Generational Shift

Major champ Justin Leonard is warming to his new brief on the PGA Tour Champions.

You turned 50 last year, joined the

PGA Tour Champions, and your form is trending in the right direction. Is a win on the horizon?

I am definitely going in the right direction. It is probably happening a little slower than I would prefer, but sometimes things don’t always happen in the exact timeframe that we want!

Strong recent results suggest you are enjoying being back in the old routine.

It feels like being back on the PGA Tour, but just 25 years ago! A lot of these guys I’ve known for so long, and that is one of the reasons it is so fun. The atmosphere is great, and it has been a lot of fun for me to get back into competition again.

And the next generation is coming up fast. Didn’t your son Luke recently play in a competition with Tiger Woods’ son Charlie?

Yes, that was a lot of fun. They got paired together in a junior club championship. They go to the same school, too, but this was Luke’s first time playing golf with Charlie, and I know it was his first time to play in front of Tiger Woods.

It was cool, and it was fun to watch, and then talking about junior golf with Tiger for nine holes, and talking about the little things we see in our kids that they need to work on, or whatever it may be.

There was a shot that Charlie hit into

12, which was a par-5; this beautiful high, soft cut—looked like a 3-hybrid or something. The ball landed on the green, and it stopped dead. There might have been a little bit of a club twirl at the end of the shot, and I walked by Tiger and said, “Okay, a lot of that looked very familiar,” and we both had a good chuckle.

You grew up playing golf at Royal Oaks CC in Dallas. When did you start there?

I started my golf there so that must have been in the late seventies. My first golf lessons were with Randy Smith, when he was the assistant. It is amazing that Randy is still at the club, and these days he has some long, fancy title.

Randy Smith is the golf professional emeritus & director of instruction (working with Scottie Scheffler among other tour pros). What makes Randy such a good coach?

His way of communicating ideas and thoughts is great. He can relate and communicate to a 10-year-old junior just as well as he relates to a 70-year-old, and everyone in between. He also has a great eye, and he can pick up things in a golf swing that most people can’t and that is a real talent—and it is one that I don’t possess, I can tell you that.

I also love that there does not seem to be a set method to his teaching. He just works with what a player has and tries to help them improve.

You won The Open at Royal Troon in 1997. Did you take the Claret Jug back to Royal Oaks?

Yes, straight away! I got back to Dallas on the Monday morning, and my parents picked me up from the airport. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. It had been a long flight, and I hadn’t slept much. They said, “No, we need to go to Royal Oaks.” I said, “No, that can wait, I need to go home.” Well, my dad was driving, and we went to Royal Oaks despite what I said, and there were 400, 500 people there in the ball room. I didn’t know a thing about it—it was great—so everyone got to see the Claret Jug that day. I had noticed lots of cars in the parking lot but hadn’t thought anything of it. —robin barwick