BUILDING ON BRAID
With golf’s long-awaited return, a Ribble Valley club is now looking to build on its legacy and has landed a big name with a global track record for success. David Fearnhead speaks to Wayne Johnson, the new Director of Golf at Clitheroe Golf Club
Late January in Dubai is a pleasant place to be. The unrelenting heat which sees the mercury climb into triple figures is yet to arrive. It’s in this Aquarian time of year when many of the world’s finest golfers gather for the Desert Classic. You’ll find them on the driving range, working on that endless quest for perfection — the golf swing.
Some years you’ll find amongst them a mortal who, for a while, achieve it. From the furtive glances of his fellow professionals, to the hush which ushers his every swing, there is a reminder that whilst he is a part, he will always be apart.
Tiger Woods uncoils from his practice swing and glances towards the gallery. There he spots a familiar face. A smile breaks: “Hey Wayno!” he calls out. It’s a reunion of sorts. The man he’s called over is Wayne Johnson, one of the key men in managing the tournament and former protégé of the legendary golf coach Butch Harmon. Their relationship goes all the way back to Las Vegas where Tiger would regularly visit the guru. Pleasantries are exchanged, but Tiger has business on his mind. It isn’t long before the 15-time Major winner invites Wayne inside the ropes to cast his eye over a swing he is very familiar with.
“When Tiger knows someone, he embraces them,” says Wayne, Clitheroe Golf Club’s new Director of Golf. “Once you get to know some of these players they’re very friendly, but if you don’t know them they can have the blinkers on. It’s a shame in some ways. I think it’s just the circumstances they are in. Everyone wants a piece of them and there’s no escaping Tiger is a special individual. Not only has he been gifted with a god-given talent, he has got an immense work appetite. He has worked incredibly hard at his game and also the physicality in terms of the strength conditioning he used to do as well.”
For someone from North West England to be welcomed into Tiger’s inner circle sounds like one of those dreams you hate to wake up from. However, Wayne admits he’s seen so much talent over the years it can make you a little blasé.
“When I worked in the States, Monday was our day off but I’d regularly get a call from work: ‘Just to let you know David Duval is popping in with Tiger. I know it’s a Monday, but do you mind coming in?’ And, you think, oh jeez do I have to?” he laughs. “I’m aware of how crazy it sounds now!”
“We’d have this group of businessmen come in from Texas for the day and they’d be hitting balls and 20 metres away you’d have Adam Scott working on his swing. I remember days when we would have Tiger, Adam Scott and Darren Clarke all in at the same time. That’s how Tiger and Darren became such good friends. A lot of people met through the Harmon connection.”
Wayne’s own involvement with Butch Harmon goes back decades. He’d first met him years previous when Butch’s son Claude came to work with Wayne in Portugal. “We got on very well and whilst I was later working in Austria I got a call from Butch saying they were going to open a new golf school in Vegas and he’d like me to come and work for him.”
I ask Wayne to give us a glimpse behind the curtain. To gain an understanding of what it’s like to work with the most enigmatic and ‘winningest’ coach in professional golf.
“In the first five minutes with Butch he’ll say there isn’t one way to swing a golf club. You take a Jim Furyk, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, Ray Floyd, all with totally different swings of a golf club. What they all do is to deliver the club to the ball square to the direction they are hitting it in and they do it consistently. A good coach will work with the swing you have and try to enhance the good things. Butch doesn’t go in with a carving knife and chop this and that out, he’s going to try and refine the things you do well.
“Dustin Johnson is a great example. He plays with a very, very, closed face and a very bowed wrist at the top of his backswing. Now to a lot of coaches they’d immediately try and change that, but what Butch was saying is, he’s seen players play from that position before and seen them play well. So, with Dustin it was just about getting better rotation through the shot which then squares the club face up and delivers a tremendous amount of power.
“You can quite easily wreck a player’s career as well as enhance it,” Wayne cautions. “You have to be incredibly careful – and confident in your ability to make a positive difference.”
He’d been working with Butch in Las Vegas and at his Academy in the Bahamas for four years when an opportunity came up in Dubai. It was yet another stop on what has been a nomadic career – one borne from opportunity rather than by design. Having been at the Wisley Club, the esteemed private members club close to London, since its founding in 1991, he followed one of its creators to Portugal.
“They’d been involved in property development for Pinheiros Altos and asked me to come and set up the golf operation. That was my first step overseas and I enjoyed it. That in turn led me to Austria, where I was for three years, teaching in Zell-am-See. I also worked for Calloway Golf, helping start them up in Austria.”
That’s when Butch made his call. There’s not enough ink to cover his subsequent extended stay in Dubai, a return to Portugal, France, setting up the Race to Dubai, the MENA Tour – which begs a question. With a CV that is as impressive as it is surprising – he helped start a golf revolution in Vietnam for example – why would someone who specialises in start-ups choose to come to a club with 130 years of history and a course which dates back to 1932? For Clitheroe he’s a stellar appointment, but what’s the pull for Wayne?
“I grew up in Windermere and many years ago there used to be a reciprocal friendly match between the two clubs. So, I’ve known Clitheroe for many years, even as a junior. It’s always had a lot of prestige in the North West. It’s a good test of golf and obviously hosting the regional qualifiers there for The Open it’s got the status. I already knew the reputation and how good of a product the club was.”
For members worried he might take a plough to the course, Wayne is quick to allay any concerns. He says it’s important to protect the course’s legacy. “You have James Braid, a five-times Open Champion, involved in the first design of the project. There’s a bunker renovation project in place at the moment, which looks fantastic. I think it’s about taking it to another level and taking it forward for golf as it is today, but I don’t think you need to do too much to the course to make it a great golf course. It’s already a great golf course!”
Wayne says his involvement will be more from the academy side. His brief is to enhance the range and practice areas for the short game. “I think it would be great for Clitheroe to be a place where people can benefit from access to great facilities and learning without necessarily being a member of the club. And potentially they will become our members in due course, but first you have to provide the opportunity.
“My goal is to do whatever I can to enhance service standards and engage with the members to develop an amazing academy project which, down the road, will benefit the existing membership and those coming into the game.”
Post this interview Tiger Woods was involved in a serious traffic accident and is currently recovering – we wish him well
