Still The One Butch

Butch belongs in the Hall

- Jerry Tarde

I couldn’t find Butch Harmon in the World Golf Hall of Fame, so I went looking for him. The last time I saw Butch, he was ranked No. 1 by his peers as the game’s best teacher. The distance between him and the next best has grown like Secretariat in the Belmont Stakes. A better comparison might be Tiger Woods in the 2000 U.S. Open—he won by 15; Butch was coaching him at the time. Harmon, age 74, has been at the top of our biennial teacher ranking for the past 18 years. His run exceeds even Greg Norman’s and Tiger’s No. 1 World Golf Ranking stretch, so I’ll stop right there in defending why he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

It doesn’t help that he’s not a member of the PGA of America, though he’s spent a lifetime helping PGA members. But in the horse-trading that goes on to decide who gets in, he hasn’t had the support that the only other pure teacher in the hall, Harvey Penick, got from heavyweights Ben Crenshaw, Tom Kite and Davis Love Jr. whispering in the old commissioner’s ear.

The only way to get it done is for his career-making students like Tiger and Greg and Phil Mickelson getting in the new commissioner’s ear. Sooner rather than later. 

I found Butch at home outside Las Vegas, with his wife, Christy, and their dog, Heidi

WHY DO PROS COME TO YOU?