Harris English credits putting, a ‘system’ with his best PGA Tour season

English takes a day off to visit Jaguars training camp, a week before starting the FedEx Cup Playoffs

• Golfer Harris English visited Jacksonville Jaguars training camp and compared his approach to golf with the Jaguars’ systematic preparation.
• English credits his success to his work with putting coach Ramon Bescansa and has connections to Jacksonville through Bescansa and Jaguars coach Liam Coen.
• English is having a successful season, winning his fifth career title, and contending in major championships.

Harris English has had such a good season on the PGA Tour that he deserves a day trip or two — such as the one he took on July 28 to visit the Jacksonville Jaguars at the Miller Electric Center and watch the first training camp practice in pads.

English said he can equate his formula for success of 2025, which he credited in large part to his work with putting coach Ramon Bescansa of Jacksonville, to the detailed, organized structure of an NFL football team preparing for the season.

“It’s all system-based,” he said of the work that has led to being ranked among the top 20 on the Tour in Strokes Gained Putting for most of the season. “It’s just like what these guys are doing [gesturing to the field where the Jaguars were going through drills]. That’s how you get good at it. You do the drills every single day and then you get to the point where you’re not even thinking.”

Harris English went to school with Liam Coen’s agent

English has another link to Jacksonville beyond his relationship with Bescansa (who caddied for English at the British Open when English’s regular caddie, Eric Larson, was denied entry to Northern Ireland because of a 30-year-old drug conviction, despite having worked for English 10 times in the U.K.).

English has gotten to know Jaguars coach Liam Coen because Coen’s agent, former Jaguars player Jacques McClendon, is English’s high school classmate at the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tenn.

English and Coen haven’t had the opportunity to play golf together. But when the season is over Coen has a standing invitation to come to St. Simons Island, Ga., where English lives, and tee it up at any number of world-class tracks on the Golden Isles.

“I know he’s busy right now but when he gets done, I want him to get up there to play,” English said.

Harris English enjoying a career season

English will go back to work next week when the FedEx Cup Playoffs begin with the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind. He is sixth in the points list, the fruits of a season when he won his fifth career title at the Farmers Insurance Open and posted two runner-up finishes in major championships, at the PGA Championship and the British Open.

English also tied for 12th in the Masters and tied for fourth in the Travelers Championship.

Had it not been for Scottie Scheffler running away with both titles, English might have already won his first major. But he’s earned more than $7.7 million and is sixth on the current Ryder Cup points list. English has made 16 of 18 cuts and will soon pass $40 million in career earnings.

“I’ve built a really good system,” he said of his practice plan and playing schedule. “I just turned 36, and it’s my 14th year on Tour so it kind of evolved, figuring out how I need to practice, how I need to go about my business. I feel like I’ve perfected that more.”

English set two goals for himself, and it appears he’s going to meet both.

“I had two goals, making it to the Tour Championship [for the top 30 players on the FedEx Cup points list after the first two playoff events] and making that Ryder Cup team,” he said. “But it’s still about every tournament I show up to. I’m going to try to be the most prepared, the most well-rested, most hydrated — just give it everything I have.”

He watched some Jaguar players go through another drill and made more comparisons between football and golf at the highest levels.

“I love seeing the intricacies of what they’re working on,” he said. “Because I do the same thing in my practice. I love watching football and love the little details they work on.”