Author: Josh Sens September 21, 2024
Caddies for top tour professionals play a valuable role and are compensated accordingly.
Getty Images
Nearly 50 years ago, long before he worked for players like Curtis Strange, Greg Norman and Payne Stewart, Mike Hicks got his first job as a caddie for a local preacher at a club in his hometown of North Carolina. Hicks was 12 years old and was being paid $5 a lap.
At the time, caddying was hardly considered a viable career. With rare exceptions, it was seen as a temporary job for those without better options, or a summer job for the Danny Noonans of the world. Hicks never saw it as a way to make a living.
“I’d never considered the idea,” he says.
But in 1980, as an undergraduate at North Carolina State University, Hicks was considering taking a semester off when a friend, who was a caddie for tour pro JC Snead, invited him to join him on the West Coast tour in California.
“He said, ‘Just play the pro-am and qualify on Monday and you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,'” Hicks said.
Hicks left with $140 and returned eight weeks later with not only more fun but also double the money. He was 19 years old. There was no turning back.
For Hicks, it was the beginning of a decades-long run as a respected tour trooper (the image of Hicks jumping into Stewart’s arms after the latter won the ’99 U.S. Open has become part of golf’s iconography.) He’s now 63 and recently retired from the tour, and the profession he was in has changed entirely.
In 1999, Hicks attended a gala for some of golf’s most famous players and caddies. Getty Images
Today’s caddie job is about more than making a living. At high-end clubs and resorts, caddies often earn six-figure salaries. Top tour caddies are millionaires. The job is professionalized. But formal professional training is often lacking.
Hicks is trying to change that.
Hicks, a founding member of the Tour Caddie Collective, a network aimed at training the next generation of caddies, has teamed up with fellow tour caddies Grant Berry and Heath Holt to launch the Pro Caddie Certification Program. Run in conjunction with North Carolina State University’s Office of Professional Development, the program provides 18 participants with intensive seven-day, one-night instruction covering all aspects of the job. The first session begins December 1.
“We’re going to get into all the nuances,” Hicks said.
The cliché is that a caddie’s job has three basic requirements: show up, don’t be late and stay quiet.
That’s no longer the case.
For starters, says Hicks, “it’s the opposite of ‘shut up.'” At the elite level, most players expect open communication, a point underscored every time a TV station eavesdrops on a Michael Greller or Jordan Spieth conversation. From one partnership to another, and from one shot to the next, a caddie’s role can change from buddy to psychologist to bodyguard and more. Quantitative skills are becoming more important. So is emotional intelligence.
“The player-caddie relationship is like a marriage,” Hicks said, “but you have to be a mathematician. It’s not just about adding and subtracting; it’s about percentages. You analyze statistics and use live data to help the player manage the course.”
To prepare participants for the wide range of demands, Hicks said the program will be taught by a variety of instructors, including sports psychologists, physical therapists, PGA Tour officials and technology experts in TrackMan, AimPoint and GC Quad.
There are also CPR classes.
“Tell me how many caddies out there know CPR,” Hicks said. “Very few.”
Hicks said while caddies are taking care of their players, they also need to learn to take care of themselves.
“Stretching is an important part of the job,” Hicks said. “You have to eat well and get proper rest.”
Hicks acknowledges that he fell short on those fronts in his career.
“It’s almost a miracle I’m still here,” he says.
But time is a great teacher, and he now has the opportunity to share what he’s learned with others. The program will be held periodically, but no long-term schedule has been set. A second session is tentatively scheduled for February. But the first session in December is a “pilot” and will evolve over time, Hicks said. Cost to attend is $4,000 per person.
“We want to make it happen,” he says, “and see where it leads.”
For more information, visit go.ncsu.edu/golf-caddie-cert or contact info@tourcaddiecollective.com.
Josh Sens
Golf, food and travel writer Josh Sens has been a contributor to GOLF Magazine since 2004 and currently writes for all GOLF platforms. His work has been published in The Best American Sportswriting and he is co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Fun Yet: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.
