Fred Couples is a visitor on this month’s Warming Up.
Darren Riehl
On a Wednesday afternoon some weeks in the past, Fred Couples stood beside a observe inexperienced on the Cape Club of Palm City and leaned on a lob wedge.
This wasn’t the preliminary plan. We’d talked our means right into a time slot at Bridgestone Golf’s 2024 photoshoot, particularly dreaming of Couples strolling us via his pre-round course of for a silky-smooth episode of our sequence, “Warming Up,” which usually takes place on a driving vary. But after a cross-country flight, Couples didn’t assume it smart to check his balky again by operating during his bag. A variety session was out.
For most topics, that may be one thing of a dealbreaker. But Couples’ golf recreation isn’t truly the primary occasion. It’s his vibe. It’s his tempo. It’s his rhythm. And he was prepared to share as a lot of that as his physique would permit. So he grabbed a wedge and a bucket of balls and joined me by the chipping inexperienced. What follows is a few half-hour of Fred Couples, interrupted barely too usually by yours really as he talks testing grain, texting Tiger, taking over Team Europe, transcending time and extra.
That video is under or on YouTube here.
And right here 5 things I realized from Couples alongside the way in which.
1. He doesn’t “pick a spot” when he chips
I’ve all the time discovered it attention-grabbing when professionals will speak about choosing their touchdown spot when chipping. On one hand, it is smart that one of the best in the world can visualize with nice precision how their shot will play out. On the opposite hand, chipping is just not billiards. There are completely different trajectories and contacts and spin charges and choosing an actual spot looks like it may very well be paralyzing, too.
If you’re searching for permission to disregard the touchdown spot, Couples is your man. For longer pitches, he says he doesn’t trouble.
“Some people will say I need to fly it to a certain spot,” he mentioned as he begins to heat into the session. “I’m not that guy. I’m focusing on the flag. And here in Florida, I can tell I’m a little into the grain, so it should stop a little bit quicker, and [here he hits one that checks but skitters a respectable eight feet past the flag]. I’ve done it for 40 years so I kinda know.”
So take consolation in figuring out that it’s OK to simply “kinda know.” Even in the event you won’t know fairly in addition to he does.
2. Easy pictures are onerous. And onerous pictures are simple
“A lot of it is tension,” Couples says.
Not all short-game pictures are created equal, and he says he’s seen one thing attention-grabbing about himself through the years: He makes the simple pictures look onerous and the onerous pictures look simple.
The first a number of pictures he hits are to a wide-open gap location with loads of inexperienced to work with. Couples has despatched a number of approaches cruising previous the goal.
“I’ve got a 12-footer, a 10-footer, an eight-footer, a 20-footer,” he says.
But there’s one other flag in his sights. This one’s guarded by the sting of the inexperienced, decreasing margin for error and demanding an especially particular shot, a excessive comfortable spinner off a grainy lie.
“You give me this shot here and it’s crazy. I just open [the clubface] up a little bit and I try to get the club to left of the flag and …” This time, Couples practically holes it.
Some of that is method, Couples says. He has a stronger grip, which he thinks helps him hit these excessive softies. But a part of it’s psychological, too. It’s pressure and it’s expectation.
“If you’re watching a group, you’d say, ‘Wow, he didn’t get it up and down for birdie on 9, that killed him,’” Couples says, referring to the wide-open first shot. As for the second shot? “If a guy didn’t get this up and down you’d say, ‘Eh, he left himself in a bad spot.’”
In different phrases, there’s extra stress on the simpler shot as a result of the expectations are so excessive. That’s counterintuitive, in some methods — shouldn’t the more durable shot simply be more durable? — but it surely’s very Freddie. He’s all the time made the powerful stuff look {smooth}.
3. He likes transcending generations
There’s a lesson that has caught with Couples handed down from Raymond Floyd, the PGA Tour stalwart 17 years his senior. While he additionally took ideas from the likes of Tom Watson and Lee Trevino (“if he was here today, every free minute I would be sitting with him,” Couples says) it was Floyd who was most beneficiant along with his time and tangible recommendation.
“Floyd was more who taught me how to save a shot a round,” he says. “It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s go chip and putt all day.’ It was mentally.
“He noticed I played par-5s and I would try and go at a back left pin and I’d short-side myself and make a par. We were at the Shark Shootout at Thousand Oaks in Westlake (Calif.) and we won. But I butchered a couple holes. And he looks at me and goes, ‘How many eagles did you make this year?’ And I go, ‘I dunno, not many. Maybe 12?’ And he goes ‘Yeah, 12. You play 25 tournaments, you make 12 eagles. You’re trying to eagle every par-5. Make a 4.’ And it just stuck. So now when I hit a 2-iron from 230 and I don’t cut it to the flag and I hit it to 40 feet, I’m happy with it.”
Couples says he’s not a swing coach, even in his position as U.S. group captain or vice captain. But his mentors have taught him there are different methods so as to add worth.
“I couldn’t teach [Patrick] Cantlay or Wyndham [Clark],” he says, referring to 2 of his 2023 Ryder Cuppers. “I couldn’t teach ‘em anything. But I can get ‘em pumped up.”
4. The Masters stays his favourite spot
Couples made the lower on the Masters in 2023, giving him an ideal 1-for-1 season on the PGA Tour. He’ll be again once more this yr. There’s one thing timeless about his presence at Augusta. Old swing ideas resurface, he says. He cherishes the week above all others.
“It was so nice to make the cut,” he says, remembering a 71-74 begin to the week. “The weather was horrible, I really struggled, but I putted great. That was a big help.”
He’d missed 4 cuts in a row at Augusta coming into this yr. Before that his file at Augusta had been preposterous; from 2010 (when he performed at 50 years previous) to 2017, he logged six top-20s in seven begins.
“I had made some cuts in my 50s,” he says, downplaying the accomplishment. “It’s my favorite spot.”
He performs an annual observe spherical with Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas — 9 holes, a minimum of. He performed a observe spherical with Rory McIlroy this yr. Cantlay has given him a tough time about not enjoying a observe spherical collectively, however Cantlay likes to play his observe rounds with Xander Schauffele; one thing has to provide.
“I will probably play with [Cantlay] this year, nine holes,” he says. “Because that’s all they want to play. Honestly, if I was feeling really well, I just like the walk. So I actually like to walk 18 holes. What am I going to do, go bang balls for two hours on the range? That’s what they want to do.”
He and his longtime coach, Paul Marchand, spend time by that chipping inexperienced, he says, identical to we are now. But no matter they’ve labored on, inevitably when he will get on the course, muscle reminiscence takes over.
“When I get on the course I go back to this flippy — it’s not good,” he says with a sigh. “I used to be much better.”
5. He nonetheless loves executing pictures beneath stress
“This year was a bummer. Some of the finishes were — I felt good about a 15th-place finish on the Champions tour,” he says with some disdain. He doesn’t really feel like he must be completed but. “But I really like the pairings. I’ll go and I’ll get Ernie Els and [Steve] Stricker or I’ll get Davis Love and [Jim] Furyk. You can’t beat that.
“Sometimes it’s the competition. But then it’s hitting a shot,” he says. Then he steers us again to Augusta National. (*5*)
Even as he says so he’s speaking himself into one thing higher. He’s elevating the bar.
(*27*)
Get in somewhat rhythm. I like his probabilities.
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