Welcome to the seventh installment of our “Caddie Confidential” series, with monthly, inside-the-ropes perspective from dozens of Tour caddies on rotating golf topics. Up this month: we tackle the “player feuds” and whether or not they’re good for the game.
Over the course of the years, there have been no shortage of hilarious stories of feuds between players, or players and caddies.
There’s the tale of one caddie quitting mid-round after having enough of the verbal abuse from his player, only to walk all the way back to the parking lot and realize he’d forgotten his car keys in the golf bag.
To close out our installment on feuds for July, we asked caddies if they had any funny stories about feuds they’d be willing to share.
Any funny/interesting player or caddie feud stories you’d like to share?
Check out this selection of responses from caddies:
I worked for Vijay. So, yeah, I have a bunch.
The time a player and caddie got in a fist fight in the player parking lot of Westchester CC is a good one.
Not funny, but watching Tiger/Phil on first tee at Oakland Hills, I was surprised they played the hole.
One caddie got fired in a time where caddies bought their own towels. He went back to get his towel and snatched it off the bag while the player was carrying the bag. The player was holding a divot tool in his hand and poked (his own) forehead with it and blood started to pour down his face. It made the caddie look like he stabbed him. Although it was only a scratch, it was very scary seeing this pro with blood running down his face and no towel to clean it up.
Canadian Open, 15-20 years ago, I remember a caddie got into it with his player. He dropped the bag on the 15th or 16th hole, dumped all the balls from his bag into the water and left him with one ball!
I was working for Garret Willis and he gave me a list of things I couldn’t do caddying and rule 16 was, “don’t give him the wind direction before he asked.” I accidentally gave it to him and he said, “you violated rule 16.”
Charley Hoffman made his old caddie jump into the ocean for a bad club at the British Open many years ago.
As a caddie, I once wanted to beat a player and his caddie. While out playing a tournament. Player and caddie never did shake my hand after 18.
Interested in more from our July 2021 installment of Caddie Confidential? Be sure to check out whether caddies are #TeamBrooks or #TeamBryson and whether or not they enjoy player feuds.
You can view all the results from our entire Caddie Confidential by clicking here.