A Memorably Long Day of Loops as an Impromptu Caddie for U.S. Open Qualifying

Less than 15 minutes into being a spectator of 1994 U.S. Open hopefuls, a competing pro from North Carolina asked me to help him qualify

On June 6, 1994, on the tee box of the 36th hole of U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying, I stood beside Pinehurst, North Carolina’s, Scott Medlin and his black Titleist tour bag, awaiting word from him of what club he wanted for the day’s finishing hole, a par 4. We stood then at 5 under par through 35 holes, and without needing to articulate it, we both felt strongly that if we could close out with a par Scott might well qualify for his very first U.S. Open. At worst, I thought, a par would get Scott into a playoff.

Medlin asked me for his 3-wood, and my opinion of the selection.

“Love it,” I replied.

The enormity of the moment surely set in, for Scott put his worst swing off the entire day on that 36th tee, snap hooking his drive left of the rough, left of a sand trap, and into the woods. My heart sank.

Under remarkable circumstances Medlin and I met for the first time some 11 hours earlier, by the first green of Woodmont Country Club’s North Course in Rockville, Maryland. Medlin, a golf pro employed at Pinehurst, had arrived at Woodmont under the mistaken belief that he could hire a caddie for Qualifying at the club. On this day he was in a field of more than 100 world-class golfers trying to qualify for the 1994 U.S. Open in two weeks’ time at Oakmont, just outside of Pittsburgh, one of America’s toughest and most revered courses, and he was the only competitor to arrive without a caddie.

I was following Medlin on the first hole a little after 7:00 that morning only because he was paired with Australian Brett Ogle, whom I’d become fascinated with by virtue of his lanky frame and its prodigious power off the tee and his recent triumphs on the PGA Tour, first at Pebble Beach a year earlier and then just back in January, at the Hawaiian Open. It struck me as quite queer that the unrecognizable pro alongside Ogle was humping his own gigantic tour bag down Woodmont’s first fairway.

Standing by the first green I watched Medlin two-putt for his opening par, and then he glanced at me, walked over, and uttered a question I couldn’t have fathomed being asked of me, ever, at this event.

“Any chance I could get you to carry my bag today?”

“I drove up from North Carolina yesterday and assumed there’d be caddies here for hire.”

In my ‘80s youth I spent summers working on golf course maintenance crews and caddying on weekends at Bethesda Country Club, just a few miles from Woodmont, making about $30 a loop. Once in a while I’d carry a bag for 18 in the morning, grab a sandwich and a Coke for lunch, and hustle out for another bag in the afternoon. The $75 I’d sometimes come home with just before dinner seemed a king’s ransom, even when earned in the scorching heat of D.C. Julys and Augusts.

In 1994, fully 150 world-class golfers arrived at Woodmont to try and earn one of 34 spaces in the Open field at Oakmont. Medlin was playing under the sponsorship of Titleist, and without help, there was absolutely no way he could carry his bag over 36 holes and beat out more than 100 elite players and their caddies. Woodmont just happened to be where I played a good many of my high school golf matches, as it was little more than a mile up Rockville Pike from my school campus. I shared this bit of golfing bio with Medlin as I grabbed his bag. He smiled as we walked to the 2nd tee.

“I could use a set of expert eyes on the greens,” he told me. “First time playing here.”

It’s known as golf’s longest day. Sectional Qualifying for the U.S. Open, held at 8 or 10 locations across America the first Monday of every June, bringing together the world’s finest golfers who aren’t exempt for America’s national golf championship. It’s 36 holes, from sun up to sun down, for 50 or so available slots. High drama. And for hard core golf fans, it’s an idyllic day for playing hooky from work: there’s no admission charge, no gallery ropes, no marshalls. If you want, you can stroll straight down the fairways alongside the pros and their caddies, keeping a courteous and respectful distance, and eavesdrop on player-caddie strategy. Which I relished doing.

My hometown of Rockville, Maryland, had long hosted Sectional Qualifying at Woodmont. Sectional Qualifying has taken place the first Monday or Tuesday of June every year since 1959. And it is again today at Woodmont. I’d long made the first Monday of June a requested day off from work once I’d returned home from school and began my D.C. career, and it was one of my favorite days of the year on the sports calendar.

In pro golf, the relationship between player and caddie is significant. There’s an immense amount of trust and camaraderie required. After all, beginning with warmups on the range, a player and caddie are together in all weather and circumstances for 8 or 10 or more hours, and one wrong yardage provided, one misread break on a green, can, in the world of professional golf, mean a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or, on Open Qualifying day, the difference between being paired with Tom Watson at Oakmont in two weeks’ time or driving back home to the Carolinas and a club pro shop job.

Standing on Woodmont’s North Course 2nd tee, my mind was a mush of disbelief, bewilderment, and excitement. Most of all I was mindful of not royally screwing up over the next 35 holes. Watch where you walk, I told myself. Stay out of player line of sight. Keep up with the pace of play. Most especially: double check the numbers on the irons before you hand over a club. I was going to allow Scott to chart his own yardages and take the lead in reading greens, and offer counsel only when asked.

For any golf fan it’s great fun and great instruction, seeing the world’s best perform live and up close, but attending Open Qualifying is distinctly different from seeing a PGA Tour event. It’s a totally different atmosphere and aura. Far from throngs of thousands lining the fairways and greens, a good many groups at Sectionals play 36 holes with little more than significant others in their gallery. But by about hole no. 5 my qualifying group had earned a few dozen followers in our gallery, all attributable to Brett Ogle’s emerging star standing.

As we neared the end of our front 9 I felt a deep relief that I was navigating being in the arena of a professional sport, as a quasi participant, competently. I was doing my ad hoc job, and perhaps even well. The stakes of course were order of magnitude higher, but on this June day in 1994 fundamentally I was doing just what I had years earlier as a 14-year-old looper at Bethesda Country Club. Scott was playing really well, too, notching a couple of birdies while avoiding any big trouble. Onlookers in our gallery might have been fooled into believing that Scott and I were an authentic, competition-tested team.

And Scott and I were building up a warm rapport. Because pros hit balls so far a caddie and player have a good deal of time for distracting conversation between shots. Scott was curious about D.C., my amateur golf efforts, especially in competition at Woodmont, and my favorite golfers on Tour. He shared a lot of inside baseball about equipment sponsorship deals he had and money he’d earned on satellite tours. Ogle and his caddie would chime in with warm and amusing banter on tee boxes as we awaited play ahead of us to finish. I was starting to have serious fun and a day off from work I’d never forget.

The winter of 1994 delivered a significant ice storm to D.C. that badly damaged some fairways on Woodmont’s South Course. It was unfit for competition that June. Scott finished his first 18 holes on the North Course 4 under par — he was seriously in the thick of qualifying. We’d break for lunch but have to travel to famed Congressional Country Club, site of numerous elite men’s and women’s golf championships over the decades, across town to play the Gold Course there for our afternoon round.

We traveled to Congressional in a stretch limousine, one that could comfortably convey wealthy professional athletes, their helpers, and their gear. I remember being seated between Scott and Brett in the back of the limo and minimally participating in conversations about women from all parts of the world who display distinct devotion to touring golfers. Safe to say: Ogle was already being ogled. I remember wishing I’d had a camera to capture this extraordinary moment. I remember wondering if Scott could keep up his strong play after the break and moving to an entirely new track. And I recall really not wanting this special day to end.

To my amazement, Ogle, then a top 50 player in the world, wasn’t having nearly as strong a day as my guy. His elite ball striking awed me up close, but on the greens he was all thumbs. He was hovering around par, and early into our fourth nine you could tell this wasn’t going to be his day.

Scott played as flawlessly at Congressional as he did in the morning at Woodmont. He was so pure off the tee, confident and long and straight. He minimized my miles of walking under the early summer sun with his heavy bag by being so accurate. He managed his game in unfamiliar surroundings spectacularly. I didn’t delude myself into believing I was playing any decisive role in his success; I just savored being alongside for so special a journey.

That is, until the 36th hole, and Scott’s uncharacteristic wildness off the tee.

Our walk of 250 or so yards off the tee was our most silent one of the day. Without marshalls or spectators on the hole’s left, we really had no idea of the errant ball’s resting spot. Fortunately, Scott found the ball in short order, nestled among leaves but wholly playable, and he had a recovery play. But reaching the green in regulation was impossible. After he chipped back out into the fairway, leaving himself 80 or so yards to the green, I knew we’d have a white knuckler for par . . . and perhaps Scott being a credentialed competitor for the U.S. Open.

He bogeyed the hole, and our group had a long cart ride back to the limousine line out by the Congressional clubhouse. Despite his own certain defeat, Brett Ogle was the warmest and most comforting possible competitor, effusive in his praise for Scott’s play and a stalwart of confidence.

“I have you for 4 under, mate,” he said in the cart.

“I think you’re in.”

At Qualifying, unless a competitor has run away from the field, one can’t be sure of one’s standing until the final group has holed out, and all the scores are posted. Because we were transitioning from one club to another, from one town to another, Scott and I had to endure first a car ride of uncertainty through Rockville rush hour traffic and then another 40 minutes or so back at Woodmont, waiting out the final groups.

At last we learned. Scott’s 36-hole score of 139 avoided the playoff score of 140 by a single stroke. (Fully 14 players finished at 140 and competed for 5 spots.) He was in.

Our eyes first met on Qualifying Day’s first hole as fairway dew and uncertainty enveloped the day’s opening. At dusk our eyes met again, wordlessly, euphorically. We hugged.

In the Woodmont parking lot at his car Scott pulled out a thick wad of hundred dollar bills and attempted to give them to me. I refused them. The day was too pure a pleasure for me, a so surreal, so unexpected, and so magical event in what we’d experienced together. And besides, I wasn’t a professional caddie.

We shook hands and hugged again, and I wished him luck in Pittsburgh.

Oakmont in ‘94 beat up the world’s best pretty badly. Scott shot 79-82 to miss the cut by a mile. But I’m not sure that much matters. Scott went on to earn his PGA Tour card for the 1996 season, and though he met with little success that year on tour, I loved following his rounds all year. Sometimes I think: Maybe that week in Pittsburgh he missed his good luck charm on the bag.