Harris English Relives Memories of Playing Golf at Georgia

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00:00What was your first memories of Keith and Jaeger when they came in?

00:06So I knew Keith when he was like in sixth grade, seventh grade.

00:10I mean, he was the exact same person.

00:14Just on the range, talking to everybody, having fun.

00:18He always had a lot of talent.

00:21Like we knew how good Keith was.

00:22He just probably didn't dedicate himself to golf like he should have back then.

00:28And then obviously he's figured that out.

00:31So I've known Keith for a long time.

00:34And then Jaeger coming in my senior year.

00:36I mean, this was, I think, one of his first times in the United States.

00:41His parents found the school online.

00:44I guess he saw like how good this golf team was.

00:47And I remember him coming in.

00:48Our coach picked him up at the airport, took him like hearties,

00:52got him like a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit.

00:55Never had that before.

00:56Welcome to the States.

00:57I'm sure his stomach was in shambles.

01:01He went out to the honors course, never played it in his life and shot 68.

01:06And I was like, oh my God, this guy's the real deal.

01:09Because our coach, we would get kids coming in from kind of all over.

01:12And he would always pump them up.

01:14Like we had this kid from Mexico come in and he was pumping them up.

01:17And I think he went to qualifying and shot like 95.

01:20We're like, all right, coach.

01:21This kid's not it.

01:23But Yeager, Yeager was different and he was really good.

01:27And he ended up staying at Baylor for two years.

01:30Then he graduated and went to University of Tennessee at Chattanooga State.

01:33Chattanooga still lives there.

01:34So I think he liked his experience.

01:39All right.

01:40So you said you always wanted to go to Georgia.

01:42You end up going there and committing.

01:44And you get on campus.

01:45And of course, like we know how many great players have come out of the University of Georgia.

01:49When you show up as a freshman, what did that team look like as far as actually qualifying inside the top five and making that team?

01:56I know Chris Hack, the way he does things there is a little different.

02:00You know, if you want to be great, you got to go out and put the work in.

02:02It's not some structured system that Hacker has at Georgia.

02:06You got to go and earn your keep.

02:08And it seemed like this is what he told me on my recruiting trip.

02:11Now, you tell me if this is wrong, Harris.

02:13He said that every week there was a qualifier for the tournament.

02:17Nobody ever got exempt.

02:19Is that actually true?

02:20Yeah.

02:21The only way you can get exempt is you top 10 the week before.

02:25So he structured it like the PGA Tour.

02:27So if you finish top 10, it didn't matter if you were first team All-American the year before.

02:32It didn't matter if you won five times.

02:34It didn't matter.

02:35Nothing mattered.

02:36If you didn't top 10 the week before in the college event, you weren't exempt.

02:41So it was the most fair system that you could possibly have.

02:46And rolling in there as a freshman, it was myself, Russell Henley, and Lowry Thomas from Auburn, Alabama.

02:54Lowry.

02:55Then you had Hudson Swofford was a sophomore.

02:59Rob Bennett was a sophomore.

03:01Michael Green was a junior.

03:03Brian Harmon was a junior.

03:04Adam Mitchell was a junior.

03:05So that was our team.

03:06I think we had eight guys.

03:09It's pretty stout.

03:10A lot of those guys had been All-Americans the previous year.

03:14And it was kind of like, all right, we're going to go up to the farm up in Dalton.

03:17And we had like a three-day qualifier.

03:20We played around Athens a good bit.

03:24I mean, I like that structure.

03:26I mean, he didn't – I think we had maybe one structured practice a week.

03:31And he would set up the gauntlet.

03:34I remember the gauntlet.

03:35Of course it was a short game.

03:35I remember it.

03:36I did it on my recruiting trip.

03:37You did?

03:38Yeah.

03:38It's awesome.

03:39So it's a nine-hole chipping and putting game where you kind of spray paint some certain holes

03:44and give you a couple bunker shots, a couple flop shots, a couple bump and runs.

03:49And I think you had to shoot two over in nine holes to complete the drill.

03:54If you didn't, you had to go over to the putting green and do – you had to make 44 footers in a row

03:59to then have the chance to go back and go through the gauntlet again.

04:03And sometimes it would take guys all afternoon, sometimes into the night to complete it.

04:08Sometimes you could go through once or twice and complete it.

04:11But that was really the only structure we had.

04:14I mean, he was massive on short game.

04:17Obviously, Hacker had been around a lot of really good players, including guys like Ru Giamada,

04:22who had one of the best short games.

04:24And he would always tell us, like, y'all need to spend most of your time, 80% of your time,

04:30chipping and putting and figuring out how to play.

04:32And he would encourage us to go play golf a lot.

04:34I mean, that was the biggest thing of going to Georgia is we had the university course in our backyard

04:40and could go play a lot.

04:43And we had a lot of qualifying.

04:45We had to do that in there.

04:49Okay.

04:50Well, we had the university course.

04:50Okay.

04:55Bye.

05:02Bye.

05:03Bye.

05:05Bye.

05:06Bye.

05:11Bye.

05:12Bye.

05:13Bye.

05:14Bye.

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