Teacher’s pet: Leaders pass their coach’s test
There is one person who is not a competitor walking around the grounds of Bethpage State Park with a little more jump in his step than anyone else this week.
That would be swing coach Claude Harmon III, who is the instructor to the runaway leader of the PGA Championship, Brooks Koepka, as well as one of his closest pursuers — albeit, not that close — Dustin Johnson.
Harmon is the son of famed instructor Butch, and the grandson of legendary golf figure Claude Sr., the most recent club professional to win a major when he claimed the 1948 Masters. The youngest Harmon has been teaching touring pros for over a decade, but it’s just now that his name is starting to rise to the highest ranks thanks to the extraordinary success of his students.
“The things I’m most happy [about] is I’m happy for them,” Harmon told The Post just after Koepka walked off the putting green toward the first tee for the start of his third round Saturday. “They put in the work. They’re the athletes. You see how hard all of these guys out here on the PGA Tour work, the goal is to have success.”
There is a bit of competitiveness between instructors on Tour, but there is also a camaraderie stemming from their collective plight of success being out of their hands. When Harmon was on the range earlier Saturday afternoon working with Johnson before his tee time, he spent a few minutes chatting with Sean Foley, the instructor for Justin Rose, among others.
They shared a laugh and a handshake even though quite a bit of pride (and money) was on the line between their students.
“I think all of us in the industry — whether you’re a physical trainer or agent — golf, even though it’s an individual sport, there are teams of people around these guys,” Harmon said. “We’re all part of their team, and our goal — whatever our jobs are — is to try and help them get into position to have the opportunity to perform.”
Harmon started working with Koepka in 2013, when Koepka was still on the Challenge Tour, the minor league of the European Tour. The two have come a long way, as Koepka had won back-to-back U.S. Opens the past two years, and was looking to defend his PGA title this week to make it four major-championship victories in the previous eight.
Johnson works with both Claude and his father Butch, who was Tiger Woods’ first coach as a professional starting in 1997. The long-bombing Johnson always had terrific talent, but the Harmons have helped harness that into 20 PGA Tour wins, including the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont.
Both Koepka and Johnson hit the ball a very long way and very straight, and that is a big part of the reason they were able to attack the normally treacherous Black Course.
“There is a long way to go,” Harmon warned. “Hopefully they both play well and we’ll see what happens.”
No matter what happens, Harmon got both of his students in terrific form. If the two of them duke it out Sunday afternoon for the Wanamaker Trophy, well then that would just be icing on the cake.
“I hope so,” Harmon said with a smile. “That’s all you can do.”