🏆 2025 JOHN DEERE CLASSIC RECAP + CAMPBELL’S PLAYOFF WIN ⛳
This week on the Shoot Par Now Golf Show, Arlen and James break down all the action from the 2025 John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run — where Brian Campbell captured his second PGA Tour title of the season in a thrilling playoff over Emiliano Grillo.
🔥 Campbell overcame a double bogey on 15, birdied 17, and closed it out on the first playoff hole after Grillo’s approach left him too far from the cup.
🏌️♂️ Max Homa, David Lipsky, Kevin Roy, and Matt Kuchar were also in contention, but Campbell’s clutch finish sealed the deal at –18.
Arlen analyzes the playoff drama, the course conditions at TPC Deere Run, and how Campbell kept his composure to notch another big win.
🎙️ NEW! Weekly Golf Tip Segment
At the end of each episode, Arlen shares a powerful golf tip you can use today to improve your game — with Jimmy adding his questions and insights to help you really understand and apply it.
Don’t miss this week’s tip — it might just save you strokes on your very next round!
🎙️ Local & Lifestyle Update
Arlen explains how the Shoot Par Now system works and why it helps players of all levels improve quickly.
Chance encounter: Arlen meets 15-year-old golf phenom & influencer Xavier Perez at The Saints — a rising star with a great game and great parents.
Arlen vents about wild Instagram comments on one of his driving videos and explains why so many people misunderstand teaching golf online.
Florida heatwave: Arlen’s indoor golf center A/C failed during the hottest week — a brutal few days getting it fixed.
Junior Camps at The Saints Golf Course are going great — big progress from young players and a lot of fun on the course.
🎙️ James’ Segment
James shares a funny story about moving his youngest daughter — and why moving isn’t just about packing boxes.
He also highlights his latest HomeTown News golf column, including his review of the Copper Tech Glove and other products.
📖 Read James’ article:
Hometown News: A Few Product Reviews
💥 Want to Improve Your Game? Get Arlen’s FREE Training Series
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🎙️ About the Show
Hosted by award-winning golf coach Arlen Bento Jr. and veteran golf journalist James Stammer, the Shoot Par Now Golf Show brings pro-level insight, swing tips, PGA Tour coverage, and Florida golf lifestyle content together in one candid weekly show — now featuring a weekly golf tip to help you play better golf every time you tune in.
📌 This Episode Features:
🏆 John Deere Classic Recap – Campbell’s playoff win at TPC Deere Run
🔥 PGA Tour Drama – Down-the-stretch action & playoff breakdown
⛳ Weekly Golf Tip – A simple way to shoot lower scores
🌞 Florida Heat – Indoor golf center A/C woes
🎯 Junior Golf – Summer camps at The Saints
🏌️♂️ Golf Tips – How the Shoot Par Now system helps players
👋 Lifestyle – Xavier Perez, funny moving stories & James’ latest column
👋 Your Hosts
Arlen Bento Jr. – Award-Winning Coach, Top 100 Instructor, Creator of the Shoot Par Now Learning System
📸 Instagram: @arlenbentojr
🌐 Web: ShootParNow.com | ArlenBentoJrGolfLessons.com
James Stammer – Veteran golf writer & columnist
📸 Instagram: @stammergolf
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✅ Like, Comment & Subscribe to stay up to date on new episodes, golf tips, and more — and catch our new weekly golf tip segment!
#ShootParNow #JohnDeereClassic2025 #BrianCampbell #EmilianoGrillo #PGATourRecap #GolfShow #GolfTips #GolfPodcast #JuniorGolf #GolfFlorida #TPCDeereRun #GolfCoaching #GolfLifestyle #ArlenBentoJr #JamesStammer #GolfTraining #GolfLessons #GolfCamp #SaintsGolfCourse #ImproveYourGolf #WeeklyGolfTip
Hey everyone, I’m Aron Bento Jr. Welcome to the Shoot Power Now Golf Show with my main man James Stemer. Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of our show. Hope you’re all doing well. Before we get started, want to thank our sponsor today. This is Sailfish Turf. I hope it shows up good on the camera, but it’s a local company. They install putting greens and they do a really nice job. We have a special tour putty mat that we sell normally like $6.49. It’s $4.99. You can pick it up. If you’re interested, leave a comment and I’ll I’ll send you the information. Okay. But thank you, Selfish Turf. Could you literally do your whole yard if you want? You could do your whole yard. Absolutely. And I think it would look great. I um I um I have I I have some turf that we put in and uh we created like a just off of our French door patio area and it was just grass and it always got beat up cuz you know people would walk on it. Yeah. But um it turned out beautiful. So turf in your yard can be a wonderful thing. It’s always nice and plush and it’s beautiful. It’s always green. Yeah. My my yard’s pretty good, but you know, you don’t have to mow it. That’s the only thing you’d save. You’d save a You’d save a lot of money. You would save a lot of It pay for itself in about 5 years. You probably would. Speaking of mowing, we want to uh talk a little bit about the John Deere Classic. Also known, you know, they make mowers. They do. They make tractors. They make a lot of things. They make a lot of things. And they’re also big into golf. So, the John Deere Classic was this weekend on the PJ tour. It was in Illinois. Yep. And uh it was a TPC deer. TPC Deer Run. Deer Run. Spelled with an E on the end, just like John Deere, right? And it, you know, there were some amazing shots. There was a there was a little bit of there was a little bit of uh moisture, right? It was kind of it looked like on and off rain like and uh you know whenever whenever courses take moisture and they get a little wet, players go bananas because the they can they can hit the exact number, you know, to the green and they know it’s not going to bounce funny. It’s not going to roll a long way out way. And it and it ended up in a playoff. It was a good event. Um a lot of birdies on the backside and Brian Campbell Yeah. ended up winning in a playoff. Yeah. and he won earlier this year in a playoff in Mexico. So, you know, it seems like to me like we’ve been talking about all the events, but there’s a lot of dual winners this year quite a bit. So, so it kind of it’s interesting um that that these guys are are being able to you know, carve out really really nice careers this year and um you know, I I I enjoyed watching um a lot of the highlights on it. You know, there was some great golf shots. There was like we said, you know, when we were we were watching some of it, it was you had guys late middle middle late back nine. You had eight guys either you had four guys tied for the lead and another four guys with a shot. And that’s that’s crazy when you get it was a birdie fest on the back, man. Cuz cuz it was kind of like everybody was sort of bunched up early like 12 under, 13 14 and then you just kind of blinked and everybody got like to 18. Yeah. And and you know, Campbell had I think he had three birdies on the first four holes on starting from 10 and then hit um that great shot into the par five and missed. Threewood. Yeah. Yeah. And missed the eagle. He missed the eagle, but he was really close. And then in a playoff um he hit a good shot the other guy, you know, go did not. Yeah. Yeah. But go was right there. Max Hommer was right there. Coocher was on the board out of nowhere. Where does that come from? But yeah, Lipsky, I mean, all he had to do was par 18 would have been in that playoff, but he missed this putt. He missed the putt and and uh and that’s that’s brutal when he eagled 17, right? To get tie for the lead. Yeah. Catch the leaders at 17 when an eagle. Yeah. And then and then get in trouble. Get one of it back on. But but that’s kind of how how Yeah, it is. You know what? Um, just watching the golf course, it’s it’s got a lot of interesting holes, you know, like some golf courses, they kind of I mean, there’s always nice holes and good holes, but man, these are like dramatically different looking holes. Um, on TV it kind of looked like the greens had, you know, you ever watch like good golf and the greens look like they’re splotchy, you know, like brownish and but you know, it’s not like that in person. It’s not, you can’t even see it. But on TV, I think it kind of accentuates. The HD really picks it up. Yeah. Yeah. But but it was still a good event. I thought I thought players played well and um you know obviously they’re professionals for a reason, but I I always try to like well I always like to talk about on our show because there’s there’s so much like I mean I taught a bunch of lessons today and and I’ve got some players now that are starting to get better. you know, they’re they’re they’ve they’re starting to like break 90. And I I have I have to share with them knowledge because they think they’re going to find it. Like every day it’s going to be there and it’s not. And and I I have a thing I tell my students. I say, “Golf, it’s like every morning when you wake up, you have to go relearn how to swing again. You don’t have to relearn like how to play the game or you know what you do, but you got to go find contact and you got to find the ability to hit a draw and you got to find the ability to to be in balance and find your rhythm and you know, so if you want to be good at golf, you do have to practice and you do have to spend some time working on really good fundamentals and and fundamentals change over time. I I had somebody on Instagram. I have a picture of some of the kids I coach and um his grip was a little faulty. You know, he had his thumb on the wrong side and man, they just tore him up. And I’m like, this kid is just learning how to make contact. Like he’s he’s 14 and he’s doing a drill called that I call over under because he keeps firing over the top and oh like that’s crazy and I broke like bunch of and I kind of go on there. I’m like now I remember why I don’t go you’re supposed to make comments, right? like respond to people. Yeah. But I don’t respond to knuckleheads. Yeah. I don’t I don’t have time for that. It’s like they don’t even know what they’re talking about. Internet bullies. They They’re not even bullies. They’re just They’re just a bunch of players that think they know and they’re making their comment and they’re not wrong with some of the stuff they’re saying. They just they take it out of context. And I always say like, “Do you teach golf?” No. Have you worked with anyone that’s never hit a golf ball and taught them how to swing? No. It’s not easy. They people don’t realize how hard it is to pick up golf. And you know, I do this for a living and I’m and I’m good at it, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Works for one guy might not work for somebody else. The the act the the data shows, right? You know, I’ve got the simulator, I’ve got the video, I’ve got everything. And, you know, I show path and where the club should be, and we can get people doing pretty good, but they still got to practice and play. And then if you don’t, you know, you don’t do it for a while, it gets a little rusty. You got to come back to it. But anyway, um the shop uh had a rough week last week. had a Yeah, we we missed our show last week. We did. It’s the first show we didn’t do and it’s kind of technical difficulties. My air conditioner went down. Yeah, it was that would have been real technical. Yeah. Were you out of town that week though? It was this week. This past weekend I was out of town. Yeah. But anyway, um yeah, AC went down and by the time everything got organized and it was, you know, Fourth of July and couldn’t get like a rush and put his put a new system in. It’s working great and then it wouldn’t cool. So, ah, we had a rough week. But anyway, hope you missed us. Yeah, really. I I didn’t see the outpour, so I don’t know. Nobody Nobody called me looking for me. Hey, where are you, man? I missed you. But we’re back in the group and it’s hot here right now. Um Well, last last night when I let the dog out. Yeah, it was like 84 degrees. I went, “Oh, it feels brutal out here.” So, I asked, you know, I asked the phone, Alexa, I said, “Hey, what’s the temperature and humidity right now?” It was This was like 9:30 at night. Yeah, it was 82° and 88% humidity. Yeah, it’s pretty warm. That’s what our summers feel like, you know. We don’t So the next July, August, September, right? We won’t see the temp at night go below 80 unless it’s rainy. Yeah. Yeah. And it’ll it’ll be like that all summer and then, you know, right around September sometimes then at night it’ll go like 76. Yeah. It’ll start to drop and then, you know, we get into our beautiful weather. But um it’s still awesome. I had a great camp. Um got a great camp. Uh I don’t know why the last two mornings I really enjoyed it. like it wasn’t it was it’s warm but you know we start at 9:00 we take our breaks you know it’s a nice routine but I enjoyed I enjoy the camps like you know I wouldn’t want to be out there at 2:00 for you know 4 hours teaching right straight we come right inside but it’s still going well um I met I met a kid at the at the Saints where I coach uh Xavier um Perez okay you ever heard of him I have not you need to cuz this kid is this kid’s amazing. So So I’m doing camp and I don’t even know. All I see is a lady on the putting green taking pictures of our covered range. And I thought it was kind of odd, right? Like I was thinking, okay. And then when I finish camp, they’re sitting in our patio area and he’s got, you know, his bag. His bag’s loaded. It’s a really nice bag. And so I just walked over and said, hey, you know, I’m I’m Coach Bento. I’m I’m the instructor here and I just saw you guys. I were you new to the area? You know, I saw you taking pictures and you know, I just kind of opened up and this kid show jumped up and he was like, “Nice to meet you. I’m so and so and blah blah blah blah blah.” And he was so personable and I was like, “Whoa.” And I then we started chatting. Where you from? And anyway, this kid’s famous. He he’s he’s a top golfer. He’s already had NIL deals from big companies. He’s been on every big talk show you can think of. He’s played golf with DJ Khaled and celebrities and it’s been all he goes everywhere and he’s he’s like like they said he’s been with Mike Tariq a lot like he’s he just he talks like like a like a pro. Okay. So So it’s got this big personality and then his swing is amazing. So they just they just moved down here from Georgia to play more full-time golf and you know he said the Georgia he’s won 300 tournaments or something since he’s been playing since he’s three play every day. Oh yeah. No, he’s No, this is a real deal, right? And uh yeah, he’s very good. So anyway, but he’s at my club and I’m like that doesn’t show up at your course very often, right? Like think about it. And I have another boy that I helped coach, um, Brian Kelly, who when at 10 years old, he was the number one ranked kid in the country and three in the world, and he’s still a really good player. Um, but he’s doing a lot of his own stuff. But now I got there’s two kids now at the Saints, which are like like world beater kids, which I think is pretty cool. But anyway, um, I followed him on Instagram. Um, check it out. It’s Xavier Perez, but he goes like like it’s like like E Xve or XE V golf Perez Golf. So I I’ll I’ll put a link. Um if you go to my Instagram, I follow him, but I I’ll find his thing and I’ll put in the link for this one. But what a cool kid. So I offered, you know, help him. Um I’m good with marketing, so I was trying to tell them some give him some pointers. And the mom was really nice. She was from the Philippines and the dad was from Puerto Rico. So, he’s got this really cool blended uh culture and opposite sides of the planet. Yeah. But I told him when I told him I was from Hawaii, they kind of looked at me and kind of went like, “Ah, we see it like, you know, you can see the little Polynesian that I that I have in me.” But anyway, it was a great conversation. But I thought that was kind of cool to have that kind of kid, you know, come come out of nowhere and be at your course. So, I’m looking forward to hopefully he takes me up on some of my uh I just offered he’s got a coach now he’s working with he’s working mostly on short game, he said, but um it’d be fun to kind of like get to know him and help him a little bit if you need some help. So, I’m excited to see that. But, anything else with you going on beside your horrendous moving story? No. So, does anybody like moving? Anyone? No. And do you know the difference between moving and packing and moving? If you ask someone to help you move, please be packed and ready to have it moved. Daughter. My youngest daughter. Oh boy. Uh, God bless her, I’ll tell you. But, uh, yeah, gets a little frustrated. We have to move over. We’re moving over the Fourth of July weekend. Will you help us move? Sure, why not? Yeah. I love my kids. Yeah. Nothing’s packed. Four boxes. Four boxes were packed out of the entire apartment. Poor thing. So, she really needed to help you pack her and move her and probably wanted you to stay and unpack her and set her up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She’s still She thinks she’s still in college. Yeah. and the dog and the cat. She’s not in college, right? She’s graduated. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s her first. That’s why cuz normally you would have done it for her cuz your dorm room’s easy. Oh, yeah. Like six boxes and next door. Yeah. Yeah. But she’s she’s in a one-bedroom apartment and got a boyfriend and a boyfriend and Yeah. Yeah. Got a lot of Got a lot of stuff. Sorry that was a little rough. That’s okay. I didn’t I didn’t break anything. Yeah. I you know I I didn’t overdo myself, right? I didn’t get run over by anything going cuz she was on they were on the second floor. Fortunately, I moved to the first floor in another in the same apartment complex but I got her in complex. I didn’t I didn’t have to go up and downstairs heavy stuff and it was hot too. Yeah. So, you got it done. But we got it done. So, I was in here. I had a great Fourth of July. I I it was like the first time in a long time I didn’t I didn’t coach for like three days and um I had a really good Fourth of July with the family. We put the AC unit in here on Saturday and I helped and we were here with my son-in-law who was great, but it was like 90 in here, I bet. And we had to run all those cables, all the Oh, and all the copper. We had to run copper like 50 ft. And he does HVAC work. So, you know, he you don’t So, you don’t have a window, so you can’t get a cross breeze either. No, it was hot. It was So, we were running a little small AC trying to get it to go and it was like, it was terrible. But anyway, um anyway, I was probably cooler than you were cuz I was at least out to breathe. Yeah, I had nothing. It was brutal. But anyway, got it all organized and stuff. So, and then I wanted to tell people who are watching that, um what we’re going to do tonight and we’re going to try to do this. Um as part of the show, I’m going to film a segment where we’re going to give a golf tip. Okay? We’re going to add something in the show. Um Jimmy and I are going to go in the simulator and we’re going to just Woohoo. You’re going to be part of it, right? All right. We’ll talk and we’ll we’ll talk probably we’ll work on something simple. But if you if you like the lesson part, just leave a comment and you know tell us maybe what you want to you have struggles with your game or we can address those. Yeah, we could. Yeah. So it’ll help us. There’s a I put up a lot of content. There’s a lot of stuff online you can follow and we have memberships online. We have online learning. We have a lot of stuff. But I thought we’d just add that to the show every week. I think it would be a nice little segment at the end, you know. So, if you if you start to like that part, just, you know, please like and subscribe. I’ll probably just stick it at the end of the video and we’ll just call it, you know, we’ll come up a name for it, tips or corner or whatever. We’ll have fun with it. But hopefully it helps you. Now, remember this to shoot par now. Yeah. So, so again, I want to every week I try to explain this because a lot of people get confused because par is hard, right? Like, so my especially if you’re playing in the US Open or whatever it is, but so shoot is a system to follow that gets you to lower your score, right? And the goals are based on playing nine holes from T- boxes that are much closer. So we we learn to shoot 36 at 100 and 150 and 200. We even start closer with our little guys. And in Brandon, we just we just 25 yards, chip it on and three putt and we play nine. And we want everybody to make fours. So that’s where the name came from. Shoot par. Now we as you move back, we we develop the system and the scoring and the all the stuff. So it’s worked really well. Everybody’s like, “That’s ridiculous.” I’m telling you, if you putt good, chip good, hit stuff from 100 on, get good at 150, can get the ball up and in from 200, you’re going to be a good player. You know, people just don’t work at it like that, you know? So, that’s where Shana came from. But I got I got I’ve got a buddy that insists that you got to play the very back TE’s. He can’t break a hundred from that. Yeah, that’s mental. Why don’t you play up a little further? That’s the guys on my Instagram that are all talking like that, you know, they they all talk like, you know, they know everything and they they don’t have a handicap. They’ve never played in a tournament. They’ve never played anything in a scratch way. Like, you know, they’ve never played a tournament with other players that are shooting without handicap, like, you know. So, I I I mean, I get I respect everybody’s comments on sometimes, but sometimes, oh my god, it’s like you just if I had hair, I’d pull it out, but I don’t. So, it’s like blank blank blank. I got nothing to pull. I don’t know what to do, but sometimes like, come on, man. What are you talking about? Like, come on. Send me your swing. Let me see it. Oh, crickets. No, nobody wants They like to talk about everybody else’s mistakes, but let me see your swing. Don’t you know me? I know. They make fun of the old coach’s swing. I’m like, “Hey, I’m old and I’m still hitting it, you know, the way I hit it. Come on, man. Give me a little slack over here.” Right. Anyway, so anyway, that’s going to be our episode this week. Check out the little tip at the end of this show. We we we hope you enjoy it. And you got anything else to add from everything good? Column’s been writing good. Everything’s good. Yeah. Still still writing for Hometown News. Yeah. Everything. You wrote some articles you said about Copper Tech a little bit. Yeah. Did a did a couple of, you know, product reviews that I product that I’ve had since back in January when I went to the merchandise show. So, I’ve had enough rounds now that I can Okay, this is holding. This is working pretty good. That’s That’s Yeah. And we can find that online too, right? That article. Yes. Yeah. We should probably crossost it. Yeah. If you search for hometown newsgolf. Yeah. On Yeah. Online.com. So, I can probably find a link and put it on there. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll look for that. We’ll help Copper Techch out and get you some eyes on your stuff and help the hometown news. All right. Thanks for watching you guys. Stay well. Night everybody. Hey everyone, it’s Coach Aran Bento again. Thank you for checking out the Shoot Parell Golf Show. Here’s our new segment we’re going to add. We’re going to give you tips to help you with your golf game. This is James Stammer, my co-host. You guys know who he is, right? Now, here’s what we’re going to work on today. We’re going to talk a little bit about the golf grip. The grip. Very good. And as you said, it’s the only part of the body that’s connected to the club. Yeah. So that’s why grip is so important. Now there are there are three grips. Okay? And a lot of people get confused because they are only told about a so put it this way. A lot of teachers now coach a stronger grip. Mhm. And a lot of us weren’t coached that because the way that a lot of us were brought up, our hands released more in in the classic swing. So the grips were a little more neutral in my opinion. So, what we’re talking about is in your hands where your thumb sits, right? So, for most people, they’re playing golf where this hand is rotated so they can see a couple knuckles, right? So, like when we talk about the copper tech glove, right, that helps show you where knuckles go. Teaching glove. Yeah. If if you struggle with the ball staying the club face staying open, so if you’re a right-hand player and the ball’s always going that way, you do want to have a stronger grip. Okay? If you struggle with the ball curving to the left, you don’t want a stronger grip. You want you want to take that grip, right, and you want to kind of move it more right on top or even a little over. Okay? So, that would be considered weak. And weak means when you look down, you would see almost no knuckles. Strong, you would see at least two, even three sometimes, right? Yeah. So, a lot of players that are struggling with their games, they just don’t have their grip in the right place. Now, when you play, show me your grip. So, we got a little trainer on James here, right? Right. So, he’s going to show me his grip. I’m just going to look at it. So, obviously the trainer is Does that feel different than your normal grip? Not really. I mean, I tend to have a weaker grip. You play a little weaker grip? Yeah. Yeah. It feels really weird to get my my left hand rotated more. So, let’s turn around this way so they can just see it. So, you see how So, James does have a weak grip. So his line kind of points to his lead shoulder where most people are going to have that line rotating to this shoulder, right? It’ll be more over this way. Yeah. So that would be considered so so that I consider that a strong grip, but everybody calls that neutral. Now, you know, but so you play with a little more weak grip, right? Yeah. Now, the other thing that people go bananas about is where this thumb is, right? So, in theory, this is where the thumb should be in a good grip. But I’ve seen so much golf being played well with as long as this thumb is not putting pressure on the swing, then then that’s not terrible to have it. Like some people will play like here and they’ll be like, “Oh, it’s a terrible grip.” No, you’ll see really good players with that. Okay? Especially if you’re you’re only gripping with, you know, these three fingers mostly, right? And then sometimes players will actually have that that thumb on this side which is which is not something you would see with a better player because that’s that’ll help people actually close like rotate the club a little bit. So some people freak out but in the end and this is what I tell people all the time. Everyone is so consumed with the right thing but the only thing that’s correct is when you make contact is a face square and you know where the path of the club is going. If your path is messed up, you really can’t teach where the face is. So, if you don’t have a consistent path on how you get to the ball, the grip’s always going to be, you know, something that can work with many different ideas, right? But I will tell you one more thing in this little tip. So, so, okay, the tip today was if you slice or go slice player, you want to strengthen your grip. Okay? Put that left hand on top. Yep. And rotate. You can see more of that more knuckles more of your knuckles on that side. Correct. And if you are a hook player where all the balls kind of hook, you want to weaken that. Yeah. You want to go the opposite way, right? Yeah. All right. So, that’s going to be your tip. I hope that helps you with your golf game. Leave a comment. Say something at the bottom. It’ll really help us out and we can give you something else to work on. Okay. And hit them straight. Thanks for watching.
