Butch Harmon - Golfs most respected instructor - Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Butch Harmon - Golfs most respected instructor - Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles In the year that I got interested in golf and grew up watching the game on the TV, there was a partnership that I saw develop really nicely over the years, that was Butch Harmon and Tiger Woods. It kind of propelled Butch Harmon to be one of the most famous golf coaches, as he is still today. Good announcer on the TV as well. The relationship they built up was fantastic. There are a couple of key principles I follow in Butch Harmon’s teaching, particularly the early work he did with Tiger Woods that I actually use in my own philosophies teaching today. A couple of those areas, I’ll just talk you through now. From a good address position, Harmon worked really well with Woods. You still see in Woods’ swing now, creating this nice, wide takeaway, trying to keep the club outside the line of the hands and the takeaway, not letting the club get snatched inside. If you look for other golfers that Harmon teach, maybe Adam Scott, something like that, him and Woods had identical swings that were important in their careers where they were nice and wide here. The club only got on line with the hands when it came to the hips. Then it was wide up to the top. Viewed from the front on, a really nice tip that I think Butch Harmon worked a lot on is keeping the left hand away from the top of the head, creating width in the backswing. Not letting anything fold into the body too much here, pushing it nice, and high, and wide into the top of the backswing. Harmon might get criticized by some people for not adapting his technique enough, not adapting to his students enough but I really like the way he approaches the game. Certainly guys like Hank Haney and Sean Foley, they’ve adopted Tiger Woods almost from Butch Harmon. You’re never really going to be able to claim all the credit for the work that you now do with Tiger Woods if you’re Hank Haney or Sean Foley because Harmon sort of set the foundations and the fundamentals in place. For me, Butch Harmon, one of the greatest golf instructors, coming from one of the greatest golfing families as well. 2013-01-18

In the year that I got interested in golf and grew up watching the game on the TV, there was a partnership that I saw develop really nicely over the years, that was Butch Harmon and Tiger Woods. It kind of propelled Butch Harmon to be one of the most famous golf coaches, as he is still today. Good announcer on the TV as well. The relationship they built up was fantastic.

There are a couple of key principles I follow in Butch Harmon’s teaching, particularly the early work he did with Tiger Woods that I actually use in my own philosophies teaching today.

A couple of those areas, I’ll just talk you through now. From a good address position, Harmon worked really well with Woods. You still see in Woods’ swing now, creating this nice, wide takeaway, trying to keep the club outside the line of the hands and the takeaway, not letting the club get snatched inside.

If you look for other golfers that Harmon teach, maybe Adam Scott, something like that, him and Woods had identical swings that were important in their careers where they were nice and wide here. The club only got on line with the hands when it came to the hips. Then it was wide up to the top.

Viewed from the front on, a really nice tip that I think Butch Harmon worked a lot on is keeping the left hand away from the top of the head, creating width in the backswing. Not letting anything fold into the body too much here, pushing it nice, and high, and wide into the top of the backswing.

Harmon might get criticized by some people for not adapting his technique enough, not adapting to his students enough but I really like the way he approaches the game. Certainly guys like Hank Haney and Sean Foley, they’ve adopted Tiger Woods almost from Butch Harmon. You’re never really going to be able to claim all the credit for the work that you now do with Tiger Woods if you’re Hank Haney or Sean Foley because Harmon sort of set the foundations and the fundamentals in place.

For me, Butch Harmon, one of the greatest golf instructors, coming from one of the greatest golfing families as well.