As the 2025 Open Championship returns to Royal Portrush, we sit down with someone who knows the land, the game and the moment better than most. Justin Parsons—coach to the likes of Brian Harman, Harris English and Louis Oosthuizen—grew up just down the coast in County Down, learning the game on windswept turf and nine-hole loops near oyster farms. In this wide-ranging conversation with host Casey Bannon, Parsons reflects on Northern Ireland’s rich golf culture, how pros adapt to links conditions, and what it takes to compete at The Open. Along the way: lessons from Harman’s win at Hoylake, thoughts on developing young pros, Portrush pub tips and a reminder that sometimes the draw beats the field.
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You know, there are certain places that you really you’ve got to avoid in in Port Rush. Some of the deep bunkers off the tea you’ve got to avoid. I can’t think that the greens would be specifically very small, but they don’t play that big. There’s a lot of little shelves that you’ve got to find. Again, guarded by a lot of bunkers and little runoff areas and things like that. So, controlling the ball into the greens would be good. And then going back to, you know, to what you talked about like a lot of with a lot of Lynx courses, having that ability to be adaptable and to manage, you know, a 7:00 in the morning draw where it’s cold and windy and and you’ve got to get through to, you know, 10:30 and the sun comes out and the last five or six holes are are are pretty benign. So, you know, being able to kind of just hang in there and uh, you know, embrace the embrace the open championship for what it is. It’s Tom Watson played in 40 and he said he could only have won about 18 of them, but the draw just didn’t allow him to um to to get himself in a position. So, understanding that that’s going to be part of it. Um and you kind of put your best foot forward and and um and see what you can make of it. Mr. Parsons, good to see you again. Nice to see you, too, Casey. Thank you um specifically for doing this on your wedding anniversary of all days. Yes. Well, she’s teaching yoga, so I was able to kind of slip out there, so it’s uh it’s worked out. Okay, good. So, I’m not I’m not in trouble. No, not yet. Okay, great. Great. Um well, I assume it’s a busy time for you outside of outside of the uh wedding anniversary. You just finished up uh US Open at Oakmont and you are we are preparing to go overseas for the Open Championship. you of course uh born and raised in Northern Ireland. I’m curious about uh where you grew up. Uh tell me about your your your hometown in Northern Ireland and and maybe how that shaped you. Yeah, our nearest neighbor is about 500 yards away from from our home. So the the the really the town of the village is called Kinci, which um you’ll find Kinci close to Strangford Lock. really if you left Belfast and traveled south towards Royal County Down Golf Club, you get about halfway there on the coast and you’ll you’ll find this little place called Kinci. So, you know, it was a it was a great place to grow up right out in the countryside. Um always active, always doing lots of things, lots of sports, and I fell in love with uh with golf in my kind of early teens. Um and was fortunate enough to go down to Down Patrick Golf Club, which is now called St. Patrick’s Golf Club, which is um you know, another few miles down the road you will find uh Newcastle. Um but I went to school in in Belfast at at Campbell College, great school in Belfast. I’m pretty close to to Campbell was No Golf Club, which is um a terrific golf course. Alistister McKenzie, believe it or not, designed golf course. Um so when I was uh when I was good enough to be at school, I was at school, but a lot of the time I was down there hitting balls at Knock and uh yeah, it was a it was a great place to to to grow up. Yeah. And there’s what about 500 people maybe in Kinci? Uh maybe a little more than that, but certainly we uh we still needed to to drive two or three miles to the nearest store and uh you know, so I I was I was quite out out there. The the little golf course that was close to my father in an oyster farm there for for many years and uh he grew oysters and and supplied them all over the world. And the little golf course there was Mahi Island. And um that was really one of my first memories of playing. He would take me from from the oyster farm and we would we would go off on a on an old it was a World War II landing craft that he had which which which helped with some of these oyster trestles. Um and we would travel around this little island and he would drop me off on the first fairway at Mahi Island Golf Course which was a beautiful little nine-hole course. Um gorgeous little thing but it’s uh it’s since been closed but great memories of getting dropped off there and playing those nine holes paying my green fee and then continuing to play for uh you know for summer days. It was cool. Tell me about Northern Irish Oysters. Are they the big ones? No, they are small little Atlantic oysters. Um, you know, they they say they’re they’re very very tasty. And in that uh in in in Strangford Lock, they they they grew a lot of oysters down in that Dundrum Bay area around around again close to Newcastle RCD. They would grow a lot of oysters there, too. So, you know, I I recall he was, you know, he was in Tasmania and Hong Kong and he supplied oysters to again like Hong Kong and and London uh through Tesco’s and um and even into Dubai where I kind of ended up sometime later, which is quite funny. Yeah. What um what you know, it’s probably a big question, but what does golf really really mean to the people of Northern Ireland and and maybe Kenchi specifically? Was it uh something that was accessible, something that everyone could do? Was it something that was culturally important to everyone or a small group? Yeah, I think it’s, you know, I think even since I’ve been playing it’s changed a little bit. I think golf has become an awful lot more accessible through the years. I wouldn’t say Kinci was a melting pot for golf certainly, but um in and around Belfast and Banger and Hollywood who where I spent my school life and and the beginnings of my professional life, you know, a big big golf community. That was always a thing. you know, a lot of people would kind of put their clubs away in September, October as the weather got, you know, fairly average hardy. People like me, we would have played the winter league on uh on temporary greens and things like that. Um, but, you know, golf is very very much part of uh part of life uh for me, you know, an ever bigger growing sort of segment of of the Irish and Northern Irish population. And I think as as we’ve seen um Graeme McDow and and Clark and Padrick Harrington and Rory having such success, I think that’s really spurred on a a modern generation of young players um at the golf center that I started teaching at Blackwood. I spoke to my good friend Paul Gray who who runs the facility there now and I said, “How are things going?” He said, “The place is just slammed. We’ve had some really good weather. We had seven weeks of dry weather, which is, you know, kind of certainly sets Lynx courses up for a really good summer. if you get a good spell of dry weather, you’re going to get a little bit of run out and you’re going to get some of those nice contrasts on the on the fairways and into the rough. So, you know, he was saying that things are um things are slammed and and pretty exciting and uh you know, I’m looking forward to getting over there. Yeah. At what age do you think um did you realize how significant and, you know, really truly world class some of the golf courses were up there? I imagine if you grow up by, you know, a royal county down, a port rush or something like that, you might just, you know, uh, you could take it for granted. But what at what time did you realize that these were some of the best? That’s a good question. I remember it being an assistant at Knock Golf Club and um, there was an American gentleman whose name I’ve forgotten, but you know, upon research, he was very, very wealthy, very successful guy. And he’d come all the way over to play in the it may have been the British seniors at RCD. And I remember one of the one of the tasks I was I was given was to take him out at knock and play golf with him. And he, you know, he was a good player himself. And we we got chatting and and I remember from listening to him just how special he felt being being at um Royal County down, being at Port Rush, playing golf in Belfast, playing golf in Ireland. You know, it was a it was a big deal for him. And I I I remember thinking at that point, you know, if this guy who’s, you know, got access to doing whatever he wants to do is coming over here and feels kind of, you know, somewhat overwhelmed and um elated to be here, I thought, you know, it must be a pretty a pretty cool experience. Yeah. I I imagine you had aspirations to be a player growing up. Mhm. But yeah. Yeah. You know, I was I was pretty successful in my let’s say mid to late teens. I took golf up when I was 13 and I ended up I I’m quite obsessive as you guys have probably seen from the uh from the instructional pieces we did. So from sort of from 13 to 15 that’s all all I really did and and I quite quickly got into all of the boys championships and the youth championships and I was able to have some success in those and play proincially for Olter and things like that. So, you know, that was that was that was certainly on my radar and and I I was joking with someone um a couple of days ago that I was that I was teaching. You know, those of us who’ve made mistakes in life and probably haven’t behaved the way we should have behaved um are probably in a better spot to coach people a little bit later on. So, I I couldn’t I wouldn’t say that I was the most um Why is that? I was well I just think when you’ve had a you’ve had a a wider traveled life where you know I probably should have worked harder in my 20s and I should have taken better care of my back and I should have taken better care of myself and and I shouldn’t have um been so fond of uh being out late and uh getting phone numbers of young ladies then I think uh I probably would have been better at golf but you know helping you know maybe again a younger generation to realize look you know if this is the direction you want to go this is probably what’s going to happen if this is a direction you want to go, this is probably what’s going to happen. So, from a coaching standpoint, I hope that that uh that that puts me in a position where I can give some some good advice. But, yeah, no, I was I was very competitive um through in my 20s. I still wanted to to to play professional golf. Um I came out to Wallace State in in Alabama and had a short spell here in in college and it really wasn’t it wasn’t for me. Um I came back, turned professional, um did my training ship at Knock Golf Club. Um played a year on used to be called the Mastercard Tour. it’s just been the span of the Euro Pro Tour which kind of for you know an American audience would be more like a more like a GP pro and playing in Monday qualifiers you know that was that was really truthfully the sort of level but in interspersed with that we had a very um successful proam scene in Ireland so as a club professional you could go all around the island of Ireland and play in different proams that were were organized and it was relative relatively lucrative if you could finish in the like let’s say top five or six you were certainly covering your expenses and putting some money in your pocket So, uh, again, I think from a coaching perspective, having having played, um, a a seriously a serious level of golf and had, um, the experiences of a of a competitor, you know, again, at least you’re at least you’re wellversed in at least what it feels like. I mean, I always I remind Harris English and Brian Harmon that, you know, I never played a Walker Cup. I never played in the US Open, but but at the same time, I kind of I can I can empathize and understand what the pressures feel like. Mhm. What was the bigger culture shock? Wall estate at Alabama or when you moved to Dubai? Wall estate. Well, you know, at that point I was I was fairly green. I was coming from uh you know, from a from a fairly um cosmopolitan, so to speak, uh easygoing environment in Belfast. You know, we were we were just coming really out of the troubles. 94 we’d had, you know, a great kind of peace agreement. Um, I can recall some really good weather and those ensuing couple of summers. Um, it was almost like I’m not going to say like war has ended and things, but I it just felt like there was a little bit of a brighter future going on in in in Northern Ireland. And uh when I hit the the dry county of of Coleman County and uh it was Yeah, it was then. I mean, but uh you know, it was just it was a different deal. And you know, again, could I have worked harder and and really got my teeth into things and and and done a better job of it? Yes, of course I could. But uh yeah, I think uh I think Dubai when when I’d I’d already kind of been out there. I’d already traveled a little bit certainly around Europe. Um and so I kind of knew what I was kind of getting into when it came to Dubai. Why did you go to Dubai? um September 2004, a client of mine that I was teaching um was headed headed out there and his cousin um is Wayne Johnson. And Wayne is a remains a great friend of mine who was the director of instruction at the Montgomery in Dubai. And this gentleman said to me, “Listen, do you want to come out? Give me some golf lessons, golf instruction in the mornings, and then we’ll go play golf.” So it was like a 5-day trip. So we flew out there and I remember we stayed up in Jebel Ali which is a little bit north of the um the city as it has grown. Um and we I I watched him hit some balls in the morning. We played the golf course. Then we went down and we played the Montgomery, we played Albadia Golf Club, which is no longer a public course. Um although the Alpha Tame family still own it and they do um have it as a golf course. Uh we went to Dubai Creek and I remember just thinking to myself, this place is unbelievable. It was pretty much very much American kind of operated. True Golf operated a lot of the um a lot of the facilities. Um I got to meet Wayne Johnson. Wayne had worked for Butch in Las Vegas. He he’d opened a golf school for Butch um with Claude Harmon who again a great friend of mine. We eventually opened the Harmon School in Dubai. And you know, I remember meeting Wayne and just thinking to myself like there’s so much I don’t know about teaching golf. There’s so much I don’t know about the way it should be presented. there’s there’s so much I don’t know about this whole this whole operation. So, um having given it some thought that that autumn I or fall as you guys would say, I went out and I I rented my apartment out. I went to my um the people who were, you know, in charge of Blackwood Golf Center. I said, “Look, can you give me until April? I’m going to go out and kind of try my luck in Dubai.” And I uh flew out there on it was either New Year’s Eve or the day before. It was like very late 2004. And uh eventually got some work there closer to the summer. So, I was there for a good sort of six months. Um, everyone got to know me as this kind of fairly, you know, nice enough Irish guy who was hanging around looking for a job. But, I was glad I did. I worked for Wayne at at the Montgomery um for three years. Ended up uh being director of instruction there. And, you know, again, as I you say to a lot of younger people who, you know, who ask me about that experience, like I I went out there wanting to achieve something, got an opportunity, eventually having had to really like claw for it a little bit. And then that made me even hungrier to make sure I took advantage of it. So, you know, I think that that really helps you in your career. If you, you know, you go through an apprenticeship and you go through some struggles and then you eventually, you know, if you can carve out an opportunity for yourself, then you can really kind of take it to another level. So, you know, eventually I became director of instruction of the Montgomery and um Claude and I opened the um the Harmon School in late 2008. So, uh yeah, it was a good run. Yeah. would you say? I mean, there’s there’s plenty of ways um to make a a really good career out of the the industry that you’re in. You don’t have to uh teach, you know, PJ tour pros or major champions or any of that. Would you say that there was a a lucky bounce here or there along the way that um got you from just you know a really great director of instruction at you know whatever club it may be to someone that’s uh you know really at the highest levels of of the game now. Yeah. I think, you know, I think timing, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to make some luck, but you’ve like if I had if I was 5 years younger, um I would have been approaching that idea of going to Dubai right when the first financial crisis was coming on. So, there’s just no way that they would have hired somebody like me from Ireland to, you know, give us the all of the different health insuranceances and different things we have to do. Um, I think that had there not been, again, if I was 5 or 10 years younger, everybody has an understanding in our world of golf fitness, everyone has an understanding of of how the human body works and how the or people are certainly getting a wider acceptance of the fact that your body has a big impact on your on your golf swing. you know, when when we were c certainly looking at the Titus Performance Institute and the way that the the the body influences the golf swing and things like that, we were, you know, really at the beginnings of that. And then, you know, furthermore, another lucky break I had, I mean, I remember going to, I think we went to out to Phoenix, um, and I did training with Phil Cheetum on 3D. Um, and we went to Vegas and a guy from uh, I think from Nevada who who was selling the Trackman units at that point in these big old orange boxes in those days that were very large. So again, having access to that technology really early. So, you know, you you do you’ve got to have a bit of luck along the way. But, as I say, I think if you if you have some sort of a vision and you’ve got you’re prepared to put yourself out there, you know, Butch Harmon always said to me, you’ve got to be prepared to show up. you’ve got to be prepared to show up whether you need to fly to Dubai to try something or you go to, you know, some far-flung place that your instinct tells you to go to. Um I think putting yourself out there and and trying to take a few risks is is something that’s uh that I that I certainly feel like I was fortunate to do. Yeah. Um present day. So, um I’m curious, you know, your your guys just get done with this brutal test at Oakmont. They still have to play, you know, they play Hartford. Um, some of them might play Rocket Mortgage, but still very much in the American aerial game style currently. At what point do you and and your players start to turn your attention to open championship golf and what does that preparation generally look like? You know, I would say that it has been a nutritional season. Um, you know, the guys have have done very well. Oakmont, as you say, was was very attritional. Quail Hollow was attritional. We had signature events um pretty much on the back of major championships, which um was difficult. So, you you’ve got to in their own way, you have to you have to make sure that they have the opportunity to rest and to recharge a little bit. Um some of the guys will maybe want to go fishing and completely take their eyes off it for a few days. these other guys will just want to be kind of hanging out at home and going to the gym and things like that. Um I I would turn their attention to it anytime, you know, in the next sort of week or so. We’ve got some some good wind here. I’ll probably turn my attention to um and we have already you know to some degree certainly with with Harris’s preparation worked hard on on iron shots not only for for Scotland and and Northern Ireland as it as it will will be in the future but really for his development as a player to be able to control his spin and things a little bit better. Um but certainly uh any windy conditions here, we often go over to uh the Speedway Green over in in front of the in front of the lodge and start like really having some like long putts and getting used to This is the putting course at Sea Island. Yes. So almost like the Himalayas 100%. So you know it’s great for them to start to see that you know we’ll go that out there maybe with a five iron from the edge of the green and just start to see see the ball on the floor. I remember I was I was teaching a a really good player. You guys may remember him called Steve Webster who’s a fantastic player from England and I always I I remember saying to Stephen, how how do you because he was a great Lynx player, you know, he he was good at both uh both sort of elements and he said, “Whenever I play Parkland golf, I look up and wherever I play Lynx golf, I start looking down into the right out onto the onto the horizon.” So just kind of getting them, you know, acclimatized to that. As you say, the the American game is a little bit different. Um but fortunately you know certainly those two players um have got great experience. Um Louis Tausen who I’ll I’ll meet over there in in in Port Rush as well. You would say has got fairly good experience um at that type of golf. Um and you know one of the things I’ve been really um enjoying this year I’ve been helping some younger players Blades Brown and Aldrich Potkiter who has uh who’s got good experience being an amateur champion um and Crystal Lampre. you know, I’ve been putting a little bit of energy into sort of a subset of younger players and um I certainly think at this stage in my career, it’s nice to, you know, take the historic nature of growing up where I’ve done and then seeing how that preparation has been for for good players and established players and then being able to take the best uh and uh hopefully forget the worst that I’ve done in the past. Yeah, I do find the visual very uh funny of uh a Sea Island Resort guest here going out on the uh putting green and seeing Paris English tooling around with a 5iron there in preparation for open championship. Well, I think that’s one of the wonderful things. Um, and I often, you know, give give golf lessons to guests here and they say, you know, I just saw Brian Harmon out there practicing a little bit and they take a moment just to and, you know, another nice thing which is kind of a little bit like Dubai here that, you know, the the the guys who are, you know, let’s say famous here, they don’t really get bothered too much by people. people accept and understand that they’re here, but you know, there’s Brian Harmon working on his wedge game and they spend five minutes taking a look at what he’s doing and then you watch Keith Mitchell hitting a couple of drivers and Harris English is in the gym every morning and um you know, it’s it’s kind of part of the fraternity here which, you know, is a is a is a lovely feeling for people to to recognize that this is where they live and this is where they work. Um and it’s also a wonderful resort and a great place to live. Yes, it is. Um very unique place. Is there anything you mentioned working on iron iron play with Harris leading up to it? Is um is there anything usually technically um that changes from uh you know playing the regular tour schedule going over there? Is it spin? That’s the aside from the short game is spin a little bit. You know, you you’ll find some changes in in grind with wedges. Um again, if we’ve had very firm conditions, you might find the bounce on the on the soles of the wedges getting uh getting nullified to some degree. it’s really not going to be that that impactful with if the course conditions are very very firm. Um, helping them understand what their tendencies are. You know, when it gets windy and they get blown around a little bit, you know, players maybe lean on their front leg a little more or take take the golf ball, move it back in their stance a little bit more or alter their release patterns and hang on to the club. So, you know, making sure that they recognize what the tendencies are. But, you know, with the truth be told, I think, you know, when we get over to Renaissance, there’s a you know, and you you’ve seen it, you’ve felt it. There’s there’s a different there’s a different feel. The air back at home is different. The golf ball doesn’t fly the same as it flies over here. Obviously, it’s a lot cooler. The days are an awful lot longer. You’re having to, you know, adjust to big temperature changes and and the wind seems to affect the ball an awful lot more. So, I think to some degree until you get over there and and start to uh start to get the ground underneath your feet. Um, and Renaissance is a cool week for that. You know, again, the nights are so long. Some of the guys will go play North Barrack. Some of them might be fortunate enough to go and play Murfield. Um, Renaissance gives them a good test and certainly lets you feel those conditions. Um, and then by the time that tournament draws to a conclusion, we’ll have a, you know, a nice a reasonably long runway and it’s quite it’ll be, you know, I think it’ll be it’ll be nicer. I’ve I felt like we we went to Augusta on Saturday night um this year working Sunday. We went to we flew up to Oakmont Sunday and those major weeks can end up being really really long. And I think that in some ways it’s it’s nicer to have an actual event prior on similar conditions when the conditions are changing an awful lot. Um so I think it’ll be nice for them to get uh to get a port rush on Sunday night or Monday and we’ll we’ll get cracking. You mentioned attrition, the word attrition with the current season. Where where does that where do you see that show up? Is it mentally or is it is it physically? I think it’s both. I mean, I think um I think the weeks, you know, I I I stayed with with Harris English in a little place in Memorial, and we again, we got in there pretty early, working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, went out to the course with him Thursday, walked the golf course Thursday, flew home Thursday, and I’m thinking he’s got to be here for another 3 days. I mean, it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a full and long week that they that they spend out there. Um, physically, you know, if if things are going pretty well, they’re going to play at least nine holes Tuesday, Wednesday, and in a signature event, 72 holes Thursday to to Sunday. If things aren’t going too good, you know, they might start practicing a little bit more, and then that’s going to provide a wear and tear in the body. And then from a mental standpoint, you know, Harris said to me at Memorial, JP, I’m I’m just trying to figure out where to miss it. And I said, Harry, there’s nowhere to miss it. you know, at the end of the day, you’ve got to hit the shot and if the shot doesn’t if you don’t execute the shot, you got to be prepared. You’re going to pitch it out of the rough or you’re going to have to chip it to 20 ft and there is no miss. So, you know, mentally that takes a toll because when you think of, you know, like Scotty Sheffer talked about a little bit with the the the mudball that that was um evident there at uh I think it was Oakmont, wasn’t it? Mhm. You know, it’s like they prepare to be able to execute and they prepare to be able to navigate and then you take that ability to navigate away from them and the ability to execute away from them and that becomes very stressful for them. So there’s definitely uh mental and physical attrition and it’s a you know we’ve we’ve all played golf. It’s a stressful endeavor. um doesn’t matter how good you are, you don’t really know what’s going to come next. And and that’s uh you know that’s that’s a tough deal and I think that um you know our sport is in a situation where as we as we progress we are seeing that it’s it’s it’s having a big impact on them physically. It’s having a big impact on them mentally and I think a slightly shorter season and a little bit of an ability to recharge and reset will certainly be good for the athletes. Yeah, that’s interesting. I did notice that everyone seemed a little cranky at um at Oakmont. They say everyone seemed a little tired. You know, the interviews are, you know, you can see that sense the the tone changing. Obviously, I think that has to do a lot with probably the golf course. They were playing big. So frustrating. As you said though, there I mean there there has to be a skill, especially when you go play Lynx golf, which is adapting to changing conditions, right? You know, like the the Oakmont thing really showed. Um, I think, uh, you know, that the the guys that can adjust to, you know, water on the fairways or, you know, tapping more into creativity rather than um, so much of what they’ve practiced really uh, really came to light. I mean, you had uh, you have two open champions in your stable. Yeah. Um, Louie, I don’t know. Were you working with Louisie at at the time? No, no, no. Louie was uh we had met we met in Dubai. He came over and and he had I think he had an ankle injury at one point and he came and he did a little bit of rehab in Dubai and then he hit some balls with us and I remember watching him prior to that uh when he just really turned professional and watched this, you know, little whippers snapper of a lad coming in from South Africa. He just the most beautiful golf swing and he hit the ball so far. So that would have been about, you know, 2009 2010 sort of seeing him and then he was he was with us a little after he he was an open champion. But uh you know Louis career is um you know he’s he’s I think he’s 42 maybe coming 43 or 41 coming 42. And you know he’s on the he’s on the back end of his career and um he’s got a lot of you know he’s got a lot of family commitments. He’s a beautiful uh farm now out in Okcala and he’s a uh you know he he loves being out there. He loves doing his thing and he, you know, he works he works hard out there and when he gets into tournament mode, he continues to uh he continues to work hard. And to your point about the adaptability and the the understanding of of conditions and and and an ability to create a strategy, but also respond to what’s going on environmentally. I I I think that’s one of the things that I’ve noticed working for Louie over the years. It’s probably the most underrated part of his skill set. like he will go to a golf tournament and he will say I am going to do this this or this this week. You know he we went to Harding Park and he got a ninewood because he realized that he could get it if he got it in the rough he could get it out of the rough and get it somewhere around about the front of the green whereas other guys were having to pitch out because you really couldn’t get a four or a five iron through the rough. Mhm. So he’s very um very innovative, very strategic and has that incredible ability to adapt. Um, and obviously does it with this beautiful, graceful golf swing that we we all love that I wish I had uh I had more in the creation of, but I I’m I’m really only just taking care of it the odd time. Yeah, you you babysit the uh the move. But one guy that does strike me as somebody that really doesn’t care what the conditions call for is is Brian Harmon. Did you I’m curious two years ago whether was there anything leading up to that week where where you said this guy could win by six shots as he did? Um he definitely got he looked really good in Hartford. That was um I was up in Hartford and he worked on we call it his little kind kind of like shoulder-to-shoulder shot which uh he’s he’s really put in as part of part of something and I remember he he texted me I think he finished second or third in Hartford and he said you know that little shot made me six or seven birdies over the weekend which for a golf coach that’s one of the biggest compliments you can have if you feel like you’ve been directly um indicated as to to being responsible for an assistance in the actual performance. Um so that was really cool. we got to Renaissance. Um he looked really he looked really at ease with things. He um he was swinging the golf club really well. He’d done some really good specific kind of training which we’ve we’ve kind of started that process again. Um because again he’s not a young player anymore. He’s 37 years old and sometimes you know when when uh you know when he takes a little bit time away his his legs his lower body gets a little bit more sluggish and things. So, we just got to, you know, keep arming him with the information as to what he needs to do to be able to get prepared. Um, and I do remember by the time we got to Liverpool, I remember going out on the Tuesday and it was horrendous out there. It was nobody really really wanted to be out. It was windy. It was raining. It was misty. It was it was cold. Um, and he he played 18 holes in those conditions and I kind of walked with him. We got absolutely soaked. He was wearing two rain gloves and he said, “Well, I may as well get out here cuz no one else is going to do it. It might it might be like this.” So, he had that really nice kind of accepting um attitude that week. And uh you know, one of I think with Brian, Brian’s very intelligent and he is very uh thoughtful and sometimes he will if there’s if there’s nothing in his way, he can sort of sometimes think think problems into fruition. So, I think when conditions are difficult, he’s so his his brain is so caught up in the wind’s going to do this. I need to pitch it here. I, you know, that’s not going to be where I want to go over there. I need to get it into this area. I need to get this rain glove. I need to dry this this that, you know, there’s so many things going on that then he can just fire up with his true ability. So, I think those those tough conditions we saw in Valero this year and and obviously in Hoy Lake a couple of years ago, they can sometimes play to his advantage. Yeah, it’s amazing. Um, I actually stepped on his foot accidentally at the PGA show two years ago, which is the first time I had seen him. He was carrying the trophy and I backed, you know, at the high bar down there it gets a little crowded and I I turned around to look who it was and then looked down and it was Brian Harmon and I was it’s shocking at 37 years old and for someone with his size to be able to compete. So what does he do, you know, I guess how much better does he have to be at, you know, every part of the game to make up for some of some of these things? That’s a very good question. I think the um the the cool thing that we’ve seen um when when Jack Lumpin and I and and were here in in the Lumpin library which is which is fantastic and we got Jack’s memorabilia on the wall and you know as as as Jack got into his 80s and wasn’t able to travel and do just as much um with Brian, you know, we we really got Brian to a point where we realized where the ceiling really was like got his ball striking to a point where, you know, not only was he a really good driver of the golf ball, very very straight, reasonably long for his size. We got to a point where his iron play was was was consistently gaining strokes on the field, became a much better wedge player. Um certainly became a much more neutral type of iron player, able to access more flags and things like that. But to your point, um Brian’s Brian’s 100% can can be a he can be a top let’s say a top 10 player with his 100%. if he drops down to 90% and and some of that ball striking just gets a little bit off where some of the bigger stronger players are still putting the golf ball in position far enough down the fairway, Brian’s 90% becomes, you know, really difficult to work with. And although he’s got that incredible short game um and elite level putter, it’s it becomes just harder to compete at that top 10 kind of level. So, you know, his his responsibility is to continue to to to maintain his body as an athlete, do the stuff in his golf swing that he’s been he’s been doing and try and try and reach that 100% place four, five, six times a year. And we see that when he does that, you know, he can be one of the best players in the world. And, you know, it is it is a frustration because you see, you know, big that guy like Scotty Sheffler who who reaches that 100% level much much more frequently than anybody else. But when he does dip a little bit and starts to miscue things a little bit, he can still kind of be competitive because his his 176 ball speed goes to to 171 rather than his 169 dipping down to 162 or 163. I know. So, um yeah, thrilled with with with what Brian has done. Um, I think he’s probably achieved what, you know, achieved what he probably should have achieved in his career up to this point and and hopefully we can continue to pave some more things out in the in the future. But Walker Cup player couple of times. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And as you say, you know, he does it um with a frame and a stature that, you know, you sometimes think Randy Myers and I joke sometimes like if Brian was Dustin Johnson’s size, he wouldn’t no one would touch him. And I think there’s there’s an element of truth in that. Absolutely. One thing I I skipped over, but I want to ask for the amateur golfers out there is I hear a lot of times when they go across the pond to play in Scotland, Ireland, UK, um they come back with bad habits, right, in their game. They say, and it might not be bad habits, it’s just sort of crept into what they usually usually do. So they might be they try to push the ball way far back playing in in gusty conditions or you know that that lead side sort of sags into the ball gets ahead of it right and you’ve changed to the low point. Is that something that pros also have to to monitor when they come back from two weeks over there? Yep. 100%. You know you’ll even see little things like pitching styles might change a little bit. They’ll maybe go down and you know we’ll maybe not get into the whole steep shallow pitching and chipping debate. I would love to. How much time do we have? they’ll maybe go down and get it a little bit more from Link’s turf. They’ll want to flight things in lower. Um they’ll they’ll start maybe getting used to different styles of chip shots and pitch shots. Um so, you know, you need to just gently kind of reset that a little bit. And and to some degree, you know, if if we played if we played every week on Lynx golf courses, I think some of the some of the equipment would be a little bit different. I think some of the styles would be a little bit different. Um and you know, I’m kind of looking forward to to Port Rush to seeing it. Um I played there. I think it was last summer I played there and uh you know they’ve done a fantastic job with a couple of the new holes that they they they put in there and um it’s it’s always going to be a really cool test but to your point monitoring some of those tendencies looking at how equipment can benefit you and links conditions and then possibly how it won’t benefit you when you come back and you you know you end up playing in in Memphis. Um those are things we got to keep looking at. Yeah. What uh what areas of the game do you think Port Rush tests for the pros the most? Is there a, you know, is there a specific style of player that it might uh benefit? I think I mean Shane Lowry does everything well, right? So that that would be an easy answer. Yeah, I think I think it does give you some options off the tea, but you know there there are you know there are certain places that you really you’ve got to avoid in in Port Rush. Some of the deep bunkers off the tea you’ve got to avoid. The greens don’t play very big. Um, I was thinking about this, you know, just thinking about some of the questions you might ask. And I I can’t I can’t think that the greens would be specifically very small, but they don’t play that big. There’s a lot of little shelves that you’ve got to find. Again, guarded by a lot of bunkers and little runoff areas and things like that. So, controlling the ball into the greens would be good. And then going back to, you know, to what you talked about like a lot of with a lot of links courses, having that ability to be adaptable and to manage, you know, a 7:00 in the morning draw where it’s cold and windy and and you’ve got to get through to, you know, 10:30 and the sun comes out and the last five or six holes are are are pretty benign. So, you know, being able to kind of just hang in there and uh, you know, embrace the embrace the Open Championship for what it is. It’s Tom Watson played in 40 and he said he could only have won about 18 of them, but the draw just didn’t allow him to um to to get himself in a position. So, understanding that that’s going to be part of it. Um and you kind of put your best foot forward and and um and see what you can make of it. So, toughness and uh all that is as as important you think going into a tournament then? I think so. I think so. And you know, and for I remember being I remember walking down the hill. My brother lives in Port Rush and he’s a uh he’s not a golfer, he’s a surfer. We got some really good surf in in Port Rush and up around the coast and into Dunny Gaul. Um I’m walking down to watch Darren Clark tea off. Darren was I’d worked with Darren for a couple of years in Dubai and um it was 5:15 in the morning. I think Clark he had like a 612 or something like this and walking down the hill and there were people everywhere. the the grandstand was rammed with people and I remember Darren walking out onto the thing and looking at him and he was he couldn’t believe you know this place was rammed and of course Clarky hit it down the right and knocked it on the green and hold the putt for three um which was which was a lot of fun but there’s going to be you know you can get you can get overroad by it as well so it’s uh and we saw Rory the last time you know getting you know slightly out of his rhythm and uh and having a really poor score in in the on the first day so um the open championship I still think it’s the biggest the biggest tournament in the world Um, and it it’s very special for them whenever whenever they go over there. And I certainly uh I always think about Brian saying he he uh he’ll never get he’ll never get tired of signing those those open flags. Yeah. Do you have any pub recommendations for this that uh might might be there for the event. Yeah, the the Harbor Bar up there is really good. The Harbor Bar is a like a it’s kind of legendary. They they do serve really good Guinness um in there. The Guinness has gotten better over the years and uh some of the tin stuff is okay in America. How does that work? How does it get better? I don’t really know. They say there they they say there are there are kegs of Guinness that don’t leave the island of Ireland. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. They also say there are um ways of the um the beer the stout going from the the um the keg to the the pump. and they they will they will they will respect that sort of the the tra tradition of it not going very far before it comes out. They say Guinness doesn’t travel well. That’s one of those little things. But the Harbor Bar will be somewhere um I would definitely uh definitely recommend. And all around that that little harbor area there is fantastic. And I’m lucky enough still to know a couple of people there. Made a couple of restaurant reservations already. So we’ll uh I’ll look forward to taking some of the Americans down there and showing them what’s in there then. I’ll see you there. I like it. I do the can has gotten I feel like better, you know, in the last 10 years or so. Yeah. Going back to my my father’s work uh whenever he first became the managing director of that oyster farm. That oyster farm was owned by Guinness. Okay. And he used to go to Dublin to these meetings where, you know, it was a big old boardroom like this and he would do a presentation. He used to say he would look around and there were a couple of these 90-year-olds falling asleep in their chairs and things like that. But the AIO is a big company and they’ve they’ve figured out how to how to make the likes of that widget that they put in the in the can and things work. So yeah, they’ve they’ve done a decent job with that. Absolutely. Um the last time I was here at Sea Island, I got to spend some time with you on the range and you gave you said one of my favorite quotes I’ve ever uh heard from a coach, which is that your policy is is that you’re not technical after lunchtime on Tuesdays. Mhm. Is that right? Do I have that right? If I can if I can absolutely avoid doing that, you know, I’m never going to try and um I’m never going to say anything that would start a player thinking about technique unless I can avoid it. I don’t want to I mean I don’t I just having played the game. I think if you can if you can be out there trying to play this sport um with the feel of swinging the golf club as opposed to too many internal thoughts about you know the way your right elbow’s going to fold or whatever. Um whilst those things are very important to being able to perform better they should be done at a time and a place which is away from the performance state. So I’ve know I’ve kind of felt like cuz Wednesdays are a nightmare. So, if you start on a Tuesday and you start introducing things, you’re probably still going to be thinking about it and working on it with them on a on a Wednesday. And then if Wednesday doesn’t go well and they’re unsure, then we’re right, we’ve got the now the performance is right around the corner. So, if we can get to a point by Tuesday where all of that’s done and we’ve created some good feels, that’s what we’re going to stick to. That would be my preferred way of doing it. Has there ever been a scenario in which Tuesday comes around afternoon and a player doesn’t have it? Right. It’s very clearly they don’t have it. Um and something clicks before before Thursday. Yeah. And often, yes, it does. It happens quite frequently. And you know, hopefully the guys that that that I help will recognize that if we’re at that point on a Tuesday afternoon or a Wednesday morning, we’re trying to create a shot, trying to create something they’re comfortable with. you know, can we hit a low cut? Can we get it can we get it into play and can we get can we get this tournament started and get you comfortable with what you’re doing as opposed to too many. So, and you listen, there there are so many different players and so many different ways to do it. I mean, I I I think that I try and create an environment where the players that I help probably steer away from those sorts of things. Um, you know, I watch Justin Rose going through his paces. Fabulous player, still having great success and he’s seems to be able to work hard technically on a Wednesday and or even on a Thursday before he goes and plays and then go go goes to play golf. And I I really admire that. Um, I find that that’s something that if I was doing that with a lot of the golfers that I was that I was training, I I feel like I would be putting them in an awkward position. And perhaps if somebody who’s really technically minded comes along who needs that, then as a coach then you have to adapt and be able to uh be able to give them what they need. And that’s uh that’s part and parcel of it. But you know, being from my background with with Brian or with Butch and with Claude and um I always think of Butch’s dad saying if you’re not working on something you can use on a back nine on a Sunday, you’re wasting your time, which is one of his old quotes. Yeah. Yeah. So much of it I’m, you know, uh, about tournament golf is getting, as you said, getting into the tournament, right? Because if you can just get yourself settled and, yeah, maybe hit a couple good ones and make an early birdie, then it can change, you know, you can flip into a mode in which, you know, those feels start to seem I think as well, you know, with a lot of really good ones is getting into like a pattern. And that that pattern may be the most technically scientifically correct thing that you could do or it could be something that you know I’ve I’ve had guys going well I I strengthened my grip and tried to keep the face looking at the ball on the way back and they you know nearly won a golf tournament. So if you if you can get into a playable pattern um and hopefully that doesn’t deviate miles away from the theme that you’re working on then you’re in a situation where you know again it’s it’s theirs they can go play and you know they have to own they have to own those things. You can’t like as a as a coach or a swing teacher, it’s like I never try and tell them what to feel. I ask them what they feel when they do it right and then remind them of what their feelings are cuz it’s the game, you know, the game belongs to them. You know, we’re not we don’t hit the shots, you know. I remember I remember being at dinner with Rory one night in in Dubai and um we’re having a conversation about golf and just like kind of like you and I are and I remember saying to him, you know, Butch is Butch has won 18 major championships with, you know, with players and and Rory just looked at me and went, how many shots has he hit? And I went, fair enough. Yeah. And those are I mean, I’m a big fan of Rory and a big fan of Butch is one of my great friends and mentors out uh with what I’ve done. But um it it made me kind of think about it. you know, you know, we got to remember your place in this whole thing. Yes. Yeah. Um, uh, you’ve been, I mean, so I’ve been in, you know, in the game for maybe 15 years now, taking lessons, you know, playing competitively, all that, and I’m shocked at how much how different the information is these days compared to what was being taught um, even 15 years ago. And you could say the same about 10. You could say the same about five. And you are really at the ground floor of a lot of this. As you said, you’re you’re obsessed. So as soon as new information and ideas pop up and it really I guess a better way of saying that is it’s an idea business, right? People have ideas, they test these theories and they they populate their way into the mainstream. What would you say is the invogue thing right now that people are focusing on? And to give you an example, you know, this has gone from it could be a move, you know, like uh uh you know, the the hands in club head outside takeaway or the swing left pattern or it could be, you know, a metric like spin, spin loft, apex, distance. What is the thing right now that um people are discussing and thinking about at the highest levels? I think probably the ability to um to change kinematic sequencing. So to change athletic sequencing using uh force plate and ground force information I think is probably um you know is probably one of the ways that we’re we’re we’re starting to be able to stimulate really good alterations with players. Whether that be a um you know a pattern for example if we’re looking at um horizontal pressure if somebody’s not pushing enough pressure horizontally from the trail leg to the lead leg that’s going to probably or potentially result in a steepening of the shaft and transition. If there’s too much torque and there’s too much vertical there won’t be enough shaft. So you can begin to um manipulate might be the right word the sequencing that a player is is experiencing which is going to have a knock-on effect to how the golf club’s moving which would be to some degree and the way that I would look at that it would be the ability to um transfer the knowledge that you would have from 3D to something very trainable which would have a have a knock-on effect. Now, and that’s not to say that, you know, if this particular person was un able to load their trail side or something like that, not thinking of anyone in particular, um that that that wouldn’t be something you would have to go to first. But from a training and instructional perspective, you know, being able to to kind of navigate that landscape of um the sequencing needs to be correct, we can kind of we can just about see what the sequencing is through force plates and through how they’re using the floor. Um and then can we start to just gently improve the way they’re using the floor which is going to tidy up the sequencing which would then would then and and groove a better pattern. This is uh yeah this is uh kind of you know one of the big differences I can see right so there was you know and again the sample size that I’m referring to is quite small you know it’s YouTube and the handful of coaches I had had lessons with but a lot of the discussion was about you put the club here and then you put the club here hand path plane all of this stuff whereas now I see the information being this is the way the body moves and if you can get the body to move in the proper uh in the proper ways and then then the club will react act this way. Is that fair? We always Yeah, that is very fair. And it’s like we always then have to kind of counter that. And most of what what we do and it’s almost like some time of kind of contradictory stuff, but like if you put the golf club in the right place, will your body organize itself to be able to generate the club being in the right place? So yes, I think I think the the the blueprint would be the the posture, the correct posture, the ability to move properly and then an understanding of correct movement and then you want to counter that with and the golf club as you’re doing that should be moving through these areas, let’s say. Um, but certainly, you know, I think that uh we we are at a point now where a with a body motion and the pressure that’s moving through the floor can help us to predetermine what’s probably going to be happening with the with the golf club. And I’ve I’ve kind of enjoyed that. I’ve I’ve definitely changed um a little bit changed the way I I I do some things in order to like accommodate that. And I’ve seen what I would refer to as some quite authentic ch not changes like improvements when somebody understands okay so that’s what I’m supposed to be doing and that’s going to make that do that and then okay I can do that. Um and that’s that’s quite exciting to me. And I think the next little part is you know being being able to start to kind of look at your video translate it into some sort of 3D component and being able to kind of monitor what’s going on with um with AI and or some programs that exist. Um, and I’m kind of I’m looking at that just to see how effective that would be because it’s all about performance and it’s all about them playing better and hitting better shots and scoring lower. Um, that’s really what it should be about. Yeah. So, tech technology is affecting this a lot. I know you don’t want to get involved in the current religious short game war that’s that’s unfolding before us, but when did people start hitting draw bunker shots and draw pitches? Um Pete Khan would have been the first one that I did did that with and that would have been uh through the mid 2005 67 in Dubai. I used to go into some seminars with Pete and Pete’s Pete stuff’s fantastic and and one of the things I love about Pete’s short game work is that he will he will make the golf swing happen from the lie and the situation. M so the lie in the situation is first and the way that the player would then organize themselves in order to play the shot is second. And to some degree what we’re seeing with this little short game war that we’re having is we’re not we’re not really talking about the lie in the situation. We’re just talking about the technique, right? And therefore the we’re we’re we’re going to reach an impass every single time. Because if you want something really really soft with low ball speed and a lot of float, you can’t you can’t lean the shaft and have the club descending hard on the ball. But at the same time, if you want to guarantee a really good strike and you don’t have to get float and you don’t have to let the ball come off really soft, it’s probably a nice way to be able to guarantee or or generate a good strike. So, I think what we have to try to do is be a little bit more mindful of the fact that when we’re playing golf, the situation we have in front of us requires us to be able to adapt. And some of those adaptations may be really advanced and difficult. And some of them might um allow us to be quite simple and guarantee good contact. And the best in the world seem to be able to go in both directions. Yeah. Well, I think if we could do a part two on this after at a certain date, that would be great because there’s probably there’s a lot there’s a lot to unpack there. And I’m not I’m not qualified or prepared to go into I don’t know that I am either. Anyway, um I want to ask you about uh two more players before we talk about um your current role here. Uh you mentioned them earlier. You have two very very uh exciting young players um in Blades Brown and uh Aldrick Podkater. Very well pronounced. Thank you. practice last night. Um, why are these young kids so much more prepared it seems to compete today? Is that a recency bias that because we have the Luke Clans of the world and Nick Dunlap one or is that is that fair to say that these younger kids are more prepared to compete? I think they’re better at golf at a younger age. I think they are better. They’re better coached. They’re the information’s better. I would say that the parents and the the the club uh influences from a less let’s say elite coaching package level. I think that the gener the general information that they get is an awful lot better. I think that then that that acceleration of, you know, how good can this young person be at 14, 15, 16, coupled with, okay, I see Rory in the gym, I see Scotty Shuffler doing his Golf Forever program. I see. So then they’re then they’re starting to do that sort of training. I think Launch Monitors have helped an awful lot. They can they can keep the the parameters an awful lot narrower. Um, I would say that Blades is a very a really good example of that. you know, somebody who’s who’s gotten to 17, 18 years old and decided that college isn’t something he necessarily needs to do. And um I think as the as the the the career shortens, you know, again, if we if we have these prolonged seasons of mental and physical attrition, we are going to see players who you maybe come out at 18, 19 years old and they may finish at 31, 32, similar to what a soccer player would do or a a basketball player would do. you know, we’re I don’t think we’re going to see the same um lengthy careers like a Bernhard Langanger who came out at 1819 and he’s still playing a really high level of golf into almost into his 70s. And I think that’s something that this uh this this next um these commissioners and you know live people and RNA and USGA people I think they have to navigate that. I mean our our sport has become an awful lot more athletic. Um, Aldrich is living proof of just how athletic and how powerful our sport um is, but I think he’s a little bit more of an authentic one. I think his, you know, he’s he’s he’s been well trained. Um, but there’s a, you know, there’s a certain rawness to what he’s doing that um, you know, that is kind of evident in in in some of the the the uh the constraints that he has when he plays, you know, his distance control and things like that, which we’re we’re working on. And I think as well we’re reaching this point in um in 2025 where we’re starting to see look if if this young man has a 200 mph ball speed that’s great but how do we actually how do you caddy for that? So what does he do when he’s got a seven iron into a little wind from 178 or you know a shot from 178 into a little wind and all of a sudden his gapping between clubs is 26 yards and he’s right on that 13 yard window. So, you know, we we’ve we’ve looked at potentially 184 to 186 being a nice like upper end window of of ball speed for a really competitive player. And I’m sure in baseball, I don’t know, but I’m sure there are pitchers who can pitch it at whatever 199, but they’re not as effective because they don’t have that versatility and the adaptability to be able to You’re talking about slowing it down 15 miles an hour. And I’m not talking about I’m talking about I’m not talking about slowing it down. I’m talking about if you have 200, right, and you want to be competitive, you’re going to find that there are holes in your game below that 200 that are at a point where you’re going to say to yourself, I don’t need 200. And I, you know, I’m not, so he may well still be able to go and get 200 when he wants it, but his actual his actual cruising speed might be 185 or 188 or something like that. you know, and Aldrich’s definitely at that at that point where, you know, he’ll he’ll cruise at 192 to 194 ball speed he can carry. You know, we talked last night on the phone. We’re up he’s up in Detroit and he said, you know, there there are bunker lot of bunkers at 299 m. Um he said if I’m if I have a little wind behind or if I have a little wind off the right, I’ll I’ll cover those. So, it’s a 330 335 yard cover that he’s that he’s looking at. Um, but again, you know, talking to his caddy and things like that and and the guys at Titless who have been, you know, fantastic so far trying to get his equipment to a point where it’s it’s it’s it’s matching as best we can the gapping and and looking at different golf balls to help with his spin and things like that. You know, the hard thing for him is, you know, when he’s got you know, when he’s got 60 m, which what what are we at? 176. You know, he’s probably still on a 9 iron at 176. So, what are you doing at 154? And you know, we got to recognize that when you’re playing professional golf, 154 is where you start to make money. You know what I mean? It doesn’t it doesn’t matter so much whether it’s 148 or 164. So, there’s your 200 mph back to 190, but being able to control the golf ball from the fairway is is is really where the where the money’s going to be at. when we look at people like a Lucas Glover um who is probably like a 168 guy now but he controls the golf ball as well as anybody and he’s having a you know really nice kind of Indian summer in his career. So I I I do think things are changing a little bit. Um I don’t I rambled on about your your question. And I think these younger players coming in, I hope my hope is that we can we can make sure that they’re to some degree they’re protected when they go through the inevitable kind of like plunge of the wave that we see in golf, which is just natural. Uh Nick Dunlap’s going through that right now, which um is is hard for him and it’s very very public and it’s very embarrassing when you go through that. Gordon Sergeant hopefully is is has almost done that. Hopefully the end of his his Vanderbilt career was was the e the edge of that and and both of those guys are getting some really good uh some really good swing advice which they clearly um they clearly need. But uh it’s hard to do that when you’re young. You know, it’s hard to do that when you’re when you’re Harris English. When when he went through that when he was a fairly wealthy, well established tour player in his late 20s, early 30s, it was hard for him to it was hard for Lee Westwood to go through that. So, I just hope that these these kids who are um coming through a world of smartphones and high anxiety and things like that, when they do go through that, we’re uh helping to protect them and make sure that they recognize that this isn’t the beall and end all and they’ve obviously been gifted a great deal of ability. Do do you think that that phase is inevitable for most players that they will go through that? Yeah, there’s not a player when you look at if you ever you know look at data golf um and look at players careers even long careers Adam Scott’s career you know there’s always these little waves that they go through and that could be you know in Scotty’s case problems with the putter or in Tiger’s case could be an injury or it could be you know some problems in your personal life or things like that those those little waves are kind of inevitable as you as you go through your career and um I just think with the younger players coming out you know get out on the PJ tour and all of a sudden the fairway are a little narrower and the greens are a little firmer and the hole locations are a little tighter and and then all of a sudden it’s not quite going where I’m looking anymore and and then there’s people everywhere and people are asking me why it’s not going well and people are calling me you know and there’s a there’s a lot of added pressure that goes on there. So um you know my own feel would be potentially the corn ferry tour being a real like breeding ground for those guys able to cut their teeth. I think there’d be an argument for nobody over the age of 40 playing on the corn ferry tour. I think there’s also an argument for the seniors tour to come back, the champions tour to come back to 45 and I think that would balance the whole thing up a little bit better. Um the hard thing about that is we still see guys like Stuart Sync and we still see kids coming in like Nick did and winning golf tournaments. So, you know, we want to make sure we don’t level it too hard. Yeah. Um, I find it very interesting that you that you think um careers won’t be as long as as they were. I guess I hadn’t everything you said makes complete sense to me. Um, you know, when I think of uh somebody with 200 mph ball speed at 20, you know, my mind goes to, okay, you just stretch that out. And it almost like the Phil argument, you know, everyone’s saying, well, this is, you know, the back swing is so long as he tightens up, as he gets older, he’s going to be still a parallel and he can play longer longer and longer. Um, and Bernard’s played a ton of golf in his life. Huge amount of golf, right? But but I guess what you’re saying is that it’s a different is it is it different style of golf? It’s a different level of athleticism and 100%. Yeah, I mean they hit I mean you know you watch Bernard I mean Bernard Langanger is a fabulous player and I’ve learned a great deal from from him and and admired him throughout my life but I mean Bernhard never hit it hard you know he he was a precision player and you know if you start putting those sorts of torqus and those sorts of forces onto the human body you know it’s you know and it’s it’s likely that we can continue to develop training systems and nutritional systems and um periodized rest um periods of rest where players can, you know, reassimilate and rebalance themselves and things like that. But the the way we’re the way we’re kind of going at the moment or the way we were going where it was like, you know, balls to the wall, let’s hit it as far as we can coming out of college and all these kids are hitting it so far. Like there’s um there’s a little bit of a recipe for losing some control of your equipment, losing some control of your approach shots, and potentially then you losing some control of your mental faculties. Yeah. And the physical. So, this is not exclusive to golf. We just, you know, why why have three of the NBA’s, you know, best talents tore their Achilles in the last, you know, month or so? Like, this is a very interesting as more as more resources and information and better care and private jets and all these things come, why are why are more injuries happening? Um, all right. So, so Northern Ireland, Dubai, Alabama, I’m sure a lot of other places, few other places in between. Uh, and then you come here to Sea Island, one of my favorite places on earth. What is what’s your pitch to people who have not come to Sea Island, uh, or St. Simon’s before? When you drive over that causeway, whether you kind of take a you breathe a sigh of relief, you know, there’s a there’s a there’s a beautiful sort of calmness to it. There’s an old style of hospitality here and a a tradition that’s I don’t know that I’ve found many instances like that in in the United States. you know, from the bag piper who takes a lap around the uh the resort here in the in the evenings to um you know, the way people are served with um you know, with drinks and dinner and and the various uh in the various the cookies that uh you can choose to be delivered to your series and and I think the the the variance that we have here now with um the offerings at at the lodge and the offerings at the end or going over to the closter and and and so you can experience that on on some different levels, but I think the you know the true experience goes back to you know likes what we were saying about about Brian Harmon and these guys. It’s like a it’s a place where everybody kind of breathes a sigh of relief. Everybody seems to enjoy the um the the beautiful settings combined with the combined with the nature and the views and the hospitality and the tradition. Um couple that with the the the unbelievable facilities they’ve they’ve given us here at the Golf Performance Center. I mean, you know, you guys have seen those and um the the three fabulous golf courses that we have um here. I don’t think there are many many places like it. And it’s um you know it’s somewhere that I’ve become very proud to call home. My kids are growing up here. They seem to be developing South Georgia accents which um Oh no. How do you feel about this? I need to get them back to Belfast for for a couple of weeks and see if we can uh just get a little twang out of them again. Belfast with the southern draw would be quite interesting. It’s going to work somewhere. Um but no, you know, a fantastic place. It’s, you know, for me as well, knowing that, you know, that they’re here whenever I’m away traveling. Um, it’s a, you know, it’s a it’s a really nice life for for young people to have right here. And, um, maybe for older people, you were saying you might like to retire here. Yes. In a good few years time, but, you know, very very special. And, uh, you know, some of the people again that I’ve met here, you know, I’ve I’ve become friending with Davis Love the Third, who’s become a, you know, I just, you know, I I hesitate to say I teach Davis Love the Third. Davis teaches me more than I ever teach him. I can keep a kind of an eye on his golf swing um for him and Brian and Harris and uh you know the the the amazing staff here at Sea Island as well. So um yeah, we’re very fortunate here and we always look forward. It’s funny, I took my family out and we had a a little sort of a family loop at Seaside the other night and I was coming up the last hole and I said to my wife, you know, this is, you know, this is where the hospitality is for the RSM. or stand on the 18th B and she’s looking around going, “No, I can’t believe that they did.” You know, it’s she she just couldn’t she couldn’t get her bearings with with um the production of it all. Yeah. Um and that always certainly rounds off a fantastic year for us when the RSM um comes around and and that would be one I would love to get one of the boys to to go really well. I think I’ve I’ve had a top six or something like that in the RSM, but we haven’t knocked that one off yet. Yeah. Yeah. They need the Nick Taylor treatment in Canada. Like one of these bags on the wall needs needs to win it. Yeah. Well, hopefully I don’t get rugby tackle, but I go on Harrison. What um how does uh so I’m not saying this because I’m here or enjoy your company. Uh C Island really when I think about uh if you if you want to go to a place in the United States to get better, if you want the best information out there or fittings, just instruction in general, it’s become synonymous in my brain. I was in uh college before I went in my senior year just in the wilderness with the putter and I came up here to see uh Mike Shannon who’s uh no longer here but um you know that there was yourself and there was it was just and Mike’s legacy really has has lived on in terms of Phil Kenyon taking over here now David Angelotti the putting studio that we have and you know I think to your point I think when you come in here whether you’re a you know an aspiring beginner golfer or an established player who’s a 15 handicapper or a a good player or a tour player, a college player, you’re going to be able to have an experience that uh is is similar to what one of the best players in the world would would receive. And I think that that’s one thing we really try and pride ourselves on. Um having access to golf fitness professionals who can help help you understand your body. And that’s not to say that you need to be someone who’s, you know, going to come and and be in the gym like Harris English is every every morning. But, you know, if you’ve got a chronic slice and you’ve got something really wrong with your trail shoulder and and Randy and Tom can help you with that and and then you can understand how that’s affecting your golf swing or your teaching professional, your your coach can then start to say, “Okay, he’s got this impingement and then we can work around that.” Or if you need, to your point, a a new putter, something um something fresh, a different approach to green reading. um or if you haven’t updated your golf equipment for a long time. I mean, they’ve got one of the greatest club fitting. You know, I was interesting thinking when we were chatting about the Dubai thing. That was something we really never did a a thorough job of in Dubai. And I I guess some of the constraints of getting merchandise and things there. And I know they’ve they’ve they’ve made some updates since I left there, but you know, Craig and his team here from a from a club fitting perspective, they’re they’re brand agnostic. They’ve got, you know, every manner of pieces of equipment down there that you can you can think of. Um, at one point I I saw that we have we have seven trackmen, which um I don’t even know whether trackmen is the uh is the plural or not, but um they’ve got they’ve got a lot of Trackmen. We got a lot of units down there um watching a lot of guests and and clients hitting golf shots and and those guys are from fitting wedges to the latest driver to um to even just giving people really impartial good information. Um I again I think there’s a there’s a trust it seems in America with what they’ve experienced with Sea Island and um you know hopefully kind of I’m a part of that and people come here to get a little bit better at golf and they come here to good have a good experience along the way and um the views aren’t bad either. Yes, it’s hard to be um super relaxed as the uh wind is off your left on the range and you have an into the grain lie with a wedge and uh but somehow it is you know but uh no it is if it you know it has the highest quality of information and tools and resources here coupled with you know that amazing kind of slow southern lifestyle which is a which is a great fit and we enjoy very much. Cool. Yeah. Well, thank you for thank you Mr. Parsons for the time. Happy anniversary and good luck. Uh, good luck over there. Maybe I’ll see you in Port Rush. I will see you at the Harbor Bar. I wrote it down here. Harbor Bar. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening everyone. 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