Last Wednesday, Justin Parsons pulled Harris English aside and relayed a simple message: You need to stop being like everybody else.
In the four years since English’s last victory, the laid-back but hard-working Georgian had followed all the steps that a modern TOUR player traditionally takes to improve. English, 35, got in the gym to stay fit while getting incrementally longer. He battled back from a significant hip injury and tweaked his swing to take pressure off it moving forward, hopefully positioning himself for a TOUR career that would last another decade.
But in the process of chasing improvement, he forgot what got him those four wins, what Parsons, English’s swing coach, believes truly separates him from the rest.
“I need you to grind out competitive scores,” Parsons told English on the driving range at PGA WEST. “When he was at his best, whatever was working or wasn’t … he always found a way to shoot a better score than he should’ve shot.”
English took the message to heart, and Sunday at Torrey Pines embodied it.
English hit just four fairways and nine greens and spent much of the blustery, difficult final round just trying to hold on. This was not a day his technique was perfect, nor would the conditions yield low scores even if it was. The English of two weeks ago might not have won.
This version did. English held onto his first 54-hole lead in four years, shooting a gutty 1-over 73 to win the Farmers Insurance Open by one stroke over Sam Stevens. While other names came and went on the leaderboard around him, it was the steady English that emerged. English parred the last 12 holes to finish 8-under and secure his fifth PGA TOUR victory, his first since the 2021 Travelers Championship.
“When you kind of get in those ruts, you kind of lose your competitiveness, you lose the fun in shaping shots and hitting different shots,” English said. “I spent a lot of the offseason working on some technique stuff. (Parsons) said it was time to get back to playing.”
That’s a strategy specifically required at Torrey Pines, which eliminates any hope of consistently hitting stock shots because of the course’s narrow fairways, long rough, fast greens and strong winds. There’s no playing golf swing. You must play golf. The scoring average on Torrey Pines South this week was 73.6.
It’s the type of setup English gravitates toward. Ever since his junior days, he’s thrived when conditions are “U.S. Open tough.” It’s not a dart show or a putting content. As English puts it, you have to “play chess.”
“You’ve got to miss in the right spots, you’ve got to grind out there and pars are good and that’s kind of all you’re trying to do,” English said.
He’s done it particularly well at Torrey Pines. English finished runner-up to Jason Day in 2015, losing to the Aussie on the first playoff hole. Six years later, he contended in the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and finished third to Jon Rahm. In total, English has five top-15s in his career at Torrey Pines.
In a sense, that made Saturday’s final round feel like a win a long time in the making. Then again, it was far from a guarantee.
English underwent significant surgery in February 2022 to repair a torn labrum in his right hip. He was back playing in four months, but he was far from the golfer he was before. Parsons believes English didn’t fully return to 100% until early 2024, despite a successful 2023 campaign. Not only did English have to build the strength back up in his right side, but he also had to adjust to a body that was far more mobile.
“He went from 6 to 8 degrees of rotation to having 30 degrees,” Parsons said. “The surgery was no joke.”
The two worked on posture and alignment changes better suited for English’s post-surgery body while also limiting the stress on his surgically repaired hip. English is one of Parsons’ hardest working clients, and English implemented the changes quickly and effectively. He finished 57th in the FedExCup a year ago and carded 11 top-25s to just four missed cuts. But the high-end results weren’t there, thus pushing Parsons to his range session pep talk. It wasn’t another swing drill that was going to put him over the edge.
“The things that make you special are untrainable, the competitiveness, the focus,” Parsons told English. “You also have to be yourself … I need you to stop being like everybody else.”
English eschewed the hope of swinging perfectly this week, of hitting all the ideal Trackman numbers or of looking perfectly on plane. He committed to playing free, stepping onto the next tee box and hitting the shot he saw. He could trust that under pressure more than any swing feel. So even as he hit just one fairway over his first 13 holes, he stayed composed.
English avoided any blow-ups, dropping shots at the first and fifth holes to fall two shots behind Andrew Novak. But English bounced back with a birdie at the sixth and regained the lead as Novak bogeyed the seventh, eighth and 10th holes.
English arrived at the 18th at 8-under and with a one-shot lead over Stevens, who carded a Saturday-best 68 to grab the clubhouse lead. Like many drives that day, English missed the fairway but he calmly punched out. From 120 yards, English hit a wedge to the middle of the green and routinely two-putted for the victory.
“It doesn’t have to look pretty,” English said, “you’ve just got to get the job done.”
Source: PGATour.com
