Mark Immelman, golf broadcaster, interviews professional golfer— Russell Henley
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ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Russell Henley, born in Macon Georgia, was a standout Junior Golfer, an All-American and Haskins Award winner at the University of Georgia, a 3x Korn Ferry Tour winner (with one victory as an Amateur), and now a multiple winner on The PGA TOUR.
He joins Mark Immelman to discuss his career in golf and share lessons and insights on how he gets the most out of his game to compete at the very highest level.
Russell elaborates on his game which is built on precision and accuracy, and how he approaches his craft in the era of power off the tee.
Henley discusses and shares:
Lessons for parents of junior golfers
Developing a competitive mindset and attitude
Playing without fear
Handling nerves under pressure
Productive and purposeful practice
Accuracy off the Tee
Hitting more Greens in Regulation and how to shape shots
Playing with success in the Wind, and
Putting, doing the mundane things, and how to manage time appropriately.
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ABOUT ON THE MARK: Mark’s knowledge, insight and experience have made him a sought-after mind on the PGA and European tours. Through his career, he has taught and/or consulted to various Major Champions, PGA Tour winners and global Tour professionals such as: Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Louis Oosthuizen, Patton Kizzire, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel, Scott Brown, Andrew Georgiou and Rourke can der Spuy. His golf teaching experience and anecdotal storytelling broadcasting style makes him a popular host for golf outings.
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There he is he’s Russell Henley and coming to us from the grand Thon Invitational Russell appreciate you man how are you doing thanks for joining us thanks for having me um yeah I’m I’m excited to be down here it’s been a few years since I’ve played and I just love
It I love coming down to Naples it’s full spot the course is really fun so I’m excited to be a participant now you and I live in Georgia and Columbus it’s kind of chilly up here I see you in a sweater down there in Naples is the
Weather um a little on the cooler side surprisingly yeah today I think the high was 70 um so just got done with the proam uh today and um I think the rest of the week’s going to warm up a little bit but it’s it’s perfect weather I mean you can
Wear it pull over it we not fantastic listen uh you played lots of Team golf at the University of Georgia and I’m going to get there shortly but before we do that you’re playing alongside Mel Reed um she’s a bit of a firecracker I’m sure you’re looking forward to the week down there
Huh yeah I met her last night for the first time um she was very nice I’ve heard she hits the ball long way I’m excited to see her play it’s um it’s cool I mean the other two lpj tour players I play with are anuka and Morgan
Pressel a few years back and so I’m excited to play with her tremendous okay Russ um I’ve been fortunate to know you for a while um I just want to take you back a little bit and for our Global audience just joining who might not be
Familiar with you tell us a little bit about Russell Henley where you grew up your career as a junior some and how you kind of came to what you are please yeah so I grew up in Megan Georgia um I grew up playing All Sports golf was one of
The last ones I kind of got serious about uh I started when I was seven or eight but didn’t start playing in tournaments till I was 11 or 12 and you know I I loved all sports I played a little is hockey actually when I was 10
11 kind of funny I was a big Mighty Ducks movie fan when I was little um I played baseball played basketball football soccer I love soccer so that Sports was kind of my thing growing up I just really enjoyed being on teams and competing and playing and um chasing the
Ball around whatever kind of ball that was and um as I progressed and played more and more tournaments and um kind of realized I was getting better um I kind of my hopes and dreams were to go play at the University of Georgia and my
Older brother um Adam U one of my older brothers um he went to Georgia I grew up going to some Georgia football games and uh got recruited by them and um you know didn’t know how I would do there either I I wanted to play for the
Team and ended up having a really good career en Georgia and um it just kind of kind of evolved over time I never really thought this would be like my 12th year on the PJ tour but uh I’m very thankful for the career so far I feel like I’m
Healthy and playing well and I’m excited to play you being modest as I know you folks he is as nice as what he sounds um I’m gonna dive into this some first off Russ I I have the Good Fortune of sometimes watching you as a dad because
You got some youngsters and I want you to give some advice to the parents cuz I watch you bring your little guy to the golf course and he tags along and you kind of hit a few shots then you watch him and you’re not too fussed about
Technique I mean he holds it with her hands the wrong way around at times and it looks like you guys just get out there and have fun and I think it’s an awesome approach and I want you to share that with the moms and dads listening because I’m sure they’ve got little ones
Well boys or girls that want to be on the PGA tour perhaps or on the LPGA one day so what’s your take yeah my son Robert Rob Bert is um naturally a pretty good athlete so far I don’t know how he’s stack going to stack
Up you know as time goes on but I feel like he picks up on things pretty quickly um and and for golf when I take him to the course you know I I just kind of realize what a long journey it is with golf and how you know how much I’ve
Learned and I’m still learning as I go and a lot of that learning process has just been kind of on my own it’s been a natural progression so I feel like because my dad never really pushed me to play sports or to practice more practice
Less or ever gave me any advice I feel that was a big reason why I stayed very interested in it it was kind of a natural interest and um you know I feel like with Robert I just enjoy watching you know him being natural and whatever sport it is
Especially golf because he’s so flexible all kids are flexible natural they don’t have any worry about bad contact they’re just they’re just they’re just doing they’re just seeing a ball and they’re just grabbing a club and they’re doing I think there’s something that there’s a learning process there that’s taking
Place and I don’t have any scientific research to prove that but I I do think there is because I watch him you know hit balls for a day and then we’ll go back a few days later and he’s a little better and he’s a little better and uh
There’s something too I think just letting your child figure it out on his own and trying to keep your mouth shut which is hard for me to do um but I I think that’s a good play Hey you and me both hard to keep my mouth shut um I’ve heard and you’re so
Good at it the little Robert um he watches golf on TV you know to watch Dad and stuff and then you say then then he swings a golf club then you say to him swing it like Tiger Woods and then he does a little differently tell me about
That please yeah so he was left-handed at first um I don’t know how he got in into being a left-handed golfer but that’s just how he gripped it and I kind of made up my mind a few years ago um that I was not going to raise him being
A left-handed golfer because I’m I’m assuming it’s a headache to get left-handed clubs so I so I took away his left-handed clubs and I only let him have right-handed clubs and he didn’t really notice but he was still hold it cross-handed yeah right so I was trying
To figure out a way to tell them how to hold it regular you know regular grip but without telling him what to do and so we always we always talk about tiger whenever we see him on TV we talk about him and I say who is that who is that
Right there he’ll say that’s Tiger Woods he’s the greatest golfer of all time you know and and finally one day I said do you know who grips it like this and he said no and I said Tiger Woods and his eyes lit up so he’d be hitting balls and
Every once a while say hey grip it like tiger this time and he would change his grip and hit a few and then eventually over Time s went away so I guess my little trip work man you should uh come and advise parents including myself Mr had
Parents kid parent kids that’s such a cool story and it sort of gets me to the whole thing of how people learn by seeing and you spoke of your career came up as a basketball player in high school then go to Georgia and on your team they guys like Harris English sword Keith
Keith Mitchell I mean you guys had guns over there and in your senior year you were the national player of you won the Haskins award for the most outstanding player time spent on that team did you learn by seeing from your competitors over there because i’ know the environment had to
Have been very competitive very competitive yes I I think I did I mean I remember always asking haacker haacker what do I have to do to get better just tell me what I have to do to get better he would say keep working on your short game and
You’re gonna get better over time by playing in the tournaments that we play in and qualifying against the guys on your team it’s going to be a slower process than you want but it’s gonna happen over time said so don’t think that some swing thought is going to fix
Your fix your game and so he would have to remind me of that a lot you know I’m not a very patient person I want to see results now uh quickly and um so that that was very helpful to kind of get me try to push me back towards that that
Mindset versus you know my natural impatient kind of mindset so I I did and learning how to qualify and and you know you’re not going to the tournament unless you beat the guy next to you you know that was big for me and I just I I
Feel like there’s so many days in college and even now you know everybody knows this with with golf but some days you feel great some days you don’t and it kind of taught me it’s like you just got to every day figure out how to get
In the hole Yeah that’s the bottom line I heard you say to me one time and and I’m folks I’m jumping away from some of the planned questions I have but I’m responding to Russ here I heard you say it sort of in so many words and I
Paraphrase one time because I watched you on the putting green and you were out there with your perfect putting aid to see the break of the putts and you stood there for oh good 45 minutes to an hour just basically holding out from three and four feet and fascinated and I
Asked you and you’re like I believe to do golf well you have to do the basic things well you have be prepared to do the boring stuff in practice and feel like that is such an insightful lesson please share it with the folks yeah I mean typically all I like
To say when I go practice I like to touch all the bases and typically I’m not super excited to do that a lot of the things that I work on day-to-day are the same stuff over and over but I think when I do those same things over and
Over I develop a kind of um confidence because I kind of know what to expect out of myself I know what’s going to come out of the gun and um I think the simple basic things um that you have to do in golf are and sometimes the most
Boring things you have to do in golf I think they have to be practiced a lot and I don’t think that ever stops um I think you’re always going have to practice there’s never going to be a point where you get to where you go I I
Got that figured out I don’t need to I don’t need to get the Reps in at least for me and so I try to find um a way I can consistently work on my game um even if I don’t feel like working on it and um
Those are the days it feels more like a job sometimes I am excited uh but uh I think working consistently on on the basic basic you know things that I need to work on is something I have to do well I feel like everybody has to do it and I’m now
Going to backtrack a little bit because um you obviously the leading player in the year of the year in your your senior year of college then you you win an out you enter a corn Ferry event at your ug home course and you go and win there as
An amateur now the one thing about all you Georgia golfers I see is like I don’t know if it’s fearlessness but whatever the level is you guys seem to raise your game and he as an amateur look you were good let’s not beat around the bush you’d won
Numerous amateur events but you line up against the corn fairy tours best and beat them there now not it’s the home course I want you to revisit that and maybe share something from there that the golfers might learn from because your guys your guys attitudes are just
So good to me yeah I think um I think we we we all grow up playing together and we kind of feed off each other I would say you know we see somebody have success and we want to go do that we think we can do it as well and I think
Um for me getting in the correct mindset especially that week being a pro tournament when I was in college and being tied for the league going the last day I just remember having to kind of look myself in the mirror before the round and and convinc myself that I was
Gonna go I was gonna go do it I was gonna go commit to my shots I was going to go play without fear I was you know not that not that feelings of fear weren’t trying to creep in but that I was going to go uh you know execute the
Shot pick a shot and execute it and I was going to do it you try to do it with confidence and not kind of shy away from the moment kind of face it embrace the moment embrace the nerves and and go do it and I think a mindset you know on top
Of the preparation you do is is extremely important and U just the posture you kind of go out to the course with especially Under Pressure I think it’s extremely important and I’ve done that I’ve done a bad job of that uh a handful of times as well so um that’s
The biggest thing I remember is is getting myself mentally ready to go compete that day yeah hey uh well you then parlay that Victory into a few three times on the corn fairy tour and you graduate to the PGA tour in 2013 now look that’s like a career defining
Achievement already to make it to the tour but Russell Henley shows up there in your first event and you Blitz the golf course wildy to the tuna 24 under and you win your first event as a PGA Tour professional um I’m sure there were nerves took me through that because you
Just went bananas and route to that Victory there yeah I was playing with a lot of confidence that first PJ Tour event um you know I’d won two of my last four I think events the um the end of the the corn fairy tour um that that
Fall and finished third on the money list and just was playing with a lot of confidence and just went to that tournament beinging like I I could do it I was probably a little bit cocky that week just I just felt like I couldn’t miss kind of in a
Way and um you know showed up in it’s a Bermuda Golf Course with wind and kind of what I’m used to used to playing in Charleston and in Georgia where I grew up and uh just felt really comfortable from the get-go but absolutely there were nerves there were nerves the last
Day when I was uh going to the walking to the first T and especially nerves on the back nine but um again I was playing with conf and I was excited to be there and I felt like I wasn’t going to you know shy away from the moment and you
Know it worked out for me then you know I had a tournament just like that a couple years ago where I kind of felt the same way and I ended up losing to Hideki in a playoff so that’s golf but I I do feel like I just gota consistently
Keep bringing that that good mindset you’ve won four times in the tour you had three more victories won in a playoff down at the Honda Classic one of the playoff members was Rory Moy and you went in hon and you win recently last year 2022 down in Mexico um but as I
Look through the numbers here Russell Henley is not afraid of going low 24 under to win the Sony 20 under to win in Houston 23 to win in Mexico now yes what I want to ask you because look you’re accurate I know that but you’re not a
Bummer of the golf ball by any stretch so yes the advice I want you to share with all of the viewers and listeners yeah you medium length player you can get get it out there if you need but you can go really low what is the key how
What is the mindset what does Russell Henley do for this yeah yeah that’s a good question yeah I think the the biggest thing I’ve tried to do over the last four or five years is get really really good at what I do well so I feel
Like I’m a good wedge player feel like I’m good in the win feel like I’m a a good iron player and I feel like I can have good control of the ball so what I try to do in that situation in those situations would be make pars on the
Holes that are difficult and put my and kind of strategically miss the ball on the correct side of the hole okay um avoid avoid those big numbers and then attack when I do have those short irons in my in my hand so I try to just I’ve
Tried to just work on the things um that I’m really good at make sure those are sharp and then have a course management strategy that allows me to attack when it’s ready when I can and when there’s no need to attack to just somehow find a
Way to make a far and get out of there so when I do that really well I think you’re looking at some tournaments there that add up to winning and some really low scores and um I think just ball control is so important in golf you know
The hitting it a long way is very is great but there’s a lot of courses we play where you can hit it a long way but if you’re in the rough you just can’t control the ball going into the green and um so yeah hitting Fairways is very
Important as well hey a fellow ug golfer in Brendan Todd was on the show and he St that resonated with me right and it goes uh distance is a luxury accuracy wins now Russell Henley right now you are leading the PGA Tour um in driving accuracy you had three or four
Fairways um you’re thoroughly reliable to me share with the fans um the key to driving the ball in the Fairway more often because I think too many golfers are repped up and trying to pound the cover yeah yeah so I work with Troy Denton on my golf swing and I’ve been
Working with him since uh about may but I was a I’ve been a straight hitter for a while so Troy has helped me um kind of understand what I do wrong when I hit four shots typically I’m falling back to my right allows the hands to get a little more active and um
I tend to I I have t well usually I have more success when I am shaping the shot very slightly so like if I have a left to right win I really like to cut it with a driver if I have a right to left
Win I I like to hit a draw so I I work on the Range I’m always trying to hit a little draw or a little fade and for me that kind of equips me to play any hole and um there there are times where I I
Will work it up into the but typically I really like to ride the wind with my driver so because I I work on draws and Fades I feel like I never get two draw bias or two fade bias and it keeps me right there in the middle Sensational
Hey look now you hit the drive in the Fairway from there you Dynamite with the iron game as well in fact your proximity is currently in 2023 second on the PGA tour at about 33 ft um that talks to me about someone who controls distance well
Um you play you just come off a pro why do amateurs not hit the ball the right distance with the irons more often what’s your typically they don’t hit enough Club is what I’ve noticed at least that’s what was going on today okay um but but I would say um
It’s a lot of it is for fundamentals but typically um and you know this as well Mark you know the the path some guys swing it on is so far left or so far right m then the it’s just a you have to do something crazy with your hands to
Match it up match the face up to make it go where you want I just think if guys could just try to somehow understand get a little closer than a neutral path I feel like it would be so much easier and that’s you know easier said than done
For sure I know you know that it’s tough teaching somebody to find that but that’s what I see I see guys swinging way left or I see guys swinging way right usually way left with their path and that makes the wedges steep that makes the driver slice and pull
Eventually you’re going to get tired of slicing it so you’re G to not let it go right you’re G to pull it so it’s just a neutral path to me would be the direction I would go and to that folks the one day on the Range I saw Russell
Hitting these beautiful sort of sliding little drivers and I asked him about his path number and you looked at me and you’re like honestly I’m not too sure but it’s kind of around two degrees I mean that’s still where we playing I guess huh I think so yeah I mean if I’m
Hitting a cut two or three left is what I think it would say on track man if I’m hitting the draw it’s probably more like one degree right um I have a harder time swinging it right than I do left so um yeah I mean it’s it’s very fractional I
Think to make a ball curve a is you don’t have to swing very much to the left or the right it’s very fractional tremendous okay a few more and I’ll let you go thanks for your time um we’ve talked about it and I shared the anecdote of how I saw you practicing and
You do a lot um you have a routine that I’ve seen you do where you have teas out and you basically putt around the hole from different distances um it’s kind of in that Strokes gained sort of a length inside of eight feet the drill because I feel like most golfers especially
Amateurs get to the putting green in the like they don’t know what they’re doing so what does Russell Henley do in putting practice Yeah so this summer I started working with Bill Kenyan on my buting and he’s helped me tremendously I um I think the biggest thing we have
Worked on is my posture a lot of fundamentals just making sure everything’s nice and neutral uh with my posture but in terms of you know actual ball rolling I like to do start line drills so you know putting it through Gates you know like say you have a
Straight putt uh putting it through um okay you know two T’s making sure you don’t hit the T on the right or the left getting a right to left butt and a left to right butt and um just really trying to dial in your start lines and then from there
Um you know I feel like you can be really confident when you do go to those shorter butts I might be out of bounds with this observation because it’s just what I see from from the outside really but when I watch you when I see you at
The course it looks like you’re spending more time on the greens and what you do on the driving range is this a truth yeah I spend probably 25 or 30 minutes a day on the driving range just hitting balls and then I spend probably another 20 minutes or so hitting wedges on the
Track man working on my distance control between 80 to 150 yards so um sometimes I’ll do like 60 to 90 yards typically it’s 80 to 150 and I just try to make sure that’s really dialed in and um it doesn’t take me a lot I all I do is I go
Through my bag and I hit balls right two balls right of the flag which are little draws and two balls left of the flag little Fades and that’s pretty much what golf is to me out here on tour it’s usually you have to be right or left of
A flag and so when I practice that’s just how I see it I kind of hit it to quadrants I see okay there’s the flag I’m going right of it you know you know back right pin at Augusta on number 12 you know I kind of see a quadrant over
The left Center of that bunker like middle of the bunker to the left edge of the bunker and I’m kind of feeling like a flat fade right into that that quadrant so when I hit balls it doesn’t take me a long time because that’s just
Kind of how I see it on the course Sensational um playing or practice which do you gravitate more toward when you’re at home working on your game I feel like Russ gets out and plays a lot yeah I love playing with the guys at the
Country Club um we get a lot of awesome games on the weekends I will say I feel like I need to do both I feel like I need to spend time chipping get my reps in on the Range get my reps in uh putting doing all that um but I enjoy
Playing much more I love having a money game or just something simple just to you know whatever just just enjoy competing so when you’re at there and you playing it’s there’s something on it so it’s about the competition about the shot saving really it’s not like you’re
Out there working on some sort of a thing in the course right yeah I mean there’s an expectation I think I have myself even if I’m playing my buddies for 50 cents that um you know if I have a wedge shot from 100 yards I want to
Hit it close and so I think there’s just kind of an expectation that I have and I try to meet every day I go out and um I don’t you know I don’t think anybody likes to lose n right last one appreciate your time again um you as a PGA Tour player you’re
Having to do it now you got to manage your time um uh you’re a father of young kids and your husband to teal yet when you’re home you got to find time to work in your game so golfers they’re like well I don’t have time it looks to me
Like you make time when you can but you got your priorities in order as a dad and a husb and a husband help the fan listening to this to manage time better because even the Collegian that’s one of the most important things to succeeding in college I think so and I think I’ve
Gotten better at it since I’ve had kids I mean since since you know Robert was born at first I was kind of lost on what to do with my time um didn’t know when I should be home and at the course and then you know I got better gotten better
And better at it and I think for me just being intentional with the time that I have out there if I have three or four hours of the course I kind of already have a written down plan of what I’m going to do it’s nothing too crazy um
Terms of you know the details of the plan but I do have some goals of the day I do have some some you know stuff that I want to accomplish within each section of the practice schedule and so just being very organized and strategic on
What I want to do that day writing it down really helps me do you ever I got to ask the followup do you ever then if you have a plan to achieve and if you don’t achieve it which is sometimes the possibility do you stay stay and grind
Through it or do you just go I’m done I’m out I’m coming back to tomorrow yeah I mean I would say um if I put in the proper time and I feel like I’m executing well and I’m doing what I need you know if I feel like it’s in a good
Place then I’ll probably just go back the next day because some days you just have a bad practice day that’s just kind of part of it um if I feel like I’m in a tight spot where I it’s it’s something that’s crucial that I need to spend
Extra time on to feel good about it um then I might spend like an extra 30 minutes or an hour but typically I’m going to stay pretty tight to my to my window awesome buddy you’re the best I appreciate your time please share for the fans if they social media or a
Website or somewhere where they can go to follow Russell Henley and his uh exploits in the tour please yeah well I don’t have a social media right now I’m thinking about starting mine back up getting a Twitter going or something but you should just
Follow my wife uh go to te t l um teal art on Instagram and um and see see what she’s got going on but for me this is all you’re going to get for now hey hey Russ you and I are both married to Superstars brother I I get what I get
What you’re saying over there listen thanks I appreciate you joining me have a great week and if I don’t see you before Christmas have a happy Christmas man yeah man I’ll probably see you on Columbus thanks for the time how’s
