PALM HARBOR, Fla. – PGA Tour rookie Michael Brennan is the only professional golfer to have a swing teacher who also teaches algebra to his kids.
After teaching special education for six years, PGA professional Adam Harrell has been a full-time math teacher, primarily sixth grade, at Farmwell Station Middle School in Ashburn, Virginia, for the past ten years.
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“Hitting a golf ball is not as important as learning how to read, but it’s all intertwined in a way. Teaching is teaching,” Harrell said.
Adam Harrell (right) has been coaching PGA Tour newcomer Michael Brennan since he was 12 years old.
After school on weekdays and all day on Saturdays, you can find him coaching talented young golfers at 1757 Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. There, the 13-and-under and 17-and-under PGA Junior League teams each qualified for the U.S. Championship for the third consecutive year. (Harrell won’t coach those teams, but he will coach some of the players.) Brennan, who won the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship in October and entered the week ranked No. 44 in the Official World Golf Rankings, started working with Harrell at age 12.
“It takes a certain type of person to be a middle school teacher,” Brennan said. “He’s patient and understanding and has a way of conveying information by showing me concepts rather than telling me, and we develop that feeling together. I’m sure his educational background will help with that a lot.”
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Harrell, 51, began his career working at the Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland, a famous retreat for U.S. presidents, politicians and officials. Charlie Briggs, the club’s longtime general manager, was so impressed with Harrell’s diligence and work ethic that one day, shortly after he was hired, he asked him why he wanted to join the golf industry. To teach, Harrell replied. “I had never said that before,” Harrell recalled.
Briggs arranged a winter job working for respected teaching pro Jim McLean in Miami, where he learned the skills that made him a highly respected teacher of the swing himself.
“This really helped me prepare a lot for this,” Harrell said. “I also remember Jim saying something like this in a staff meeting. He said, ‘Anyone can give golf lessons, but to be a really good instructor, you have to develop the players.’ I took that to mean that we needed to develop the kids and get them to the highest level.”
A native of Leesburg, Virginia, Brennan was taught the game by his father, who was a standout player at River Creek Country Club, but he recognized that his father took his son as far as he could. Seeking a golf coach to build on the strong foundation he had built, Harrell and Brennan’s father met at a local sandwich shop to discuss more than lesson plans. Brennan’s father explained that he thought his son had the potential for greatness.
As Michael Brennan’s swing coach, PGA professional Adam Harrell often served as Brennan’s caddy during his junior and amateur career.
“He asked a lot of hard-hitting questions about my teaching philosophy, and we started working together after that, so I think I said the right thing,” Harrell said. He is also currently working with LPGA pro Alexa Pano and Korn Ferry Tour pro Michael Meisel.
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Brennan developed into a three-time Middle Atlantic Amateur champion (2017-19), the only player in the championship’s more than 100-year history to win three times in a row, and continued his success at Wake Forest, winning eight times during his collegiate career. Harrell talked about the moment he knew Brennan was headed for stardom. He was Brennan’s caddy at the Virginia State Amateur, and on the par 3 Brennan wanted to hit a gap wedge from 120 yards upwind to the back flag. Brennan’s shot hit the green but spun back, missing a long birdie putt. Next hole, same yard, Brennan pulled the same club. That’s when Harrell intervened.
“I put down my bag and said, ‘Michael, do you want to learn to play golf or not?'” Harrell recalled. He looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I want you to hit a 122-yard shot with a pitching wedge. Aim 1 yard to the left of the pin and hit it straight. If it hits where you want it, it should spin back into the hole.” So he picked up his wedge, flew it a little low, landed behind the pin, took one hop and spun back into the hole. It’s like, “Bang!” So this kid is very good at direction.
“And in that singular moment, I thought, ‘Okay, we still have a lot of growing to do, but he’s on his way.’
Michael Brennan poses with his trophy after winning the 2025 Utah Bank Championship at Black Desert Resort.
Harrell helped develop Brennan’s swing into an efficient, powerful, functional, aesthetically pleasing, and ready-to-play weapon. “I’ve heard TV commentators say he looks like Adam Scott, and I agree,” Harrell said before adding a warning. “A more powerful Adam Scott.”
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Speed and power were always the goals Harrell set for Brennan. When Brennan’s clubhead speed was hovering around 165 mph, he urged Brennan to raise the bar and reach 110 mph by the beginning of the summer. Brennan achieved that goal by the first week of April.
“He was pushing since I was 12 years old, before fast was a thing. He was ahead of his time,” Brennan said. “Ever since middle school, I’ve been trying to swing fast. I wasn’t the longest kid in junior golf, but I gradually got faster and got pretty long distances. Adam always encouraged me to hit the ball as hard as I could.”
In his second season as a pro, Brennan won the 2025 PGA Tour Americas, topped the points list with three wins in the season’s Fortinet Cup races, and earned a pass to full exemption status on the Korn Ferry Tour, but ended up skipping this step by taking advantage of a sponsor exemption on the PGA Tour in Utah.
Brennan, who qualified for the Masters by finishing in the top 50 at the final OWGR event in late 2025, averaged 351 yards off the tee and hit 34 of 35 fairways at Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah, 100 miles up I-15 from Las Vegas and thousands of miles from where Harrell helped shape his game. His 7.6 strokes gained: off the tee was the highest total on tour last season. Brennan had one drive for 411 yards on the par-4 12th.th He then made a birdie from go wire to wire, clinching his first win on the PGA Tour.
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Harrell watched the entire event at a party at Benjamin’s Tavern in River Creek CC, where 50 to 60 of Brennan’s friends crowded around a television set. However, Brennan still felt Harrell’s presence, noting that Harrell’s text messages before the final round helped ease any tensions that may have been brewing.
“He said, ‘You don’t need to do anything special. Just go to Michael Brennan’s golf game,'” Brennan recalled. “That gave me confidence that I could do it.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour rookie Michael Brennan’s coach teaches middle school math
