Instruction: Jack Lumpkin, Brian Harman find success with ‘old-school teamwork’

Brian Harman skipped football practice one day when he was 11 to take a lesson from Jack Lumpkin. All these years later, they’re still together.

Brian Harman skipped football practice one day when he was 11 years old. His mother, Nancy, drove him from their home in Savannah, Georgia, to Sea Island, where he took an hour-long lesson from Jack Lumpkin, a fixture on every list of top golf instructors. Growing up on a golf course, Harman had picked up the game on his own, but he wanted to find out what one of the best teachers thought of his ability.

“He didn’t tell me to get lost,” Harman said. “He told me I was doing well and come back in a few months and he’d check me again. For me, that was like a rite of passage. I started going once every six months, and our relationship just grew from there.”

That initial lesson was equally as meaningful for Lumpkin, who knew talent when he’d seen it and from Harman’s very first swing knew he’d seen something special.

“There was no doubt in my mind that he was going to be a Tour player if he was inclined to do that,” Lumpkin remembered. “After that first lesson, I couldn’t wait to see him again. I used to wait to see his name in my lesson book because I just knew how good he was going to be.”

All these years later, Harman, 32, and Lumpkin, 84, are still together. Their hard work has made Harman a two-time PGA Tour winner, most recently at the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship.

“Jack is Brian’s safety net,” said World Golf Hall of Fame member Davis Love III, a fellow Lumpkin student. “He’s like ordering your favorite comfort food at a restaurant.”

Lumpkin played on the PGA Tour in 1958-59, but he was married and had two young kids to think about and accepted a position as an assistant golf professional. He learned the ropes under Masters champion Claude Harmon, father of Butch, at Winged Foot, and was head professional in 1968 at Oak Hill Country Club when it hosted the U.S. Open. 

Lumpkin moved back to his native Georgia and, in 1976, joined the Golf Digest Schools with the likes of Jim Flick, Davis Love Jr. and Bob Toski. He came to Sea Island Resort as its director of instruction on Jan. 1, 1989, seven weeks after Love Jr., his best friend, died in a plane crash.

Lumpkin, the PGA Professional of the Year in 1995, is the type of pro who has forgotten more than most instructors know. Harman describes him as “old-school,” while embracing the latest technology such as V1 Golf, a swing analysis tool, Swing Catalyst, and TrackMan launch monitors for dialing in performance, but never as a crutch.

When Harman won his first PGA Tour title at the 2014 John Deere Classic, Lumpkin was one of the first people he thanked. Their work together has a certain rhythm that Lumpkin calls “guided discovery.” Rather than spoon-feeding a swing fix to Harman, Lumpkin has a habit of subtly mentioning how he likes a move made by a certain player. That player’s swing may just so happen to be on the screen in Lumpkin’s office for them to review. 

“Then he lets me figure it out until it becomes second nature and I own it,” Harman said.