Timberlake on learning golf from Butch Harmon: Editors' Blog: Golf Digest

Timberlake on learning golf from Butch Harmon

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 Comments

Interesting exchange during Justin Timberlake's Playboy interview posted this month about his experience with Butch Harmon. You'll recall that Timberlake, who played in our Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge its first two years and broke 100 each time, took a crash course in the golf swing from Butch Harmon, ranked No. 1 among Golf Digest's 50 Greatest Teachers. Harmon's advice to Timberlake is a formula for good practice.

PLAYBOY: Of course, even your golf game has type A written all over it. You could have taken lessons at a public driving range, but instead you hired Tiger Woods’s former coach, Butch Harmon. Any tips to share with the weekend golfer?

TIMBERLAKE: Butch’s whole approach is that it’s way better to have a short swing that gives an accurate shot than to try [hit the ball a mile]. He would make me practice hitting 30 or 50 balls with a 6-iron just to get used to hitting low punch shots. Half swing, swing low, don’t even finish the swing. When I showed up, I was scooping the ball up with great big swings because I thought that’s how you get the ball into the air. Using shorter swings lets the club do what it was made to do.

We're going to try that. You might also be interested in Golf Digest's interview with Timberlake prior to the '09 Open Challenge.

Bob Carney