Jay Williamson fired his caddie, Mike Mollet, during the first round of the Canadian Open last week. That was not the first time a PGA Tour player has canned a looper during competition, nor will it be the last. Emotions sometimes flare out of control in major league sports. In golf, that can mean arguments between professionals and their bag men while under pressure.
This latest incident has a measure of “he said, she said” to it. Bottom line is, an aggressive caddie butted heads with an intense player. Two buttons were pushed and there was an explosion on the Angus Glen North Course’s 14th green.
Both agree that Mollet, on the tee of the par 3, said the wind was blowing right to left. Both agree that Williamson hit a 9-iron over the green long left. Both agree that Williamson hit a weak chip from a bad lie to about 30 feet from the hole. Both agree a frustrated Williamson told Mollet he thought the wind was blowing downwind, not across, and that Mollet disagreed. Both agree that Williamson fired Mollet after an ensuing heated argument on the green. Both agree that Mollet threw a few of Williamson’s golf balls into a pond after getting canned. Both agree that Williamson used a spectator as his caddie the last four holes.
Both agree they didn’t like the way they were being talked to. Both agree they were even par at the time and had made five cuts in a row. Both agree Williamson can be too intense on the course. Both agree the incident has been overblown.
What they disagree on is what ignited the explosion. Williamson said Mollet lost his cool first and embarrassed him with too much emotional talk and Williamson reacted. Mollet said Williamson lost his cool first and embarrassed him with too much emotional talk and Mollet reacted.
Williamson said the caddie kept yelling at him loudly, calling him a “whiner” among other personal insults, and used the F-word. Mollet said he got riled because Williamson directed the F-word and A-word toward him after the bad chip and while disagreeing about the wind direction. Williamson said he can’t recall swearing.
Jim Rome, the radio mouth, mistakenly called this spat over wind direction the golf story of the year. He apparently didn’t watch the British Open or Big Break VII. But behind the Tour scenes, on ranges and putting greens and in locker rooms, this may have the legs of a caterpillar. It has become enough of a humorous talking point that Camp Ponte Vedra has tried to put a gag order on both combatants because it feels the incident is detracting from this week’s tournaments.
Maybe the Tour is wrongheaded about this. Think stock car battles and hockey fights. Williamson has.
“I can’t believe how this story keeps going,” Williamson, playoff runner-up at the recent Travelers Championship, said on Wednesday. “This is why NASCAR sells. Apparently we need altercation in the game. We need people slugging it out on the golf course to boost ratings.”
Williamson, an affable sort who sometimes lapses into a glass-half-empty place, was kidding. But some good points are made when people are kidding.
Both Williamson and Mollet have worked the Tour since the mid-1990s. They’ve seen conflict before. Both know hard knocks. Both have done plenty of learning. So I asked both what they thought the moral of the story was in this case. As you might expect, they again differed.
Williamson: “It’s like when you get in a fight with your wife, you need to shut up.”
Mollet: “You don’t treat your caddie like a piece of crap. You don’t embarrass people.”
They’re both right. The three ups – the tenets of “Show up, keep up and shut up” – should apply not only to caddies but to players and anyone who works.
Here’s two more that work in all walks of life: Grow up and be nice. Had one of these men stopped talking and decided to be considerate, they would have reached the 18th green together. It would have been in everyone’s best interests had Mollet waited until after the round to vent his displeasure.
Tour veteran John Cook added a couple more rules the other day when talking with Rome. The lighthearted Cook said there are only three appropriate things for a caddie to say to his pro during a round. Call them the three P’s: Pro, you were right. Pro, I was wrong. Pro, you got screwed.
Mollet, now working for Tom Johnson, says he’s not a “show up, keep up and shut up” caddie. He says he’s a “do the job” caddie. So he spoke up to Williamson, and he says he has no regrets.
Caddie: “He crossed the line and treated me unfairly. We have a threshold. We take it up to a point. He got me going.”
Player: “He made it personal. When you hear your caddie call you a whiner and other stuff, that’s a total lack of respect. He just kept running his mouth.”
Being nice to people, regardless of status, is one of life’s best guidelines. It works anywhere. Everyone wants to be respected.
But professional golf can be a tough arena. Some salty, tough types have passed through the PGA Tour. Some still reside. If every caddie who heard the F-word pitched a fit and got fired, there may not be many bag men left in the Tour shack. Thick skin is more important to a Tour caddie’s longevity than a yardage book and good shoes.
“If you’re a caddie standing next to your player, you are subject to being yelled if you’re breathing,” said longtime Tour looper Cayce Kerr. “Getting yelled at is part of the job. You have to suck it up and be a pro and remember who writes the check. Hey, a player can’t yell at volunteers, officials, his wife, fans, his kids and his sponsors. The only person he can vent at is the caddie.”
Kerr understands to the point that upon starting work for Darren Clarke at a tournament this summer, he said, “Darren, you’re not going to hurt my feelings. I’ve worked for a lot of tough guys, so I don’t have any feelings left.”
Mollet hardly is the first looper to get whacked in mid-round. It happens now and then. In the early 1990s, it happened on the 15th green at the Greensboro Open after Tommy Armour III, trying to get his ball cleaned, threw his ball over the head of his caddie, a man known as Weed. After Weed retrieved the ball, which rolled some 30 yards down a hill, he spiked the ball on the green so Armour had to go out of his way to get it.
“Weed,” TA3 told him, “you’re done. Just take off your bib. You’re done.”
Sometimes such firings happen in reverse. Sometimes caddies who feel mistreated drop a player’s bag in mid-round and walk off. Dan Pohl, Mark Brooks, David Frost, Brenden Pappas and Franklin Langham are among players to whom that has happened.
This time, Williamson admitted saying some things he shouldn’t have once the argument started. He says he respects caddies. And he says he has learned from this that people shouldn’t react unconsciously.
“I think it’s funny that everybody thinks this is such a big deal,” Williamson said. “I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s not something I want to get blown out of proportion.”
Posted: 8/1/2007
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