Bill Harmon joins Golf Central to discuss the U.S. Senior Open, sharing his experience as former Newport Country Club head professional and recovery from alcoholism. #GolfChannel #GolfCentral
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Bill Harmon details history with U.S. Senior Open | Golf Central | Golf Channel
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big week in the game wrapped up this past Monday as uh golf went back to its American Roots at Newport Country Club and that’s a good time to check in with our friend Billy Harmon who for six years was the head pro there and caded this past week at the US Senior Open for J hos Bill good to see you how was this week for you oh it was great I think we were the oldest combo almost 144 years old between the two of us um special week for me you know I started cutting for J 1978 to 888 full-time uh he’s probably my best friend in my life and so to come back here uh which could be his last Senior Open at Newport Country Club was a a great walk down the memory lane for me so I had I had a fantastic week second oldest player in the field after our colleague Gary KO who was one year older but quite a week for uh not only all the players I’m sure for you as well nostalgic as we said you worked there for six years it was the first time that I had been there and I’ve been to a lot of golf courses to be quite Frank and I have to say this I have not seen anything like it in the United States can you give people a sense of how special that place is you know I kind of um rate golf courses differently some are just Great Courses some are great experiences maybe not a great course I think Newport is both I think it’s one of the reare combinations of a great course and an even better golf experience and and when you’re there I think you know that you’re at a special place you can just feel it uh money can’t buy it money can’t make it special uh everything about it I think that the fact that that incredible Clubhouse is sitting on the highest part of the property you can see it from almost every hole from every different angle and like you said Jimmy you’d never been there before and you really couldn’t believe what a special place Newport Country Club is yeah and there’s a Simplicity to it you know in this day and age trying to figure out how to make something special this is way old school right well I don’t understand to be honest with the modern day Architects that have uh you know they they they can come to a course like this and even though it’s on a special piece of land a lot of these holes you could design anywhere and I don’t really understand why Architects don’t uh pay a little bit more attention to some of the the old school courses and see if they can reproduce them but uh I just think it’s uh just a magnificent golf course and an even better golf experience all right you said uh you were there once again with your good friend Jay hos you’ve been cading for him for a long long time this could be the end of this professional relationship for you guys at least in terms of you carrying the bag for him yeah can you give people a sense of how important he is and has been to you in your life and why you know not really I think um uh when I first started caddying for Jay in 1978 um he was everything that I wasn’t at the time I was under the throws of alcoholism and drug addiction and he was a Straight Arrow uh you know everything about him we were opposites and I so admired and respected him and he’s become really other than my family the most influential person in my life and he’s never told me one thing to do he just the way he carried himself and the way he acted uh he didn’t have to tell me what to do he showed me what to do and he’s such an honorable decent man uh a throwback I think to the olden days of you spitting your glove and you get it done and no whining no complaining he told me early on in his career if you couldn’t play shut up and if you could play you didn’t have to say anything so and he stayed true to that his whole career and a very very proud man he’s gifted but very proud of of his career and uh he has a lot of kind of longevity records which are cool he’s played in seven usj events and excuse me in seven decades he’s playing USGA events this week he broke the all-time senior cut record 18 he’s moved ahead of Tom Watson so he um one of the Players yesterday said Doug Baron said they should do a documentary on this guy nobody should be this good at age 70 you’ve been very very candid about your struggles you mentioned it just a moment ago and where you’ve come from I read a quote that at least is supposed to have come from your dad he once said that you had a 30 m hour brain and a 100 mile per hour mouth and uh yeah i’ I’ve proven him right on that many times i’ I’ve tried to get better at that but every now and then my mouth can still get me in trouble but I think when he told me I didn’t like it but I really think it’s very funny now and actually very true to be honest with you did get me in trouble well um again going back to Newport I know is very very special for you those six years at a special place but also must bring back some memories there was a great article by Adam shupac in golf Week Magazine where you revealed the fact that that was a place where you almost ended your life yeah it was interesting um you know I knew how to I had a drinking and drug problem and um I’m sad to say I’m I’m still married to the beauti woman that I was married to then I’ve always been sad to say that the marriage didn’t uh drive me to my low point but when my son was born my first son was born I um I remembered vividly looking in the back seat of the car when we put him in there and feeling this incredible sense of love that I never experienced and I remember looking out the window one second later and realizing that that kid’s father was an alcoholic and a drug addict and how unfair that was and uh I’d love to to say that I quit that day it took me about um oh God maybe 10 more weeks and there was an intervention done but the the balcony there overlooking uh the ninth green this week used to be our the balcony of our apartment and one night Zach woke up crying at 2 in the morning like he always had to get fed and I’d been drinking that night and it irritated me that he woke me up and Robin got up to feed him and within 5 seconds I felt the self-loathing that you know what what’s become of my life that my son you know is two months old and he’s crying to get fed and it’s bothering me so I walked out on the balcony I I don’t think I I what I wanted to do is disappear I wanted to not be where I was I wanted to get away from that self-loathing and self-hatred so this week every time I walk back past that balcony um I realized how far my life had come but I also thought about how many people that right now are struggling the way I struggled and and I hope that uh the story with Adam uh would Inspire some people that had my problems and have been at the abyss let’s say of this would realize that there’s a way out and there’s a a way to a better life and I couldn’t imagine the life that I have today to come back here um you know all these years later and and to be sober and clean and to look up at that balcony and think it’s been a hell of a journey man great journey how many years sober for you uh 31 plus if I make it to August 27th I’ll have uh 32 but I got to get today first so uh I’m not worried about August 27th but it’s been uh you know more than I could have ever imagined I I don’t think I ever stayed sober 31 hours so 31 years it’s pretty good I’d say well good for you on that and I know you talked about giving back you and your wife’s started the Harmon recovery foundation so what’s the takeaway if you were to see a young player or a young cadd somebody who’s living the golf life and on the road what’s the advice that you would give them if they are struggling well I think um you know alcoholics and and drug addicts were uh really good con artists and I think that I was told early on if I ConEd you I would hurt your feeling if I con me I’d get loaded again so I think you have to be very very honest with yourself you have to admit you have a problem but then you want to really have to do it you have to want to be sober and clean I don’t really think you can do it Jimmy unless you have some kind of psychic shift where you say I give alcohol and drugs is you know beating me to a pulp and I give and and I want to change and I want to live a different life and I don’t know where that comes from to be honest with you I know when the intervention was done in the clubhouse at the Newport Country Club I’ve often wondered if it happened the day before the day after would I’ve been ready that’s how elusive this thing is so the the odds are against people uh having long-term sobriety and living a clean and sober life so but I think it has to come somewhere inside you you have to look in the mirror and say I can’t do this anymore I give I Surrender and uh I need to look for some help and and start living a different life unfortunately for me uh I’ve been able to do that for a long time as they say you are powerless um yes since the very very beginning one of the things that you have had in your life is the last name of Harmon which is very very famous your dad of course a great player a great teacher um your brother’s there um there are four of you but um I I often wonder about your dad who of course won the Masters and taught for so many years at Wingfoot you think he was a better player or a better teacher I think my dad um I’m biased but I think he’s one of the most influential people in the history of the game his playing abilities as a club pro he won the Masters but he had four other top three in Majors um he mentored over 60 proos that went on and got their head pro jobs at other clubs that they meant they’re their assistant so that tree is still grow growing and at the time he was considered maybe the best teacher in the world so I don’t really know of any golf figure that was uh that good in all three areas so I think he’s um I think he’s one of the more influential people in American Golf it just wasn’t as a player the teacher part back then didn’t get the uh you know the street cred that it gets now and the mentoring is overlooked too but uh I I think he felt that a head professional was supposed to Mentor his assistance so they he could make their lives better so he he was a very power powerful guy uh good Needler you know he he leaned on the boys a little bit but I think we turned out okay it’s funny as I said there are four brothers one of the funny things that I’ve heard over the years is that Jas refers to himself as brother 5A he’s definitely a member of the family he gets all all the Harmon stuff and his uncle was Bob goldby and I got all Bob goldby stuff so we have a a tremendous connection when when he dropped off this morning because we had to putt out on the he had to putt out on 18 today you know he turned to me and said I love you and I said I love you so our relationship is uh our our chap this chapter of Jay and Bill isn’t over I’m going to try to convince them to do golf schools with me so the caddy part might be over but not the Jay and Bill show is definitely not over all right well sign me up for that golf school both good guys a golf life well liveed Billy Haron thanks so much for joining us on golf centr thanks for having me see
