Golfweek has learned that veteran caddie Lance Bennett has been chosen by Woods for the plum assignment at Riviera. Woods knows Bennett well from his days caddying for Matt Kuchar, including a win alongside him at the 2012 Players, during his prime.
In recent years, Bennett has been on the bag for Sungjae Im and Davis Riley and he also spent time on the LPGA with Juli Inkster, Paula Creamer and Lorena Ochoa. This season, he’s working full-time for Tour rookie Adrien Dumont de Chassart, a Belgian golfer who competed at Illinois and won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour, earning KFT Player of the Year honors last season.
Dumont de Chassart (nicknamed ADDC for short) and Woods are managed by the same agency, and Dumont de Chassart isn’t in the field this week, which makes it easy for Bennett to jump to Tiger’s bag. It’s possible that Bennett could be on the bag for Tiger at the Players Championship and the Masters too, but sources say that Tiger may bounce around between some different caddies.
Rob McNamara, Tiger’s longtime business partner and vice president of TGR Ventures, caddied for Tiger at the Hero World Challenge in December and could fill the role again and Woods didn’t shut down the possibility of son Charlie serving as his sidekick in the future when asked if he might tote his bag.
Woods is making his first official Tour start since withdrawing from the Masters after making the cut in April. How much Woods plays this season will depend on his health, but he’s made it very clear he expects to play a limited schedule focused around the majors.
Woods originally had Mike “Fluff” Cowan on the bag when he won the 1997 Masters, then won 13 majors and 72 Tour titles with Steve Williams, and joined up with LaCava in 2012.
Efforts to confirm Tiger’s caddie with his management team were not returned.
In other caddie news, Paul Tesori has moved to the bag of Tom Kim. Tesori spent 12 years on the bag of Webb Simpson before moving to Cameron Young last March. Tesori started the year with Brendon Todd but wasn’t on Todd’s bag in Phoenix. Kim had Joe Skovron last season until he was hired away by Ludvig Aberg. Kim began the year with Daniel Parratt. When asked about joining Kim, Tesori said, “I’m looking forward to what will hopefully be another long term relationship on the bag. Tom is obviously extremely talented but having faith as a common denominator is something that I believe will help when golf gets difficult, which it seems to always be!”
The new adage might be that golf is a five-letter word. And that word is chaos.
An old line in sports is that golf is a four-letter word. That saying is no doubt from all the words you might hear on a golf course from all the golfers in the world hitting bad shots.
But the new adage might be that golf is a five-letter word. And that word is chaos. Nowhere has the chaos that is engulfing the golf world been more obvious than in the last month.
What once was a sport with a reputation for sportsmanship, civility and good fellowship is showing cracks at the professional level. Sniping, name-calling and greed seem to have taken over.
ROME – When it became a foregone conclusion that the European team had clinched the 44th Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club, Rory McIlroy went galloping down the 18th fairway to celebrate with teammate Shane Lowry. The burly Irishman’s match was still to be decided but he squatted and lifted McIlroy in his arms as if a catcher and pitcher celebrating a World Series victory.
Sporting a five-point lead heading into Sunday Singles, Team Europe allowed things to get interesting for a hot second before reclaiming the Ryder Cup by a final score of 16 ½ – 11 ½. In the baking heat of the Eternal City, a partisan crowd broke into a chorus of Ole! Ole! Ole! And McIroy joined in the singing, “Champione! Champione! Champione!” Before long, he popped open a bottle of champagne, took a swig and relished in victory.
Less than 24 hours earlier, after losing a four-ball match, McIlroy was as mad as he’s ever been coming off the golf course. American Patrick Cantlay had drained a 43-foot birdie putt at 18 to flip the match and his caddie Joe LaCava waved his hat and interrupted McIlroy’s preparation to attempt a putt to tie the hole. McIlroy’s anger spilled out into the car park. He was headed for the U.S. locker room to tell them that LaCava’s conduct was a disgrace when he came across American caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay and had to be restrained by Lowry, who forced him into a car headed to the team hotel.
“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” McIlroy said of Mackay. “I texted Bones this morning and apologized for that.”
Joe LaCava, caddie for American Patrick Cantlay, gestures with his cap on the 18th green during the Saturday afternoon fourball matches at the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome, Italy. (Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Video of the incident went viral on social media. McIlroy said Lowry made sure he cooled off back at the hotel, dunking himself in a cold plunge.
But the person who may deserve the most credit for turning McIlroy’s frown upside down has been dead for centuries. On the way to the course, McIlroy, who is a student of Stoicism, read some of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher.
“Seeing that we are in Rome, I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of his thoughts,” McIlroy said. “Humility and gentleness are better virtues than being frustrated and angry. I had to let it out but then I had to reset.”
It all started with “Hat-gate,” after a social media posting reported “a fracture” in the U.S. team locker room. Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir cited sources as saying Patrick Cantlay was protesting that players aren’t paid to play in the Ryder Cup – though they do receive a $200,000 donation to a charity of their choice – by not wearing a hat. Cantlay refuted the report as false, but the fans let him have it anyway, waving their hats at every chance, singing, “Patrick, Patrick, where’s your hat?” Another fan yelled, “Come work with me at the factory. We get paid by the hour.”
Cantlay took it all in stride and acknowledged the jabs and wisecracks with a smile and a thumbs up like a politician. The stunning reversal of his match in the gloaming on Saturday gave the U.S. side a glimmer of hope of making a comeback from a 10 ½ – 5 ½ deficit. But the incident with caddie Joe LaCava also served as fuel to the European side to give no mercy.
“I didn’t let it take away from what’s been a fantastic week. I used that little incident last night to my advantage,” McIlroy said. “I think what transpired in that last green, it gave us a little bit of a fire in our bellies to try and get the job done today.”
Rory McIlroy of Team Europe celebrates winning his match 3 and &1 on the 17th green during the Sunday singles matches of the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club on October 01, 2023 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
McIlroy did his part defeating Sam Burns 3 & 1, capping off a record of 4-1, most points scored by any player and his best showing in seven Ryder Cups. McIlroy, John Rahm and Viktor Hovland – Europe’s big three – combined for a record of 9-2-3. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who tied with Rahm on Sunday, went 0-2-1. The U.S. captain’s picks were a pitiful 4-12-4.
Two years ago, McIlroy broke down in tears on Saturday after losing his third straight match and was benched for the afternoon session. His emotions showed how much he cared for the event. But what was it that hurt the most about the team’s defeat at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin?
“The score line, 19-9. That hurt. It really did,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I gave my best performance, and I didn’t feel like I did my part for the team. And you know, there was a few of us up here that were on that team that wanted to come back, and everyone at the start of the week was talking about, oh, do you want to get revenge, do you want to get revenge on the U.S. Team, and this wasn’t about revenge. This was about redemption and showing what we could do.”
Team Europe captain Luke Donald and Team Europe celebrates with the Ryder Cup trophy after beating Team USA during the final day of the 44th Ryder Cup golf competition at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club. (Photo: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports)
The victory on the rolling hills of Marco Simone, a mere 10 miles from the famed Colosseum wasn’t built in a day. European Captain Luke Donald built a plan that depended heavily on data analytics and his decision to start the first two sessions with foursomes (alternate shot) helped the Euros open a commanding lead.
“Not many people gave us a chance, I don’t think, especially two years ago,” Donald said. “Yeah, well, we proved them wrong.”
During a team scouting trip to Marco Simone, the team bonded around the fire pit.
“I got to know things about these guys,” McIlroy said. “I thought I knew them for a long time, but I got to know something different about them.”
This was supposed to be the year the American side finally won on European soil for the first time in 30 years. They planned to take advantage of a transition year for the Euros, who were going through a youth movement led by the 23-year-old hotshot Ludvig Aberg and 22-year-old Nicolai Hojgaard. The Euros proved to be more than capable of holding serve at home.
Hovland, one of two players to play all five matches for Team Europe, put the first point on the board for Donald’s team. Europe reached 14 ½ points to win back the cup after Tommy Fleetwood drove the green on the drivable par-4 16th and Rickie Fowler hit it in the water. After Fleetwood knocked his eagle putt to 2 feet, 8 inches, Fowler conceded the birdie putt to give Europe the half point needed to win.
It marked the eighth time in the last nine playings of the biennial event that the home team has won. The next Ryder Cup will be held in New York at Bethpage Black. Asked if home-field advantage has become too big of a deal in the Ryder Cup, McIlroy said, “So I’ve said this for the last probably six or seven years to anyone that will listen: I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup. And that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage.”
Then he pounded the table with his fist and his teammates cheered as McIlroy smiled the smile of a man already contemplating his next victory.
The next Ryder Cup will be staged at New York’s famed Bethpage Black, where fans won’t hold back.
While Rory McIlroy and Joe LaCava haven’t yet met face-to-face to talk about hat-gate, they have texted, and McIlroy said during Team Europe’s Ryder Cup press conference that everything will be fine.
“It’s a point of contention and it still hurts,” said McIlroy, “but time is a great healer and we’ll all move on.”
It was a Saturday morning report from SkySports journalist Jamie Weir that began a storyline that ultimately engulfed the events in Rome. Weir said Patrick Cantlay’s refusal to wear a team hat centered around his desire for Ryder Cup players to get paid. European fans reacted by waving their hats at the American player all weekend.
The whole scene culminated Saturday evening with Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, waving his hat after Cantlay drained a match-winning putt to give the U.S. team life heading into singles.
Understand from several sources that the US team room is fractured, a split led predominantly by Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay believes players should be paid to participate in the Ryder Cup, and is demonstrating his frustration at not being paid by refusing to wear a team cap.
McIlroy took issue with LaCava’s antics, and his frustrations boiled over in the parking lot when he had to be restrained while talking to caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay. The Northern Irishman texted Mackay Sunday morning and apologized. Shane Lowry was the one who stepped in to pull McIlroy away and get him inside a courtesy car.
“He was the first American I saw after I got out of the locker room,” said McIlroy, “so he was the one that took the brunt of it. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
When asked if he was much of a car-park scrapper, McIlroy said “No, but if I need to … ”
Added Lowry: “I had to do all the work. I was going to have to do all the work.”
McIlroy said he was relieved that Lowry intervened, noting that he took him down to the hotel’s cold plunge to quite literally cool off.
“We talked about it as a team last night,” said McIlroy. “We felt like it was disrespectful, and it wasn’t just disrespectful to Fitz and I. It was disrespectful to the whole team.
“I get that we get the banter when we go over to the States and play, and you know, the same happens here. It’s just the way it is. It the way the Ryder Cup goes. You have to have thick skin. That’s just the way it is.”
The incident then spilled over to the parking lot at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club, where a visibly heated McIlroy needed to be restrained by teammate Shane Lowry as American caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay approached to discuss what happened.
Before Scottie Scheffler and Jon Rahm began the opening match of Sunday singles, Golf Channel reported that McIlroy and LaCava had mended fences after the dust-up on the 18th green. Steve Sands reported LaCava reached out to McIlroy’s camp on the car ride home from the course and texted the group, “I love you guys and respect all of you.”
McIlroy’s team reportedly said they felt the same way, which led to LaCava asking for a face-to-face meeting with McIlroy on Sunday morning. According to Sands, that brief meeting happened, and “everything’s been diffused.”
Well, McIlroy begs to differ. After his 3-and-1 singles victory over Sam Burns, Golf Channel’s Cara Banks asked McIlroy about the meeting with LaCava, and the four-time major champion said it didn’t happen.
“I haven’t met Joe,” said McIlroy, shaking his head.
“I was focused. I was very focused,” he said of his mindset entering the final match. “I let it fuel me, I didn’t let it take away from what’s been a fantastic week. I used that little incident last night to my advantage.”
The final match of Saturday afternoon’s fourballs session got a bit heated on No. 18 after Patrick Cantlay drained what would become a match-winning birdie putt thanks to a few misses from Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick.
After European fans had been waving their hats in Cantlay’s direction all afternoon after reports surfaced that he’s not wearing a hat this week because he’s not being paid to be there, members of Team USA put their hats in the air when the putt dropped. Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, and Wyndham Clark’s caddie also put their hats in the air. Shane Lowry and LaCava later shared some words with each other.
McIlroy was caught on video in the parking lot yelling at Jim “Bones” MacKay about the situation.
Fans at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club heard the rumors, too, and started to taunt Cantlay all Saturday afternoon, waving their hats at him whenever he was on a green or tee box.
Cantlay was paired with Wyndham Clark during the last fourballs session of the competition, taking on Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick in the final match of the day.
After burying a short birdie effort on the par-3 17th to tie up the match, Cantlay raced his green-side chip 43 feet by the hole at the par-5 closer.
But his nickname isn’t “Patty Ice” for nothing.
Cantlay buried the putt and claimed the American’s third match win of the session. After the putt went in, members of Team USA (as well as a few caddies) took their hats off and started waving them to Cantlay, and some waved them at the crowd.
Joe LaCava, Cantlay’s caddie, also got in on the action. LaCava exchanged words with Shane Lowry, who was watching the match from off the green, and they didn’t seem to be pleasantries. (The tweet says Rory, but it was Lowry.)
A bit of drama on the 18th green.
Rory was upset with Cantlay's caddie for waving his hat before he putted. (via NBC) pic.twitter.com/Qw6kaRehDg
He caddied for Steve Stricker at the Zurich Classic but was told that is was a one-time thing. Then Tiger Woods had ankle fusion surgery, a procedure that will keep the 15-time major champion on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.
With his boss on the couch, LaCava had a clear schedule and decided to pick up Patrick Cantlay’s bag at the Wells Fargo Championship, but this isn’t a one-off. He’ll be Cantlay’s full-time looper.
But not this week.
With the world No. 4 at home preparing for next week’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill in Rochester, New York, LaCava is in Clifton, New Jersey, to caddie for Nelly Korda at the LPGA’s Cognizant Founders Cup at Upper Montclair Country Club.
Woods, Cantlay, Korda. There are definitely worse players to caddie for.
Nelly Korda has Joe LaCava on the bag this week at the Founders Cup. I’m told this is a one week arrangement and that her regular caddie Jason McDede is expected to be back on the bag for Korda’s next event. pic.twitter.com/r9Ntkw1YQI
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Tommy Fleetwood took his lickings the first two times he played tournaments at Quail Hollow Club. But on a sun-drenched Thursday, Fleetwood finally figured this parkland beauty out, finishing birdie-birdie to shoot a bogey-free 6-under 65 and claim the first-round lead at the Wells Fargo Championship.
“You have days like today,” Fleetwood said. “There are plenty of players that shoot great rounds around here. It’s such a beautiful golf course and it’s a pleasure to play, it really, really is, but you just have to play well and that’s all there is to it. I enjoy the challenge, I loved playing today and having a score going and playing like that. I’m looking forward to whatever the week holds. It’s a great course to come and play, but it can just beat you up at times and today was my turn.”
Fleetwood hinted at the tough times, which included a T-61 at the 2017 PGA Championship and a missed cut at this event in 2018. The Englishman started to figure out Quail Hollow’s intricacies in 2021, finishing T-14.
“You can make it as daunting or as simple as you want to make it,” Fleetwood explained.
As for what makes Quail such a tricky old bird? “The scorable holes can actually still kick you,” he said.
Fleetwood, 32, reeled off six straight pars to start the round before jumping into red figures with an eight-foot eagle at No. 7. He tacked on a short birdie at eight and added three more circles to the card on the back nine, including playing Quail Hollow’s vaunted Green Mile – Nos. 16-18 – in 2 under. After driving into the right fairway at 18, he hit his self-proclaimed shot of the day, sticking his approach from 181 yards to seven feet.
“You never know when you’re one swing away from making a birdie,” he said. “There’s good shots out there and you have to always be looking for them and you always have to feel like you can hit one of those. Whether you do or not is a different story, but believing you can is the first part.”
Fleetwood leads by one over five golfers, including Xander Schauffele, who recorded his lowest score in 13 career rounds at Quail Hollow and K.H. Lee, who carded a 66 in the first round for the third straight year.
Here are four more takeaways from the first round of the Wells Fargo Championship.
“He’s just a steady hand on the steering wheel. I know he’s been in every moment a caddie could be in and he’s just a good guy. So I’ve enjoyed the limited time that I’ve spent with him and feel confident that we’ll be a good team out there,” said Cantlay, who noted he hasn’t spoken with Woods about the move. “When I reached out to Joe, he said it was possible and ended up working out and I’m really happy about it.”
Cantlay split with veteran caddie Matt Minister, who was on the bag when he won the 2021 FedEx Cup and was named the PGA Tour Player of the Year, following last month’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
“Yeah, we accomplished a lot together and I’m really proud of all we accomplished,” said Cantlay. “He’s a great friend of mine and we had a lot of good finishes together and a lot of wins. So I’m incredibly grateful to him, just needed a change.”
LaCava, 59, had been on the bag for Woods since 2011, and the pair claimed 11 official wins, including the 2019 Masters (as well as the 2011 Hero World Challenge, an unofficial event). He also subbed in as Cantlay’s caddie for the 2021 Northern Trust when Minister was out with COVID-19.
Patrick Cantlay looks on from the 16th tee during the first round of the Northern Trust, the first event of the FedExCup Playoffs, at Liberty National Golf Club on August 19, 2021 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
When it comes to caddies on Tour, LaCava is as good as it gets. The same can be said for Cantlay, 31, who is currently ranked No. 4 in the world and has finished inside the top five three times this year, with an additional nine top-25 finishes in 11 starts. With that talent comes a spotlight, which illuminated his deliberate approach to the game that fans have had fun calling out over recent weeks.
Cantlay isn’t sure why more people are talking about slow play now, but he is confident that if there is a problem, it’s not because of him.
“If you really wanted to make guys play faster, you would put the tees up and you would put easier hole locations and the greens would roll at 10 if you really wanted it to, and you hope it never blew more than 10 miles an hour,” he explained. “When you get really tricky days and the greens are really fast and the hole locations are on lots of slope, it’s going to take a longer time to play.”
“But like I’ve said before, rounds on Tour have pretty much taken the same amount of time for a number of years now and I don’t think they’re going to set up the golf course in a way, like I said, to make rounds, you know, go a lot faster.”
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PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is on hand this week for the Tour’s ninth designated event of the season, and he told Cantlay the Zurich Classic, a team event that featured an alternate-shot format for the final round, finished 24 minutes ahead of schedule.
“He said no one was complaining that they finished too early,” Cantlay quipped.
Cantlay isn’t concerned about whether or not he’s criticized for his pace of play, but he is rather concerned about the proposed rollback of the golf ball. A representative from the USGA reached out to get his opinion on the idea and the UCLA grad didn’t hold back: “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“I don’t think that it would help the game. I think bifurcation’s really bad for the game,” he explained. “I think one of the best things about our game is that all the people that play at my home club can play the exact same equipment that I do and that’s different than pretty much any other sport.”
“I imagine that the best players are still going to be the best players. If anything, it probably gives more advantage to the guys that hit it far,” said Cantlay. “If they dialed it back how they’re talking about, there’s a lot of guys that would no longer get to a number of par 5s out here, but the guys that can get to those par 5s are still — the guys that get there now with long irons are going to be able to get there with 5-woods or 3-woods. So I think if anything, if they roll it back, the guys that hit it far will get an increased advantage.”
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