A brother's keeper: Chandler Phillips' rise driven by family, firm foundation

HOUSTON – Chandler Phillips isn’t here for fame or money or trophies.

He’s here for his brother.

Dawson Phillips, three years younger, is autistic. He doesn’t require constant supervision but always needs someone around (if there’s a fire, for example, he wouldn’t know what to do). So when the time comes for Phillips to take care of Dawson, he’ll step away from competitive golf and do just that.

It’s a powerful act of loyalty, but that’s Phillips’ defining trait.

“He’s just the happiest man in the world. You feel like you’re having a bad day, and …” said Phillips, his voice trailing off. “He’ll never be able to live by himself. At some point, I’m going to have to quit golf, once my parents pass or whatever – hopefully that’s not anytime soon – and have to take care of him. I’ve faced that fact. There’s nothing wrong with that with me, but I’m never going to have somebody take care of him.

“That’s my brother. He’s f----ing awesome. He’s my best friend.”

After a third-place finish at last week’s Valspar Championship, Phillips returns to his native Texas for this week’s Texas Children’s Houston Open, less than 75 miles from his hometown of Huntsville, Texas. This week’s event is contested at Memorial Park Golf Course, a local muni established in 1936 and renovated by Tom Doak in 2019, where locals can play for as little as $30 on weekdays (and juniors can play for $10). It’s a fitting canvas for Phillips, who grew up at nine-hole Lake Estates Golf Course at Trinity Plantation in Huntsville, to which he affectionately refers as the “Pea Patch.” It was nothing for Phillips and his dad to play as many as 72 holes in a day, eight nine-hole rounds, developing a knack for finding the clubface’s center that endures to this day.

Phillips has ascended to professional golf’s highest level, driven every day by his love for his brother, a love that is very much reciprocated. Not that Dawson cares much about seeing Phillips on TV – he’ll say “Chandler” but then quickly move onto another activity, laughed their parents Keith and Kris Phillips – but his mood brightens instantly when his older brother returns home. The parents smile when recalling the two as kids, Phillips showing his brother how to grip a golf club (the pictures are close by).Dawson competes in Special Olympics – activities include bocce ball, bowling and track and field; at home he enjoys coloring and playing with spoons. Everyone is a friend to Dawson, who is apt to hug a stranger within seconds of meeting.

Phillips, 27, doesn’t tend to bring up Dawson unless asked. Last season on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he finished No. 10 on the season-long standings to earn his first TOUR card, he was asked in a late-season interview: “Do you have any siblings?” and took a moment to compose himself. He knew the question would come at some point and he wasn’t sure how he’d handle it. What resulted was the admission, startling to some but not to those around him, that Dawson’s well-being is his No. 1 priority.

“Lives his life every day, doesn’t have a worry in the world,” Phillips said. “He’s awesome … he’s a big impact on me. You’re ever feeling down … you see how he lives life and everything, and it’s just, you realize how good you’ve got it.

“That’s why I’m such laid back, go-with-the-flow. He’s D (nickname for Dawson).”

En route to winning last year’s Korn Ferry Tour season-opening The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay, Phillips admitted he’d rather be duck-hunting than playing golf, a preference confirmed by those around him.

“I’m worried he’s going to lose a wife or girlfriend to duck hunting,” cracked Keith Phillips.

Phillips takes his work quite seriously, though, an artist that elicits memories of the TOUR’s halcyon years. Phillips plays by instinct; when asked Monday how he rates himself on the continuum of a feel player vs. a technical player, he laughed and said “100% feel player. I’m not technical one bit.”

If he’s playing a draw during a pre-round warm-up session, he’ll play a draw on the course. If the ball’s falling right on the range, he’ll take that to the tee.

“A lot of guys are like, ‘OK, we’re this far from the hole, front edge, trying to land it here’ … sometimes I don’t even give him a number we’re trying to hit it,” said Phillips’ caddie Braden Bailey; the two first met at age 8, competed often in high-school golf and are now frequent playing partners during off-weeks in College Station, Texas, where they now both reside.

“It’s just, ‘OK, it’s this club. I’m going to hit this kind of shot,’ and he gets it done that way. It’s unique; he doesn’t overthink anything, keeps it simple, and I think that really helps him a lot week-to-week out here.”

This ability harkens back to a natural, consistent swing that rarely deviates – Texas A&M men’s golf coach Brian Kortan (an assistant during Chandler’s time, 2015-19) said the bones of Phillips’ swing have stayed “remarkably similar” from when he first arrived as a freshman.

“Really repetitive for him, and produces the shots that he sees,” Kortan said earlier this month. “It’s remarkably the same from the first day I saw him play until, shoot, we played two weeks ago. It’s the same. He’s the same, just a more mature kid.”

Phillips is a throwback. In the TOUR’s world of ever-expanding teams that include not only people but devices – think swing coaches, mental coaches, sports psychologists and TrackMans – Phillips keeps a tight circle. There’s Bailey, who played college golf at Baylor and missed by one stroke at PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry’s Second Stage last fall. There are his agents, Jeff Stacy and Kevin Lynch, and of course his family.

“That’s about it,” Phillips said Monday. “I keep it small. That makes it where it doesn’t get too hectic.”

Several players through the years have noted the temptation of expanding their teams once earning their TOUR cards, for better or worse. That’s not Phillips.

“The way I look at it for myself is I could go get a swing coach; I could go get a mental coach or anything like that,” Phillips continued. “But I got here without that, and it’s been working for a long time and I think that would be a big change for me, so I don’t know how I would take it. So I really don’t want to put myself in that position; that’s kind of the way I look at it.”

Phillips enters the Texas Children’s Houston Open at No. 73 on the FedExCup standings, eyeing a continued ascent to secure a spot in the FedExCup Playoffs (the top 70 after the Wyndham Championship in August will qualify). Phillips expects much of himself; when his dad asked last fall about the cutoff to keep one’s TOUR card (top 125 after the FedExCup), he responded that the Playoffs was the goal.

Phillips, a four-time All-SEC selection at Texas A&M, became the first American to be selected to three Palmer Cup teams. He was a first-team All-American as a junior, and he earned second-team honors as a sophomore and senior. His resume indicates the ability to become one of the world’s best.

He’d like for it to happen, of course, but it won’t define him.

“I tell myself I’m still nobody out here,” Phillips said. “I’m not a Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth or anything like that. I’m just a rookie on TOUR just trying to make it.

“If I get in that name group, then I get there. If not, so be it. It ain’t going to bother me one bit.”

Some things, after all, are more important.

“He understands who he is,” Kortan said. “He understands how to play, and he embraces where he comes from and what he loves.”

PGA TOUR’s Stephanie Royer contributed to this report.