Back to Basics: Setup. Ball Position. Alignment.

dot com. The Travelers Championship there is only one. It's the Son of a Book podcast. We normally come to you every Wednesday. Took a couple of weeks off as I've been traveling and went down to the live event in Adelaide, was at the live event in Singapore and currently recording this in Bangkok. Just here in Thailand. I'm opening up a new academy here under my brand, the Claude Harman Performance Golf brand. Got one in Dubai, opening them one here. Really really excited about it and it's

really cool to get an opportunity to travel. And I think the last three three weeks for me has has shown me that global golf is. It's so cool, right And I think there's a lot of talk about growing the game, all the stuff going on with live, all the stuff going on with the PGA Tour and stuff. But when you get outside the United States, when you travel, I'm lucky enough to get to do that, you see that golf is a global game and there is a

passion for golf all over the world. Just wanted to touch a little bit on the live of that down in Adelaide. Listen. I know that it's crazy times right now in golf right and I know there are people that are on the PGA Tour side, they're fiercely anti live. There's the live people all of that. Listen. I've been saying this, if you love golf and if you want to watch golf, you can watch that anywhere. You can consume it on the PGA Tour, DP World, LPGA Champs Tour,

Asian Tour Live, you can find all that anywhere. You can find it on TV, you can find it online. There were some great players down at the Adelaide tournament for live and it's kind of become over the last two years lives kind of signature event. And again, all of my players that I work with, when I say this all the time, the three players I work with, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Kepka, Pat Perez, they made the choice to go to Live. I'm their coach. I go where

they go. So I think a lot of I think one of the things that I think it does kind of upset me and it makes me mad that I think a lot of the To me, it's just my opinion. A lot of the fiercely, fiercely anti Live people will openly tell you they don't watch, they don't care, they've never been to an event. So I try and use the podcast to say listen, make up your own mind. But the event in Adelaide has become over the last two years kind of lives signature event, and the crowds

the first year were just they're unbelievable. And Australia is starved, starved for professional golf, right. It used to be a lot of players used to go down there and a lot of players the Australian Open. There's been a rich, rich history down in Australia of players going down there, but in a number of years that that just kind

of didn't happen. And so I think one of the reasons why the event is so so l liked and so well attended is it's an opportunity for players to or for the fans to kind of see some of the best players in the world and they just don't see that many great players in one place. The Australian get to see Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, John Rahm, cam Smith, Bryson, d Chambeau, Wac o'neman and then a

bunch of other players. So for the Aussie fans, I think it's so well attended because it is an amazing tournament and it's an opportunity for them to see a lot of great players in one place. Now, yes, I saw online they were talking, you know, the live guys. You know there are social accounts where the live people are going, hey, first time great players have been down there, And somebody said, yeah, well Jordan Speith went down in twenty fourteen and won the Australian Open. I got news

for you. Jordan Speith was paid to go down there an appearance fee. He didn't go down there for free. He didn't go down there because his sole intention was to play Aussie golf. He did what every great player does, what every great player should be allowed to do. If you're the reigning if you're a reigning major champion, you can go outside the United States. They will pay you to come to their event. That has been going on

for over thirty years. That's not news, right, We've talked about I've talked about this on the pod Dubai Abu Dhabi Guitar China. Appearance fees are part of the game, right, So yeah, the live guys, a lot of them, they got the bag, they got paid. But that's been going on. That's not news. So I don't care which side you're on. If you love the PGA Tour, fine, If you like live, that's fine. I don't care. But you don't have to choose,

and you can watch your golf wherever you want. If you want to watch great players, if you want to watch John Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks, Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cam Smith, Bryson, you can watch them. They just play on live now, right. So if you don't like that and you don't want to watch because of that, in my opinion, I says I think that says more about you than it does about that my job as I've got my own podcast,

so I can say whatever the hell I want. But I think one of my jobs is I've been to every live event and I work with the players, So if you haven't been, if you don't know a lot about it, or whatever side you're on. The event was amazing. It's one of the coolest golf events I've been to. The fans were great, the golf course, the Grange. Yes, I'd love for the tournament to be at Royal Adelaide across the street, which is unbelievable. I'd love it to

be at Royal Melbourne. But the sand Belt golf courses and the Grange is kind of old school. I posted a video on my social and the bunkering in the sand Belt region in Australia of these golf courses is just so damn cool, right. The green complexes are cool, the short game stuff is cool. So it's always great to go down to Australia and see how cool the golf courses are because it forces they're tight. If they're

firm and fast, you can run the golf ball. There's so many different options coming into these green complexes, so it forces you to kind of be a little bit of a kind of old school shop maker. So the event last year was well attended. There was a ton of people. Fisher DJ he played last year. He played again this year on the Saturday night. It was amazing. It was just it felt like it felt like a festival at a golf tournament at night. It was cool.

The fans were everywhere. They were excited to see all these players. You could see the kids trying to get views of their favorite players. And then and you know the way that live works. You've got an individual winner every week, and you've got the team format. Cam Smith's team, the Rippers, all Australian. They're in a playoff with the South Africans. That was cool. They the Australians ended up winning two man playoff leash Mark Leishman and Cam Smith.

I mean, I talked to Cam in Singapore and he was like, this is one of the coolest things I've ever done. Right, It was one of the coolest things of his career. Whether you like that or you don't, Whether you agree with that or you don't, Cam Smith thinks it's one of the coolest things he's ever done right. So it was a great event. I couldn't believe how many people showed up. I mean, they sold more tickets this year than last year. And it was it was fun.

It was really really cool. And for those of the players and the people involved in Live, it's their biggest event. They don't have any majors, right, so it's the biggest tournament they had, And it was great and it was cool to go down there, and I thought it was a fitting end for cam Smith and the Rippers to win. They got up on stage did the shoey. It was fun and listen. If you don't like that, I'm okay

with that. That's that's your choice. But I think my job and what I try and do in my podcast is to talk about what's going on in the game of golf and talk about what's happening. And it was really really cool. So we went straight from Adelaide and went to Singapore and brooks Kepka won last week and listen, I think it was a big, big win for brooks Kepka. Ah, he did not. He didn't have his best stuff at Augusta. He said that he knew that those of us around

him we knew that as well. He went in there obviously having won the PGA last year, took a lead on Sunday last year into the final group with John Rahm, didn't get it done. The Masters is a tournament that Brooks death desperately wants to win. It is what he feels like, even though he's got five majors now, he will feel at the end of his career that if he doesn't have a Master's, if he doesn't have a green jacket, that it will be something that he wants that.

He's been close twice, right, He's had two second place finishes, once in nineteen when Tiger won and then last year when John ramwan. He has the game to win around there. He knows that he has been so close. He knows he can win that golf tournament. He didn't have his best stuff a couple of weeks ago. He was struggling with his golf swing and struggling with his setup. He couldn't get comfortable on the range, he wasn't seeing his window.

It was just a really, really weird week. I think you know, Brooks was trying to psych himself up to try and make things happen, and sometimes that just doesn't work. And you will not find anyone in competitive professional gulf that's harder on themselves than Brooks. I know, having been around him for over a decade now and worked with him, he demands and expects so much from himself, and I think that can sometimes come across in his interviews and

his persona and the way he carries himself. I think a lot of people look at that as maybe being arrogant, as maybe being like he thinks he's better than everybody else. I just think he has incredibly high standards of himself, is incredibly high standards of all of us on his team. And there was a little bit of a reset after Augusta and a little bit of a refocus, and what we did over the last two weeks is just get

back down to basics. And that's why I wanted to talk about this because I think it's something that everyone listening can can look at in their own game. When Brooks struggles, ninety nine percent of the time, it's set up related. And I've talked about this on the pod. Before the ball position can get too far back, his alignment, his stance can kind of get all all over the

place and That's what was happening at Augusta. He kept saying to me on the range, in all of the practice rounds, in all of the practice sessions, in all of the warm ups, he had a two way miss. He was struggling. All of the stuff that we were trying to work on, that we'd normally work on didn't work. He was struggling ball position. He couldn't get comfortable. No matter what we were trying to tell on he was

just like, I just nothing feels right. And listen, as a player, every now and again, you know, the system doesn't work. They're not robots. They're not perfect. They're never going to be perfect as good as they are, as great as they are, even on the runs that they're on. This historic run that Scotty Scheffler is on right now, playing golf that we just haven't seen in so long, the amazing, amazing golf that he's playing right now. Every now and again, you know, the system doesn't work. It

doesn't feel right. We've seen that with Rory McElroy. When Rory gets on these big, massive runs where it looks like he's basically just gonna win every tournament right now, you can see that Rory's searching. Rory didn't get the result he wanted at the Masters. He went out and saw my dad did a little trying to get a

little bit of a reset. It happens with players, and you know, there's all these cliches and sports, but one of my favorites is the only thing that really matters after you get knocked down is what you do next, because everybody's going to get knocked down, right, Everybody's going to get hit in the mouth. Mike Tyson has famously said everybody's got a plan until they get hit in the mouth. Then the plan changes. And I think for Brooks how much his focus and how much he defines

his career based off of the Majors. The Masters was a punch in the face and so we did a massive reset. So he came to his Caddy and I Ricky Elliott, and he said, Okay, we've got to get my set up right. We've got to get my basics right, we've got to get my ball position right, we've got to get my alignment right. So he said to us early in the week down in Australia, he said, listen, I want the two of you to nag me and be hyper focused and hyper vigilant on my ball position,

my setup, my alignment. So when Brooks's ball position gets back in his stance, he has his strong grip, his hands can get too far forward, and that left arm can get high, that right arm can get a little bit low, the shoulders can get a little bit closed. And what that does is it alters the takeaway to where the takeaway no longer goes outside and vertical, it

starts to get inside. Even though he's trying to do what he wants to do, what we want him to do from a swing technique, when that ball position gets back, when his shoulders get too shut, there's a domino effect. You've heard me talk about this before on the pod. There's a domino effect of things that happen. That is the domino that starts to cause the other things on

the downswing, that's the domino. His setup, his ball position, the things that he does before he hits the golf ball are is the domino that starts to push all the other dominoes. So it doesn't matter what he's trying to do with the backswing and the takeaway, I'm telling him get it more in front, get it more front. We're also looking at the ball position, and he's struggling to get comfortable. So at a major championship, it's hard to make changes because you know that these players are

going out and having to play at Augusta. Like everyone else in the field, there was a lot of wind going on. He was playing in a lot of winds. So then the ball position, because he's trying to keep the golf ball down, that's going to be even worse. So he said to Ricky and I listen, I don't care if I tell you. I don't want to hear any more about my alignment, ball position, and set up.

Keep saying it, so this is no joke. Every single shot he hit in practice, every single shot that I was with him on the golf course in practice rounds for the last two weeks, his caddy, Ricky and I before he hit a golf ball, he would so we would Ricky and I would tag team him. I'd go down the line, so I'd stand behind him, kind of where we see most of the television coverage from where

you're behind and they get the shot tracer. That's what I call down the line, and then Ricky would go over and stand as if he was looking at what we would call face on. So every especially on the range, there wasn't a shot that Brooks was hitting where he wasn't like saying to Ricky before he hit the shot, how's my ball position? How's my alignment? He'd say, how's my alignment? To me? Every single shot. We used a lot of video. Brooks is a very visual learner. He

likes to see what his body's doing. He likes to see what his ball position is, how things are working. So one of the things that I always tell Brooks is listened. When your shoulders get too closed, the left arm gets too high, the right arm gets too low, that elbow kind of tucks down. That's great if you're trying to hit a draw right. We try and do that with the amateur. A lot of you listening are in the position that we're trying to get Brooks in.

Your shoulders are open, that right arm is high. So I'm sure a lot of people that are trying to draw the golf ball are being told listen, close your shoulders more, get that right arm high, tuck that elbow in, and then on the downswing, try and keep that right elbow close to your body, try and swing more into out, get that path more to the right. All of that is great if you're trying to hit a draw, it's not conducive to what Brooks is trying to do. He's

trying to hit fades. He's trying to hit fades that start left of his target. He's also trying to hit fades with one hundred and twenty mile an hour clubhead speed and over one eighty ball speed. When that system and that process gets off with his speed, he can get the double miss and he can hit the golf ball a long way offline. So process and sticking to the process. He went to every member of his team who was down there that week. Pete Cowen and Jeff Pierce,

his putting instructor, didn't come. I was down there and he said to us, okay, He said to Ricky as Caddie, Mark Wallace, trainer, doctor Arsapaya, who looks after kind of his kind of team, and then Hamish, his trainer. He said to all of us, listen, We said to all of us internally, we've got to get back to basics, and we've just got to really really stick to the process. So I spent a lot of time with the off

course team. What is he doing in the gym? How can we match what he's doing in the gym with what we're trying to get him to feel with the golf swing. And it was a total reset. And he played good in Adelaide the final day, shot in the sixties kind of I can't remember the actual number, but played really good. Didn't feel like he made any putts. Led Adelaide in greens and regulation, which is a big

stat for Books Brooks. When Brooks was number one in the world and winning majors at a very fast clip, everyone thought it was his driving. Yes, Brooks is a good driver the golf ball. Yes, Brooks hits the golf ball a long way, can hit high bomb fades, he can dominate with the driver. When Brooks was number one in the world, nobody really was paying attention to the fact that he was one of the best iron players

in the game. And the players that played with Brooks when he was number one in the world would be like, dude, the guy's iron game is a joke. So when Adelaide, what we started to see was number one. We started to see Brooks hit a lot of fairways right, a lot of fairways for someone with his speed, guys like Brooks, DJ Rory, they're not going to hit twelve thirteen fairways

right because they're not hitting a lot of drivers. So based off of how many drivers he's hitting, the driver was better, the misses were better, they were less destructive. But the iron game started to come back. The quality of the strike started to come back. Where he was catching it in the face started to come back. And in Adelaide he started to hit a lot of shots kind of pin high, not pin high to two feet five feet, ten feet, pin high to fifteen twenty feet,

but they were quality golf shots. And then the thing that he said before we got to Singapore at the end of the week was his off speed stuff felt normal again. Right off speed stuff means when he's trying to instead of hitting eight, he's going to try in a little three quarter seven. Instead of trying to nuke or hammer a nine, he's gonna chip a little bit of an eight, instead of trying to hammer a wedge,

He's going to three quarter the nine. Right. So the off speed stuff started to get better as the setup and the ball position and the process of what we were doing with all of the basics. Everything that we kind of did in the last two weeks with Brooks was all before he hit the golf ball. Then the domino effect of that allowed a lot of the things that we're trying to work on in his golf swing somewhat for lack of a better term, fall into place

without him having to think so much about it. But every shot we were looking at the setup and he was saying it was kind of a jog. And he told me, listen, there is probably going to be a point in the next two weeks where I'm gonna say, listen, I'm tired of hearing about my setup. He said. I'm telling you and everybody on the team you have permission. If I tell you I'm tired of hearing about the setup, stay with me, and stay on me, and keep beating

me up about my setup. If the ball is half a ball, too far back, too far forward, I want to know if my shoulders are half We're not measuring, we don't have any three D on the driving range. But if my shoulders need to be a little bit more open, he said, tell me they need to be a little bit more open. If they're a little bit too closed, tell me, they're a little bit too close. So I think Brooks wanted to take ownership of that and hold himself accountable for that, but also he wants

to hold us accountable for that as well. Witness insurmountable deficits turn into unforgettable victories at the Travelers Championship, the northeast one and only PGA tour signature event. See Scotty Scheffler, Worry McElroy, Victor Hovlin, Patrick Cantley, and returning champion Keegan Bradley, as well as other PGA Tourist stars in all four days of the competition at close by TPC River Highlands. The excitement tees off June nineteenth through the twenty third.

For tickets and information, visit Travelers Championship dot com. The Travelers Championship there is only one. For those of you that watched the live event, Adelaide went to the first team playoff that live has had. There hasn't been a team playoff. There's been a couple of other playoffs. Brooks' is one in one of them, DJ's one and one of them, but there hasn't really been a team playoff. And the team playoff and what more of a fitting

playoff in Australia was Cam Smith's live team. Lucas Herbert Australian, Mark Leishman Australian, Matty Jones Australian, Cam Smith Australian, the All Australian team in Australia playoff against the Stingers, the All South African team. Right, the fans were going nuts. It was crazy, right, So it was a great finish to the tournament and everybody was watching. So the locker room in Adelaide was kind of in on the bottom floor and then upstairs where the player dining was was

where everybody was eating TVs and everything like that. So Sunday a lot of guys are leaving, maybe catching a flight, packing up everything out of the locker room. So you walk down a hallway and there was a door on the right and a door on the left, and the door on the left there was a gym and the

door on the right was into the locker room. So the majority of people were either packing up, the caddies are packing up all the bags, they're putting the club gloves all in the covers, everything they're putting everything, they're locking up. Everybody that was flying out that night. The locker room's filled with suitcases and stuff like that. So guys are showering, they're getting their stuff, they're catching flights. But the majority of the people had just finished. They

knew there was going to be a playoff. The players, all the people that are involved in the live team, the caddies. I was sitting with Wac o'neman and Mito Pereira. We were grabbing some food afterwards and the playoff happened. So we're all sitting and you know, a bunch of players and stuff, and the playoff was going on. There's a couple holes in the playoff and everything like that. I was upstairs. I went downstairs to grab my phone charger out of the locker, and I went past the gym.

Who's in the gym getting his ass kicked by doctor Aarra and his trader Hamish Brooks Koepka. I took video of it. Played good that day. Shot in the sixties. Led the week in greens and Regulation, literally getting the shit kicked out of him by his trainer, full workout hour. He was at the gym every night after the rounds. He was working out after the rounds. He wasn't leaving

the golf course untill eight o'clock. Listen, lots of players do this, right, This isn't anything that is specific to Brooks. People do this in the NBA, people do this in the NFL, people do this in the pre rugby, Major League Baseball. Every professional athlete in every professional sport, there are people that do this. Brooks is one of them. He was getting his ass handed to him by his trainer in the gym and he said, I need to do this. I need to kind of get beat up

to kind of refocus. That's kind of the way that he operates. He's talked for the last two weeks how sore he is because he's been getting his ass kicked in the gym, which he asked for, which he wanted. But my point is that's how much he wants to win. That's how important winning is to him. And when he doesn't win, he beats himself up and he holds himself accountable. And I took a video of it. I was blown away. I was like, I didn't even know he's working out.

And I walked in, looked at him, looked at the team. They shook their heads. He looked at me, shook his head. Nobody said anything, and I walked out and we got to Singapore. Same thing. Stay on me on the setup, stay on me on the ball position, stay on me on the alignment. We could start to see that things were starting to turn around. Every team goes through this, right, Every instructor that works with players goes through this. I've

had instructors on the pod. The hottest instructor in the game right now who's having so much success, Mark Blackburn. He sees this. You can tell when players have fallen down, when they've struggled, when they've had to hit the reset button. You can tell when they're doing the work, when they're putting in the time, when they're committed, when they're ready to go. Brooks was ready to go. He wasn't happy with the way he played Augusta, so I figured Singapore

would be a good week. It's a good golf course, it's a fun golf course, and the practice sessions were good. He said. Golf was starting to feel for him normal, starting to feel the club in the places needed to be, starting to see the ball start in the windows. He was hitting it really good in the practice rounds, but he wasn't making a lot of pots, and he said after Adelaide, man, I feel like if I just could make a few more potts, start to see some balls

go in. The ball striking is there. And I kept saying to him in Adelaide, I know you're hitting it better. You know you're hitting it better. You can feel it, we can see it. You just have to be patient because the good rounds are going to come. But it's hard to do that as an athlete. It's hard to do that as a player. So Singapore was good and we were out in the pro am. We did a nine hole pro am on Thursday, and he played the

back nine and the fourteenth hole. In the fifteenth hole or right along the water, So fourteenth holes part three water all the way down the left hand side. Fifteenth hole, part four, water all the way down the right hand side. So in the practice round started on ten Brooks, pipes it right down the middle, hits it's about ten feet. Putt breaks, you know, it's breaking from right to left.

Hits a really good putt, maybe just a little bit too hard, hits the lip, you know, lips out and you can just see him just go, man, what do I have to do to make a putt. He changed putters as well in the last month, which is something that Brooks doesn't really do. He doesn't really change his equipment.

He's won all five of his majors with the same style of putter, the blade kind of Scotty Cameron Newport that you know from watching Tiger Woods, but he's made the decision to kind of go to a little bit more of a mallet, pretty much the same putter that Justin Thomas is using. Right, We saw that with Scotty Scheffler. Scotty Shuffler was struggling a little bit with his putting. He went to a mallet and it's helped. Right, We were making some changes to his putting stroke to where

the blade was. He was just taking a little bit on the inside and then there's a little bit of a loop. So we were doing a lot of work to just try and feel like for him that he wasn't using so much of his hands, that he was trying to feel like he was letting his arms swing a little bit better. So again, same thing he kept saying, listen, stay on me about how the putter is going back. Make sure that putter doesn't get too inside on me. Make sure my ball position doesn't get too far back

on me. The same thing happens with Brooks's putting, that happens with his full swing. So we stayed on that. We sent a lot of videos every single night. I'm videoing golf swings during the day, set up driver irons, putting ball positions. Every single night. I'm sending those to him just so he can see them, and he would send him back to me, saying, starting to look better, starting to feel better. I like this, still think I could do this better. So we knew we were kind

of trending in a better place. So practice round again. Eleventh hole pipes, It hits, it's about fifteen feet one eighties. It lits it out again, and you can see he's getting more and more frustrated. Twelfth hole part four, hammer's drive down there, hits it to about five feet, missus thirteen pipes of driver. Again, this isn't the program. Hits one to about fifteen feet, lips it out and just lost it. You could sell. He's like, I'm so tired of not making any potts. I'm working my ass off

in the gym. I feel like I'm doing all the

right stuff. I just can't make a pot. So we got to the fourteenth hole, which is part three, water all the way down the left hand side, and as we were walking up, we just talked about it and I said, man, and Ricky, and I is caddy Ricky Ellen, who's been on his bag since day one, since he started playing on the PGA Tour, since he's won all these majors, And we just said, listen, you're the best pressure putter, one of the best pressure pressure punters I've

ever seen. Definitely, Brooks is one of the best pressure putters I've ever seen in a major championship. He likes that. And I said, but when you're putting bad, it's not always your technique right sometimes, so I said to him, listen, your stroke looks better, you know, it looks better. Your stroke is okay based off of what you've been doing. Maybe it's just the speed and the line and we just need to dial those in a little bit more.

And I said, listen, halfway through this practice round, you've hit really good pots. It's not your stroke, it's just, hey, you hit that one a little bit too hard. Hey you hit that one a little bit too soft. Maybe that broke a little bit more than you thought. So again, that's execution, that's not technique. We're looking at the veils he would miss. He missed a couple of putts in that practice. Early He's like, can you video my setup? Can you video the punch take. We showed it to

him and he's like, dude, that all looks good. Right. We're like, it looks good. I could see him getting more frustrated, and I just told him, I said, listen, Steph Curry plays for the Golden State Warriors. One of the best three point shooters the game's ever seen. He's so good at shooting three points that a lot of people think he changed the way the NBA is being played, because the NBA is now a lot of three pointers.

He's the best at it. If he's in the NBA Finals, Game seven, and he goes from three point land in the first quarter, oh for seven. And they start the second quarter and he goes and he misses the first two, and then they start getting him open looks and he starts passing it taking shots. Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, is going to call time out.

He played with Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls. He's won championships, He's going to call time out and pull Steph aside and say, what the hell are you doing? Keep shooting. And I said that story to Brooks. I'm like, you've got to keep shooting. Steph Curry is not going to stop shooting. He's going to keep taking his shot. And I said, you just have to be patient and keep shooting. And we were talking about that on the fourteenth hole. We talked about it the rest of the round.

And so during his warm up even on Sunday, I took some videos of his golf swing while he's warming up and I just said, listen, take a look at this. This where you are with your seven iron face on. He's like, yeah, that ball position's good. Showed him one down the line. I said, yeah, that setup's good. The setup, we couldn't see that left arm. When Brooks gets a little bit too closed with the setup, we see too much of his left forearm from down the line, his

hips get a little bit too closed. In Adelaide, I put an alignment rod through his belt loops so we could set up and he could see where his hips were. And we were doing that. That's a great tip. If you're struggling with your alignment with your lower body, put an alignment rod through your belt loops and get that set up and you'll see where those hips are. So if your hips are too closed or hips are too open.

So the last thing I said to him before he went out on Sunday, Man, it's just keep shooting, keep shooting, and so on. Sunday got off to a really good I mean the first round that he played on Friday, I think it was five under through seven and started to see some putts go in one of the leaders I think he was leading, if not one of the

leaders right near the lead, maybe one back. And then Saturday, really good round of golf going, but I think it was then on sixteen he three putted and from like five feet he lipped one out, which is what has been happening with his putting. And I said to the guys on the team, it's gonna be interesting to see how he finishes. Now we're gonna know a lot about where his headspace is based off of what we see. For the next two holes, par three and then an

easy par five. Right the par three seventeenth, he made a bad swing hit it to the bunker, just got a little bit under it and then hit it's about seven feet and then lipped one in for par. I thought that that was huge. I really did. Mentally, I

thought that that was a really really big deal. And then Sunday kind of got to lead to about two shots and then on the fourteenth hole, where in the practice round on Thursday, his caddie Ricky and Elliot and I started talking to him about you've got to stay patient. But I said to him in that practice round as well when he won the PGA at o'kill, there's always going to be a point in the round to where

you have to make a putt. You have to do something right, you have to do something special, and you're probably going to be faced with if you want to win the tournament, there's no real other option other than to make a pott. And at o'kill last year in the PGA, that's what he had. He had a downhill fast left to right, probably thirteen foot for par on a par five. He made the pot and I said to him in the practice round during the pro I said,

were you thinking about your stroke? Then he said no, I said, that was you As the athlete saying, if I want to win this golf tournament, I've got to will this putt in the hole. Tiger Woods did that. Tiger Woods told me, and it's funny. We're going back to Valhalla for the PGA next week. He told me to get into the playoff against Bob May. And I think it was two thousand. He had a putt that he had to make to get into a playoff with Bob May. He's supposed to crush Bob May. He didn't.

He had to make a putt. I said, in your head, what are you saying to yourself? And Tiger, I'll never forget it to you. Tiger said to me. I said to myself, I want to win another major if I want to hoist the Wannamaker. If I don't want to get into a playoff and try and win this tournament, there is no other option other than to make it. And that's what we were trying to say to Brooks. Listen, you've done this before. You know how to do this. Turn your brain off and just putt. Just try and

make it. Try and make it. Sometimes we get into that spell where we're trying not to miss it right, Try and make it, and so on the green where we started talking to him about that pin was back left, water all the way down on the right. He hit one to about forty feet, big break fast right to left, left it about eight feet short, maybe ten feet short, stood up for par, hooped it right in the center next hole. In my head, I'm saying to myself, Okay,

water on the left right, bunker's right ball. It's not a long hole. He doesn't have to pound driver down there. But you make a bad swing, you're struggling to make a par. He took out his three iron, roasted one right down the middle of the fairway, and then stood up and hit a little three quarter off speed, a little chip. It was either a wedge or nine to about twelve feet pin high, made it, then went to eighteen. Knew he had a lead, think he had a two

shot lead at that point. Knew that he could take two. They always say, if you could take two, take two. Didn't hit a great drive, hit it to the right, had to lay up, hit one over the green, didn't come down, and then finished the tournament off by holing probably about a six seven foot birdie putt, which I think was huge and I said to him after the round, man he putted great today, and he said, I should turn my brain off. I just quit thinking about my stroke.

I just turned my brain off. And I think that's an important lesson for everyone listening that sometimes you can overthink it. Sometimes you're trying not to miss it. You're not trying to make it. Sometimes you're trying to not hit a bad shot, and you're not trying to hit a good shot, You're just trying not to hit a bad one. I think what we saw from Books in Singapore is kind of the reset that he needed. He's going to go into the PGA Championship at Valhalla with

a lot of confidence. I think he's gonna play well. I really do. I think he learned a lot over the last month. I think he's done the work. I think he's put his body through a lot. I think he's punished himself. I think he's demanded a lot of himself, demanded a lot from the team around him. And I think the Masters was the reset he needed. I think the Masters was a little bit of the reset that

I needed and the team needed. And I think it just goes to show you, guys, everyone listening grip, stance, posture alignment, the basics, the stuff that no one is making TikTok Instagram videos, YouTube videos. It's not cool, it's not sexy. It's not laying it down, it's not shallowing it out, it's not all that bullshit. We just went back to basics with Brooks. We just went back to basics, posture, alignment, grip, where he's aiming, all of that. That started the dominoes

going in the right direction. And I don't care whether you think it was a statement when for Brooks or not. I know it was, and I know he knows it was. It was the confidence he needed. It's his fourth win on liv. Listen, if you don't think the competition's any good, I think that says more about you than it does about the competition. He's beating some of the best players in the world, and I really don't care if you

don't think that. I know that because I see the golf that they're playing, I know the players he's playing against, and I think it's a good reset for Brooks. And we'll see what this brings for the rest of the year. He's got three majors left and he believes in his goal this year, he's got five, he's got three chances left. I know in his head he's trying to get to eight by the end of this year because he believes he can get to ten. He believes he can get

to double digits. And I just thought I would share that story with you that sometimes you have to hit the reset button. Sometimes you have to go back to basics. Sometimes you can get the dominoes to change by the things that you're doing before you hit the golf ball. So so so proud of him. I know how hard he works, I know how hard he wants all of this and a really really good win for him. And

I'm really excited to get to Valhalla. I'll fly back to the US tomorrow night, get back on Thursday, and then we will head up to Valhalla and the PGA on Sunday. Going to do and record a little PGA preview show which will come out next week with my dad. Butch Harmon talk about obviously the favorite Scotti Scheffler. Can he get another major? The run he's on is historic, I think, I mean it is. He's playing unbelievable golf. Hopefully get his kind of take on some of the

stuff that he's been working on with Rory. Is this the opportunity ten years on last major? Roy One? Was it the PGA Championship at Valhalla twenty fourteen? And if I told anybody listening that in fourteen Brooks Koepka would have more majors than Rory, you wouldn't believe it. Why because you probably hadn't heard of Brooks yet, and maybe you didn't think he was that good, and he wasn't that good at that point. And Rory in twenty fourteen,

I thought by now he'd have ten. That's how good he is, That's how great of a player he is. So I think there's a lot of storylines that we could kind of see aligning at the PGA, and I'm really excited to get to it. So yeah, two week break from the pod, but we are back. Can't thank everybody enough for listening, Rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcast. Son of a Butch comes to you almost every Wednesday. But we will definitely see you next week.