A few years ago I was working with a golf client that had signed up Butch Harmon and his brothers Craig, Billy and the now deceased Dick Harmon to endorse their product. Even though I knew their names, I had never met Butch or his three brothers. At the time, Butch was still Tiger’s coach and the toast of the golf world, and why not? Even without Tiger Woods, the Harmon family was pretty close to golf royalty. Their father, Claude Harmon, winner of the 1948 Masters, a legendary teacher of the game and the long-time pro at Winged Foot Golf Club, was the last bona-fide club pro to win a major.
To prepare for our first meeting I watch a Golf Channel documentary about the brothers. It was a little like watching a family reunion. The four brothers were sitting around a table at Winged Foot where they grew up, telling stories and laughing at each other the way only brothers do.
It was clear that Butch, the oldest, and the best known, was the big personality of the four, while Craig, the head pro at Oak Hill Country Club and the second oldest, was the steady as you go kind of guy. Dick Harmon, the pro at River Oaks Country Club in Houston, seemed to be the quiet one, and Billy, the pro at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, California, who was often seen caddying for his friend Jay Haas, was the jokester and took pleasure in heckling Butch with lines like, “Tell me Butch, how did a guy who won exactly one PGA Tour event become the greatest golf teacher in the world?”
Butch’s answer was unprintable… funny, but still unprintable.
What struck me at the time was how much the four brothers seemed to be still trying to please their father who had been dead many years. It was obvious from the stories that Claude Harmon, Senior was a tough taskmaster that passed out compliments and hugs about as often as I shoot 59. But the brothers spoke fondly of their father as they recalled of his tough-love.
I remember the guys telling a story about when Craig Harmon hosted the 1989 U.S. Open at Oak Hill Country Club. By that time Claude Harmon, Senior was in poor health living in Houston. It was Craig’s first time to host such a prestigious event as the U.S. Open and Butch, Billy and Dick had come to the tournament to help him celebrate. To make the event even more special they wanted to include their father in the celebration, so they gathered around the phone and called him. To paraphrase the conversation, they told Claude, Senior that they were together at the U.S. Open that Craig was hosting and thinking about the time he had hosted the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. To which Claude replied something like, well the difference between you boys and me was when I hosted the U.S. Open at Winged Foot I also finished in the top ten, and none of you are even playing.
I don’t know why Claude Harmon, Senior said what he said, and perhaps it bothered me more than it did his sons. It is certainly possible that it never occurred to him or them that his words might be interpreted as insensitive. My Dad could be the same way, tossing around compliments like manhole covers. Certainly many men who grew up in the Great Depression seemed to keep their emotions close to their vest and that’s too bad.
In that same documentary, Butch went on to talk about how his brother Dick had cared for their father until his death. He acknowledged that his father had become even more difficult in the latter stage of his life and how much all of them appreciated what Dick had done. It was a very touching compliment to their younger brother Dick and a bit of insight as to why Dick was so beloved.
Over the years I had the opportunity to meet and work with all of the Harmon brothers and I liked all of them individually and I like them even more together. To sit and listen to them tell stories about growing up on Winged Foot, the pranks, fights and shenanigans was absolutely spell binding.
They talked about Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Bob Jones and every famous golfer you can imagine passing through their lives, not as super stars, but as just ordinary guys their dad knew. It reminded me of how Jane Fonda talked about how movie stars dropped in for Sunday dinner and no one thought a thing about it. The fact that Jimmy Stewart had come to her high school graduation seemed absolutely normal, and if Butch and his brothers got an impromptu golf lesson from the likes of Ben Hogan or Sam Snead… what’s unusual about that?
One afternoon at Butch’s school near Las Vegas I sat in a room with Butch, Craig, Dick and Billy and listened and laughed with the brothers for hours. One of the funniest stories I remember was the one about Jackie Burke the 1956 Masters champion and co-founder of Houston’s Champions Golf Club and Olympic champion Carl Lewis… but you’ll have to ask Butch about that story yourself.
I promise you that there is a great golf book inside each of the Harmons that will never be written because the toll in red faces, divorces, lawsuits and fistfights would be too much to survive.
At dinner one night, I asked Billy Harmon about writing a book together. “We’ll make a million bucks,” I told him. “David Letterman will be calling and the Golf Channel will make a series out of it based on the Steven Spielberg movie and DVD. It will be the funniest golf book ever and I mean ever.”
“We can’t use real names in the book,” he said.
“Without real names, it might as well be about me.” I answered.
“It would be a lot better than that,” he replied.
