Free Caddy for Life by John Feinstein

he had the bag for the rest of the summer. Oxman’s guy, Mike Reasor, had missed the cut in Robinson and, like Cerrudo, had been consigned to the Monday qualifier. He failed to qualify, leaving Oxman to search for a bag for the week. By nightfall he had run into Labron Harris, whom he had met the previous summer, and asked him if he had a caddy for the week. Harris said he didn’t, so Oxman got the job.
    There’s a big oak tree outside the clubhouse at Norwood Hills, and that was the lingering place for caddies during the week. In those days caddies were never allowed in the clubhouse—some pro shops would put up signs during tournament weeks which said PUBLIC WELCOME, NO CADDIES ALLOWED —so everyone looked for shade when they weren’t actually working.
    Late that morning Bruce thought he had caught a break. He spotted Dale Douglass, bag on his shoulder, walking into the clubhouse. Bruce knew Douglass because of his friendship with Dick Lotz. He ran over to Douglass and asked him if he could work for him that week. Douglass’s face fell. “I just told a guy a few minutes ago he could work for me,” he said. “I’d love to have you do it. If you can find him and convince him to get someone else, I’ll hire you in a second.”
    Bruce soon learned that the guy Douglass had hired was Mike Boyce, another young caddy whom Bruce had become friends with. “There was no way I was going to ask him to give up the bag,” he said. “He had talked to Dale first, he got the job. That was it.”
    Douglass would have seemed like the perfect guy for Bruce. It certainly helped that he knew him, but beyond that Douglass was established as a top-60 player and as one of the solid players on tour. He was thirty-seven, had won three times on tour, and had been a member of the Ryder Cup team in 1969. Plus he had a reputation as one of the truly nice people in golf.
    But Bruce had missed out by about fifteen minutes. He returned to the tree, sitting with Oxman and Leahey, who were waiting for their players to arrive for their practice rounds. Bruce was getting just a little bit nervous. He had missed his best chance, he thought, for a good bag for the week with Douglass. Morning became early afternoon, and Bruce was beginning to think he might not work at all that week.
    Suddenly Oxman was on his feet. “Hey Bruce,” he said. “Look over there.”
    Bruce saw a young pro with reddish-brown hair walking toward the clubhouse. He had a green McGregor golf bag slung over his shoulder and there was no caddy in sight. Bruce had no idea who the pro was. He had never seen him before. Oxman knew exactly who it was.
    “That’s Tom Watson,” he said to Bruce. “He’s going to be a real good player someday. Go ask him.”
    Bruce recognized the name immediately. He remembered watching the Hawaiian Open on TV on a Saturday afternoon that winter. Watson was in the lead, and he remembered seeing him make a bunch of putts from everywhere. “Three bombs in a row that I remember,” Bruce said. “I remember thinking, ‘Who in the world is this guy? He can really putt.’”
    The guy who could really putt was twenty-four years old and had just returned to the tour after a two-week break. He had married Linda Rubin, his childhood sweetheart, in June and had been on his honeymoon at Lake Tahoe. Watson had graduated from Stanford in 1971 with a degree in psychology, and even though he wasn’t certain he was good enough, he had decided to give the PGA Tour a try. In all likelihood, if the tour hadn’t panned out, he would have followed in his father’s footsteps and gone into the insurance business.
    He had made it through Qualifying School in December of 1971, one of twenty-three pros awarded their playing cards after six rounds of golf at PGA National, in Palm Beach. The winner of the Q-School that year was Bob Zender. Watson finished fifth. Among those who also finished behind Zender were Lanny Wadkins, David Graham, John Mahaffey, Bruce