'Winning Caddy Review' of the 2003 Heritage Classic from Harbor
Town!
As I said in our ‘Featured Holes Review’ this week from
Harbor
Town, that ‘Davis Love virtually owns the place’.
And he made me look good on that call again!
Davis's regular caddy John 'Cubby' Burke, the caddy for
Davis
at AT and T, and their victory at the TPC this year was absent for this one.
(See Cubby’s ‘Winning Caddy Interview’
from the 2003 AT and T) Instead,
Davis’s caddy this week was his brother Mark Love –(a very good low handicap
golfer himself -BTW).
Mark Love caddied for his brother
Davis
for several years steadily in the mid to late ‘90’s on the PGA Tour and was
on the bag for
Davis's great win in the PGA Championship at Winged Foot. And
THIS caddy was working for CBS as a spotter that week and I had a ‘bird(ie's)-eye-view’
of the entire thing as I was walking with the featured pairing on the last day
reporting back to the associate director of CBS golf, Chuck Will –both the
yardages and club selections.
Davis
hit a brilliant five iron into the 72nd hole at Winged Foot there
where he made the winning putt that Sunday in August.
The rain had just stopped, and a big rainbow opened up in the
sky over Mamaroneck
as
Davis
was winning his first major championship. (Caddies
will frequently work for the T.V. sponsor each week when they don’t have a bag
–and they are the most adept at getting good info for the telecast people, and
know how to stay out of the way of play at the same time.)
As I said in this week's ‘Featured Holes Review’, of the last three
finishing holes at the Harbor Town Golf Links, that #16 is a position tee
shot. Depending on the wind it's usually a three wood tee shot played into
the right center of the fairway (to negotiate trees blocking the second shot
entry to the green on the left).
Ernie Els came to #16 at 14 under par for the tournament and with a two shot
lead at the time. Els elected to hit a driver off the tee and hit the shot out
of bounds resulting in a double bogey six there Sunday. (13 under
eventually played off).
Els regular tour caddy Ricki Roberts was not working for him this week. Basil,
another caddy originally from
South Africa
was caddying for Els here. He's a
very experienced tour caddy who has worked both internationally and on the U.S.
PGA Tour for years. (He's caddied for players like David Frost, Fulton Allem,
and Mark McNulty to name a few.)
Alas, the best laid plans often don’t come true often in life and sport and
such was the case there on the finishing holes at Harbor Town there Sunday.
Would Ernie have hit the driver in that situation with Ricki on the bag?
If he had hit the 3 wood instead and ‘chicken winged’ it right on
that same line, would it not have gone far enough to be out of bounds?
He certainly would like to make another birdie and post a score of 15 under in
the clubhouse with most of the rest of the players in the hunt behind him at
-12 and gaining. But in that
situation you also want
to make sure that you don’t make a mistake either and lose a shot to par.
(Very often the guy who wins on Sunday is the one who makes the fewest
mistakes, and the key par putts -not necessarily the most birdies.)
Basil’s won before and with top flight players.
But maybe the fact that he doesn’t know Els game as intimately was a
factor there as Roberts might have been, given not having been with him there in that situation as many times as
Ricki. No one can say for
sure. Sometimes that little bit of lack of familiarity about the
players idiosyncrasies can make a difference.
(Say for instance that you know your players bad shot will go right, and
you know there’s more margin for error with a three wood with the 'out of bounds'
lurking right to avoid making a big number there -than to ‘gamble’ with the driver
as he did.)
However, all this is only speculation on my part for the purpose of discussion.
It's easy to ‘armchair quarterback’ or ‘caddy’ when we watch it
on TV. I’ve seen really good
caddies do a great job and then have the player not execute well, and I’ve
seen players execute well no matter how the guy caddies.
In any case, it was unfortunate for both Ernie and Basil, and that
coupled with hitting it over the next green (on the par three 17th), resulted in
a 'bad club' bogey, and another bogey on 18 cost that caddy a lot of ‘potential’ money!
As for the lead characters -Davis Love also bogied #17 in regulation, and both he and Woody Austin bogied it
again in their third playoff hole on Sunday. Both
Davis Love and Woody Austin bogied #18 in the first sudden death playoff hole
after electing to hit drivers into the breeze there.
Austin hit driver just barely into the hazard left and Davis made his bogey from
the middle of the fairway after a perfect tee shot. It appeared
Davis ‘guarded’ against missing the green to the left of a left front pin,
missed the green right instead, and failed to get his pitch up and down for a
par four and a victory. (Davis pitched-in for birdie three there earlier on
the 72nd hole in regulation to force a playoff with Woody looking
on.) That birdie on the 72nd hole in regulation, coupled with a birdie three after a brilliant 7 iron
to 3 feet on the fourth playoff hole, ultimately won Love III his record fifth
Heritage Classic and third victory in 2003.
(Love hit 3 wood off 18 there the second and last time they played 18).
Our hats are off to Davis
and Mark Love as the winning team this week.
And our sympathies go out to Woody and his caddy –hopefully this will
spur Woody Austin (a great guy) on to having a great year! (And sympathies
to Ernie and Basil as their 'best laid plans' went poorly.)
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