to to play like that that freedom more often? This
to me was the shot in the arm he needed.
He needed a finish like he had on Sunday to
(30:41):
shoot sixty four. You know the bunker shot last time, Well,
both of them, two guys hold, It's not that said,
the second hold the same bugger. That was impressive. But
he I think he was losing his confidence. I think
his confidence was down. He was trying different things, going
a few different coaches, trying to get different things to go.
I think he went back to being Rory. I think
he went back to just in his shots and hitting
(31:01):
the shots. And he needed that last round for confidence.
He needed to shoot eight under. He needed that confidence.
And I said on the end of the show, on
our closing show for thirty forty minute show we did,
I said, this is exactly what Roy McIlroy needed He
needed this for his confidence. He needed this to show himself,
not anyone else, just to show himself that he can
(31:23):
do this. And I think now when we get to
the p G A and and the Open at St. Andrew's,
I think it's gonna be a different story. I think
Roy's gonna be in hunting all of them. I saw
him um last year at the match play UM he
made the decision to go start working with Pete and
he wasn't working with Michael Bannon anymore. And he got
beat in the first round and you could see that
he was really really dejected on the punning green and
(31:45):
I walked up to him and I said, you know,
please do me a favor. Please, regardless of all the
stuff that you're trying to do with whoever you work with,
whatever you're trying to do with your golf swing, please
just remember that you're Rory McElroy. You are one of,
if not the greatest player in the game, and you
can't lose sight of that. Well, you gotta go back
(32:07):
to just playing golf. I mean, my gosh, you gotta
he You know, he was playing golf swing. He was
trying this, trying that, and I'm not putting down anybody
went to he came to see me. I tried. I
spent some time with him, But just go back to,
like you said, go back to being Roy McIlroy. Look
in the mirror every morning when you brush your teeth,
you're taking a look at Royan McElroy. That's that's who
you are. Don't try and be somebody you're not. Don't
(32:28):
don't worry about growing your brand and all this stuff.
He was like, he's got more money you could ever spend.
It's not about money, it's about winning championship. And he's
won a bunch of majors. And what he won, four majors,
four majors, he knows and he won him early and
one one and what's seven eight years now, Valhalla. Yeah,
it's been a while. That's why I say this last
(32:49):
round is a shot in the arm for him. This
is a shot of confidence that he all of a sudden,
he hit. He hit all the shots that he used
to be able to hit. He made the putts that
he used to be able to make, and those were
the things we weren't seeing him do. And I think
he was thinking too much about golf swing he You know,
he talked about a few years ago, I'm trying to
grow my brand and stuff like that. We winning takes
(33:10):
care of all that. You don't have to try. You
you start winning majors. Guess what brand one? Going straight up?
What do you think of the changes? Obviously big changes
at eleven? They moved the tea back in fifteen. As
I said earlier, you would just played there about a
month before. Um, did you like the changes? Did you
like what they did? I mean the other thing that
(33:31):
that not a lot of people know. And I only
found about this because DJ played with I'm his brother
A J on Sunday and we took some local caddies.
They relayed. They took the entire first green up relayed
the first screen. I think they did that on three.
I think they did that on fifteen. I think they
did that on thirteen. Um, what do you think of
the changes? Were the only one that I I saw
(33:53):
and I knew they did all that because I was
there and the gentleman who is my host every year,
that Nick Evans, who I played with every time I
played there, we were going around and we were talking
about all the changes. Uh, you know, really in the
first green is time. But they yeah, they softened some slopes,
but the actual slopes and stuff were still there. The
one I like the best was thirteen. You know that
back pin placement all the way it used to It
(34:14):
used to almost go straight up to a plateau. Well
they soften that a little and made it not just
straight up. They made it angle to the right a little,
so that if your ball came off of it, it
was gonna run down towards the right side of the green.
I like that one a lout. I love what they
did eleven. You know, yeah, they moved it back whereak
and play five twenty five never goes Oh my god,
(34:34):
the part five, part four or five. These guys can
care less. They're hitting it out there. Three nothing for
these guys. Taking the trees out was a necessity. They
actually made the fairy wider because they pushed more fairway
out on the left hand side, and they even let
it slope up a little, so not so many balls
but run into the pine straw. The big change was
(34:55):
to the right of the green. They raised the green
on the razor green a little and uped it a
little away from the right side. But then they put
a swale in there over there where Larry Mis hit
his pitch in against Greg Norman. That that one wasn't
there then, And we saw guys down there, and that
was a tough little shot. Boy. That wasn't easy. I know,
I hit it there two days in a row. That
(35:16):
was not easy, whether you putted it, whether you chipped it,
whether you're trying to hit it in the here. And
then on Sunday the pin was right up against that
right side and we saw just about it. Everybody that
went over there really struggled getting it up and down fifteen.
They moved it back and then it was lower. It
was below the fairway, so they were hitting a little uphills.
So the yard is fight a little longer. Here's an
interesting path. There wasn't one eagle on fifteen all week.
(35:39):
That's hard to believe in it. So maybe maybe adding
a little difference and changing the angle they moved it
back to the left, maybe that made a little difference.
I know that, I know the masters. I know Augusta,
Nashville is one of your favorite places. You've got a
long history there, obviously, your father having one there. Um
you have a lot of your very close friends that
are members there. Um, you think it's the best run
(36:01):
sporting event in in any sport. Um, how do they
get it right? What in your opinion makes the Masters
so special and what makes it, in your opinion the
best run event in sports. I think it's the best
run event anywhere. You can even take sports out of it.
There's nothing like it. They don't leave anything to chance.
(36:23):
They think of everything. If the average person could see
what's behind the scenes, what's on the outside that you
don't see from the golf course, whether it's Berkman's place,
whether it's the various buildings, administration buildings and everything. It's
unbelievable that they have built all of this for one
week out of the year. There's tunnels that run under
(36:43):
part of the driving range is a tunnel that goes
under Washington Road to a new TV compound. I mean,
what they do is amazing. They do it all in
eight months too, when they when they decide they're going
to change something. Now you've got an unlimited budget, you
can do whatever you want. But what you see in
Augusta right now is all Billy Payne. Everything you see there,
anything that's new there was all Billy Payne's idea, not
(37:06):
not just the drive chipping pot, not just the ladies Amateur,
not just the the what the Far East Amateur and
all these things. All the infrastructure you see around there,
everything that's been built was all Billy Payne, and I
don't think he gets enough credit for it. It is
the finest run golf tournament by far. Now, it's pretty
easy when it's always at the same place. You know,
(37:28):
the other three majors or they moved them around. I
mean I I talked to the guys on our broadcast
team all the time. I said, I know you guys
are against this, but it wouldn't bother me if the
Open Championship was always at St Andrews. It's the home
of golf. It's great now. I'd hate to miss Cardinal's,
d m Murefield and all these other courses. But Augusta
is special because number one, it's always been there, and
everybody that watches on TV, even the players for the
(37:51):
first time we'll talk about, got to remember seeing Fred
Couple's balls stay on the bank at twelve when they're
out there playing. How the hect did a ball stay there?
And so well the golf god just and you're winning
this week. Fred, That's all it is. I tell my
friends all the time when I was there, you get
a kick out of this car and you've never played there.
And I told no, I'm just I'm putting it out there.
I have never played there. I'm just putting it out there.
(38:13):
That's too bad. You know, maybe you'll know somebody who
get you. I tell the friends that I bring there
every year and we get on the twelfth Green and
I said, hey, you know the greatest thing about where
you are now? They said, what the city been to
a lot of masters, but you've never been over here.
You've always been back on whatever. So I said, on
the green, I said, let's just look back away at
the people that nobody there. Obviously because you mentioned, um
(38:38):
all the things that Augusta does um, I think the
addition of the the anwall um with the ladies, the
drive chip and putt um. I watched I watched all
the ladies playing. I mean the girl that one that
Anna Davis, sixteen years old, she looked out like she
was just walking around and had no clue what she
(38:58):
was doing. Did you watch any of that or you know,
how impact do you think what Augusta is doing in
the women's game, the ten twenty thirty year legacy of
what they're doing with with champions. Because Jennifer cup Show
just won her first tournament and it was a major
and she was the first winner of the end. Will well,
(39:20):
let's let's go back and look at that ground. I
did a deal at the role actually the night with
Maria Fassey, the other girl that when cup Show one
they went head to head coming down the stretch, they
literally were Burnie in an eagle every home. Now, yeah,
they're playing from the same teams I played from. But hell,
I was having hard time making parts. I thought it
was phenomenal the way these girls played. I think it's
a great thing. I felt sorry, and I'm drawing a
(39:42):
blank on the girl's name. They had the two shot
lead and went double bogey bogey. I felt really bad
for her, but it just shows you what pressure does.
The other girl was ahead of earn't got in the
house and she had to find with you Birdie's sixteen
it looked like the thing was over, and even drove
it in the fairway on seventeen and then missed it
in no man's land to the left of the left
bunker and had no way to pitch in and then
(40:02):
eight teens she messed that up with a pretty simple chip.
You know, she drove it in trouble, but she had
a beautiful second shot just off the front of the green,
just a basic little chip and she you know, she
chipped it fifteen twenty ft by and that's nerves, you know.
But they learned. These girls learned from this, so when
they get to the lp g A it makes them better.
We've seen that with cops over sure, Scotty Scheffler wins
(40:25):
the Masters. I mean you've worked I mean, you've worked
with Tiger when he won the master's, UM, Phil Mickelson
when he was winning a Master's. You know, we've worked
with DJ he's won one. UM is just such a
cool thing, such a small fraternity to be a part of,
To be a twenty five year old kid and have
a green jacket, the magnitude of that just must be enormous. Well,
(40:49):
I think it's the greatest fraternity in golf. I was
talking to Paul McGinley about that. I said, I know
you're from Ireland and I know how much the Open
Championship means to you, and it means a lot to me.
I think it's the greatest the championship in golf because
they play on such difficult courses and they had players
from all over the world. I said, if you could
only win one major, only gonna win one in your life,
(41:10):
what would it be. He said, well, it would between
the Open and the Masters. And he said, quite frankly,
I'd like to have a green jacket and being up
in that other building where the locker room is, because
I think it's the best fraternity in golf. And before
we go a little further, how about the defending champion
At the dinner on Tuesday night, the decky Mansiyama gave
his whole speech in English, and the guy said it
(41:31):
was great. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he you know, in
talking to some of the guys, he got up and
he talked about, you know, watching the Masters as a
kid growing up in Japan. And you know, I talked
to Trevor. I talked to dj Um. He got a
standing ovation. I mean he gave it. You know, Bob
his interpreter, he's always there, Um you and I talked
to there by the way, Caude. He wasn't there. He
(41:52):
wasn't allowed into the dinner, so he had to go
for we went over you and I went over and
on Wednesday morning and went over and talked to her
DECKI on the range really quickly. And and unfortunately I
wish people. I mean, Haddecki's English obviously isn't great. But
Hudecki can understand what you're saying to him. And he's
such He's such a cool kid. He's been out in
and to Vegas and you've worked with them a little,
(42:14):
um talk about what what a cool character he is.
I really like him And and didn't he get in
as an amateur the first time he played by winning
that he won the Asia Pacific Asia Pacific Amateur. If
people forget about that, he actually came there as an amateur.
And that's another Billy paint thing that he invented for
to make the thing better. Yeah. I enjoyed working with Heddeki.
(42:35):
I've watched him play for years. I really knew his
old Caddy before a lot when I used to head
go to terms and stuff. He's pretty funny too, is Yeah.
Hadecki is just a really really nice person. And my gosh,
does he work hard? Man? This guy works hard. He
didn't and I'll tell you a nothing. But he had
(42:55):
the worst head back at impact I've ever seen. I've
shown you the Phil moment. It's just I said to him,
do you have neck problems? He goes, yeah, so my
next hurt and watching you hit balls, I said, and
I can show you the film the difference when and
you watch him now how he tries to let it
go as he goes through it. I love this kid,
and he works his tail off, this this guy, and
(43:16):
you talk about a guy that's probably to be a
Master champion, and you know how much the Japanese love golf,
and to have the first guy ever when the Masters,
or maybe the first guy I ever to winning major,
I don't think because Okay Son never won a major.
I don't think so. I mean here there are a
lot of pressure on him, and you see it every week.
There's a zillion photographers running around everywhere you go. The
(43:37):
part guy didn't even go to the port aloto without
five guys following him with the camera. Who is gonna
be going the bathroom? You know they go over there.
And I love the guy. I think he's a wonderful guy.
I think he's a great asset for for World Golf
and he could play. He's gonna win more majors too.
I think one of the other cool things that you
see at Augusta obviously nobody has their phones. You're not
(43:57):
allowed to take your phone, so you run into the
amount of people athletes from other sports. I saw Jimmy Garoppolo,
I saw Paul Gasol, I saw Luish Figo. Harry Kane
was here. I know you you spent some time with him.
Um Nile Horrn, who was a golf management company, was
out following a couple of his players. I mean the
reverence that people in other sports have for Augusta and
(44:19):
they get to come, and it's not that they get
to come and they sit in courtporate hospitality, because one
of the great things about Augusta and the tournament at
the Masters is there aren't the type of corporate hospitality
that there are regularly. So the people that go there,
whether they're an NFL quarterback or a soccer superstore, they
have to go out and they have to follow and
they want to Yeah, well, Harry Kane, I've never met
(44:41):
him before. I know he's England. He's England captain for
the football team. He's a big guy. He's a good player. Well,
he's scratch, he's just and he was playing on Monday
Morne and I think it's his day off. Time was
seven two and he said, I don't think I'm gonna
sleep tonight Sunday nighties. I don't think I'm gonna be asleep.
He's I can't wait to plays. I watched it on
you Be all the time. And he said to me
(45:02):
when we when we weren't on the air, and he said,
I've watched you and I've watched all your stuff on YouTube.
You've got any tips? I said, yeah, don't three puts,
don't hit in the water, go for it. Um. Lastly,
John Rom I mean he looked basically unbeatable last year.
And we've seen this before from players to where you know,
(45:22):
gets the number one in the world, wins his first major.
Did so much last year, not on the form that
we're used to seeing him, anything that you kind of
see in his game that you notice that's different, No,
I don't think so. I think you know, John can run, Uh,
he's got that Spanish blood, so he can run a
little hot every now and then. I think he's worked
on that. I don't think he's playing that bad. I
(45:45):
just don't think the puts are going in like they
used to. You know, when you're on those roles and
you're number one in the world, you're making all the puts.
You saved the buggies and stuff. If you get the
good breaks and stuff, don't worry about John Rome. He
could really play and he may win the next three Majors.
Who knows. The one that upset me the most, Clutter
and I got to talk about is what he said
after the Masters. So well, maybe the only way I
(46:07):
should come back here is at a caddy because I
can't play this course. And you know, you hit a
good shot and it goes off a green into a bunker.
Well what Mr Hatton doesn't understand, just because you're eligible
doesn't mean you get an invitation to be interesting to
see what happens next year. Um, are we gonna see
you on tour more? Or was this just you coming
(46:27):
back for the Masters since the one time thing? Did
you enjoy it, because obviously you spent pretty much the
majority of your life traveling around on tour and stuff.
It was great to see you back. Um, there was
a buzz around, you know, all the caddies, all the players.
The fact that you were back, um you got to
probably see a lot of people, and you know, it
was it was almost like a procession for you. You
(46:49):
were on the range, everybody was giving you hugs. Did
did you enjoy it? Well, we see you back out.
I did. And no, you will not see me back
out the terments in in Vegas. You're not gonna see
me out there again. The thing I loved about because
I hadn't been there since nineteen And did I miss it? No,
not ready. I'm I've really gotten this COVID thing has
made me a home body. I really like being homes
in back when way it's about, oh, you know, whatever
(47:12):
time it is, I'm gonna probably jump in the cart
and go play a few holes tonight before it gets
starts back home again. I did enjoy being on the
range again, even though I didn't get to spend much
time out there because of my TV dutios. I love
working for Sky. Twenty five years I've worked for a Sky.
I will say it's the first time I can say
it really took a toll on me. Uh, not so
(47:33):
much physically, it's mentally. You know, you gotta stay in
tune and stay in tune. I'm not a young man anymore,
even though I feel like I'm only sixteen. Mentally, I
was pretty worn out at the end of every day.
So now you probably won't see me anymore cause it's
all you ple all right. Well, I appreciate taking time
to talk to us. It was great to see you,
and uh, it was definitely a better event with you there.
(47:55):
And I know a lot of people felt the same thing.
So I was happy to see you, and uh, we'll
look for to seeing you again soon. You got it.
I love you, hanging love you too. So that was
but charmon And as I said at the beginning, hot takes,
you always know that you're gonna get Butchy to give
(48:16):
you his opinion. Still no chance that Butchie is going
to take me to Augusta National. I keep trying. I
would love to play at Augusta National with my father
fifty two years old, not getting any younger. He's not
getting any younger. So hey, Dad, if you want to
make that happen, jump right in and make the offer.
(48:38):
So listen, you guys. Hear me talk about this every
single week on the podcast. Eleventh Place finished last week
for DJ triple bogey on Sunday for three puts. Shane
Lowry triple on Sunday. I mean, obviously everybody's gonna have
three parts at Augusta National. But in keeping with the
constant theme, I'm gonna stay on this. I'm gonna keep
(49:00):
pounding this into you guys listening. DJ seven shots the triple,
the four three parts, that is seven shots. That is
the difference between finishing eleventh and finishing a hell of
a lot higher. Obviously, it's probably not gonna win, but
double Shane Lowry right in the mix on Sunday, cruising
(49:22):
along makes a triple. Yes, Cam Smith makes a big number.
Rory mclroy made a big number. It happens, um But
these guys are good enough. So you think about Shane Lowry.
Shane Lowry makes a triple on the fourth hole, goes back.
I think he went all the way back to even par,
and then he spends the rest of the day has
to shoot lights out, fights his way back. DJ did
(49:45):
the same thing. DJ's triple bogey on eleven comes after
birdieing seven, eight and nine. He's on a roll, he's
playing good, he's trying to get himself in the mix,
move up the leader board and gets out of position,
off off the t on eleven to the right, goes
to try and chip out, hits the tree, goes sideways.
(50:05):
Then he tried to chase one down there down the
right hand side and overhooks it in the water and
ends up making triple bogie. We saw camp Smith Birdie's
eleven right in it. You can put the pressure on um,
Scottie Scheffler. You've got two par five left. You don't
know what's gonna happen. A lot of things can happen,
and rinses one in the water, takes big number and
(50:27):
the race is over. So you're going to continue to
hear me talk about it the easiest single way for
everybody listening, whether you are a person trying to break
a hundred ninety eight seventy, trying to win a green jacket,
trying to win a major, trying to win the club championship.
Big numbers, double and triple bogies destroy your score. Do
(50:51):
everything you can think about your way around the golf course.
Scottie Shuffler could have made a disaster on Saturday night.
Yes he got a lot key break, but he didn't
compound and hit an unbelievable shot, gets out of there
with the bogey. And every single week on tour, every
single year at Augusta National, in a major championship, bogies
(51:13):
you can survive doubles and triples. You gotta do a
lot of work to get those back and it's just
a huge, huge part of the development of all golfers.
If you can eliminate those big numbers, scores are going
to get better. Off course with Claude Harmon comes to
you every Wednesday, Busy week. We did a great podcast
(51:35):
with Adam Scott, the bonus episode. Um My Dad, I
want to thank everybody for listening. It's always my favorite
time of the year on on Tour and uh, I
hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did. We
will see everybody next week
Host
Josh Martin
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