It’s not only major champions who seek out Justin Parsons, Dubai’s U.S. bound-coach to the stars.
By Kent Gray
Justin Parsons was with pals at Emirates Golf Club watching the 2008 FA Cup final when his cellphone rang. The call was prefixed +1, instantly recognisable as the dialling code for the U.S., and was about to make the Northern Irishman as giddy as Nwankwo Kanu had been moments earlier when the Portsmouth striker tucked away a near-post chance. The Nigerian’s 37th-minute goal would ultimately sink Cardiff City hearts, not that the football registered much after halftime for Parsons, his mind suddenly awash with possibility.
JP with Claude and Butch Harmon
Claude Harmon III, the middle of Butch and Christy Harmon’s three children, had just made the overture of a lifetime. Would JP be interested in joining him to open a new Butch Harmon School of Golf in Dubai Sports City, attached to the new Els Club? CH3, as he’s affectionately known in the trade, didn’t need to ask twice.
Parsons would start in late September as part of the pre-opening team. With much to do before Butch came out for the official opening on Jan. 14 the following year (Adam Scott also lent his celebrity to the occasion), Parsons figured a holiday was a sage move to recharge his batteries. After resigning from his position as Director of Instruction (DOI) at The Montgomerie, he got ready to kick back. Or so he thought.
“I’m thinking I’m going to have a nice three weeks to chill out in Dubai but in keeping with the Harmon work ethic, Claude rang and asked if I could come in for a morning to go over a few things. I got in here [the BHSG Academy] at about 9 o’clock, ended up working the whole day thinking about projects and different stuff, and at the end of the day, I thought right, that’ll be me. But Claude says ‘Great, see you tomorrow’.”
Parsons, now 41, has been chained to the BHSG Dubai production line for the nine years since and very happily so. He remembers giving the first public lessons on Valentines Day in 2009 but before then appeared in the launch edition of Golf Digest Middle East alongside Claude. Parsons’ contribution to the Nov. 2008 issue was no more than a fleeting mention as Claude rightly had the honour in a series of instruction articles with the magazine. It proved one of the few times he’s played second fiddle to any teaching professional in the UAE ever since.
Today Parsons is DOI once more, this time leading a team of five PGA professional. He’s Dubai’s undisputed coach to the stars, and not merely to golfing names like PGA Tour-bound Peter Uihlein and Dubai amateur sensation Rayhan Thomas. Even Parsons has to pinch himself occasionally as he works fundamentals with Hollywood A-lister Will Smith and cricket god Sachin Tendulkar or chews the fat with Rory McIlroy as his young countryman goes through his annual New Years tune-up regime at The Els.
Actor Will Smith (left) and cricket god Sachin Tendulkar (right) often seek Parsons’ help.
The link to the Harmon dynasty was made by Wayne Johnson who had worked with Butch in Las Vegas, the Bahamas and Portugal before landing the top Troon teaching job at The Montgomerie where he created a position for Parsons in 2005.
Fast-forward three fun years to the BHSG and working for Claude quickly proved an eye-opener. Lee Westwood, then the world No.1, was regularly on the range tinkering with the young Harmon, as were the likes of Darren Clarke, Søren Hansen and Mikko Ilonen.
“I’d worked with one or two tour players myself but nothing of the calibre that was starting to come through here with Claude,” Parsons recalls. “It gave me a great chance to see how they [the Harmons] kept the message simple and worked on ways to help players without confusing them.”
And what gems have Butch imparted over the years?
“He would always encourage us to see the problem quicker, try to uncover what Butch would refer to as cancer the swing. The one thing that isn’t going to completely confuse somebody but something you can deliver that is going to fix two or three other things.”
The world’s most respected coach also challenges his instructors to keep their eye on the man, not the ball, so to speak.
“I was out with Butch and I remember Webb Simpson had been out to see him, and Webb is a lovely gentleman, religious family, very well spoken and would never swear. So Butch sounds like an old southern gentleman, no swear words. But when Butch is teaching one of the boys like Dustin Johnson he’s a little bit more of a sports jock. The language can get kind of… colourful.
“It is having the ability to appeal to different people and to be a bit of a comedian. I think that helps an awful lot too.”
Nowadays there’s ample banter, given and taken, with Thomas who was a member of an early junior intake at the Dubai school and remains a treasured project today.
Peter Uihlein and partner Chelsea Gates
Parsons was something of a junior prodigy himself, getting down to scratch quickly and finishing runner-up at the Irish Boys’ Championship within two years of taking to golf as a 13-year-old.
He went to Alabama on a scholarship but it was short-lived, as were dreams of becoming a touring pro after “moderate to limited success” on the then MasterCard (now EuroPro) Tour.
By the age of 25, a lingering lower back problem had become chronic to the point where an orthopaedic surgeon suggested corrective surgery after he’d literally crawled into his apartment after a range session. Parsons is thankful he opted against the op now and while his playing dreams were dashed, the door to a teaching career had long been ajar.
“If you talked to the boys I use to play with back in Ireland, they’d say ‘he’s far too technical’ because I was always trying things. I’ve always had a real love for the swing.”
While still uber-inquisitive, Parsons is also proud that the early BHSG team were able to quickly find a balance between the data being spat out of modern teaching tools and remembering they were “in the business of human beings”. “Do you need to see a video or to get images in your head? Do you need to get a drill? Do you want to talk about the physics of how Trackman is telling you the ball is flying? I think Butch is one of the masters of, you know, if he meets Mr X, he’ll understand within 15 minutes what makes Mr X tick.”
Parsons applied that human first theory when Uilhien came knocking in Aug. 2016 looking for a swing and fortune reboot.
“I wanted to find the best way for Peter Uihlein to swing the golf club, not what I wanted from the perfect swing. He’s a really good player already and just happens to be in a bit of a pickle based on injuries and some poor form.” Having recovered from wrist surgery, Parsons went to work on creating a power fade swing to replace the draw Uihlein had gone to most of his career. After winning the Web.com Tour Finals opener in Ohio last month, it’s fair to say the only pickle Uilhein now finds himself now is trying to figure out how to juggle a PGA and European Tour schedule next season.
Parsons has savoured working with Uihlein at three of the year’s four majors and the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. The grown-up kid from Killinchy, a town roughly 20 miles north of Royal Country Down, still has plenty of pinch yourself moments – “don’t lose your mind because you are meeting Tom Watson” – which make the job, well, awesome. But it is a job, bottom line, and like his players, Parsons has set KPIs.
An early BHSG junior intake (from left to right): Eric Hartzuiker, Rayhan Thomas, Matthew Laven, Jai Bhalla, Aryan Chordia and Arkesh Bhatia
“I would love to think in 9 years time I have helped a player to achieve a major championship victory. I’d like to think that I’ve helped another lad like Rayhan or young lady to come up and become a very good player.
“To me, those are the things that say back to me ‘I know what I’m doing’. That’s no disrespect to the fact I get pleasure from helping you strike a seven iron better or whatever, but I think professionally what really thrills you the most is to see someone you have nurtured come up and either re-perform or perform higher than they have before.
“That’s what Butchy always says to us, your biggest job when you have got a good player is, ‘Don’t screw it up’.”
So far, so good.
This story first appeared in Golf Digest Middle East’s 100th edition in October 2017.
