A pair of caddies are taking their talents to the Saudi-backed league.
LIV Golf’s Phil Mickelson and Caleb Surratt have dipped into the PGA Tour caddie ranks for not one but two regular caddies, sources tell Golfweek.
Mickelson announced on social media that his younger brother, Tim, who had served as his caddie for the past eight years including during the 2021 PGA Championship victory at Kiawah, has retired as his caddie. But he didn’t name a replacement. Golfweek has learned that veteran caddie Jon Yarbrough will be on the bag starting next week at the LIV Golf Miami event and the following week at the Masters.
Yarbrough, who has caddied for more than 20 years and for Scott Stallings for the past decade, won’t be on the bag for him this week at the Tour event in Houston. Yarbrough has previously caddied for the likes of Gary Woodland, Bill Haas, Smylie Kaufman and on the LPGA for Kelly Robbins, Morgan Pressel and Suzann Pettersen. Stallings, 39, made the Tour Championship in 2022 but is winless since the 2014 Farmers Insurance Open and has missed the cut in five of eight starts this season. Stallings is expected to have his swing coach on his bag this week. According to a source, Stallings and Yarbrough are very close, but the amount of guaranteed money offered “was incredible.” Reached via phone, Yarbrough declined to comment.
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That’s not the only LIV Golf caddie change. Caleb Surratt, who signed with LIV out of Tennessee earlier this year and joined Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII, has wooed Brian Dilley, another veteran Tour caddie, who had been on the bag of Akshay Bhatia, to take over for him. Dilley is tight with Adam Hayes, the caddie for Rahm, and likely had a role in linking Surratt and Dilley together.
“I’m still learning, growing, and working on everything that I’m beginning to see what I need as a player in order to grow and be able to compete to the highest level, and I think Brian Dilley‘s gonna be able to help me get to that point,” Surratt wrote via text of Dilley, who has worked with Aaron Wise, Billy Horschel, and the LPGA’s Gerina Piller, among others. “He has caddied at an extremely high-level for longer than I’ve been alive, and undoubtably will be a great set of eyes to have on my golf game. Everyone on my team around me, speaks very highly of him, and I’m very excited to get to work with him in the coming weeks. It’s been a very enjoyable ride so far, and I’m excited to keep learning myself, and learning professional golf game, and eventually grow to be one of the best players in the world.”
The win is List’s second on Tour and first since January 2022.
JACKSON, Miss. — Luke List stood nearby as PGA Tour rookie and Ryder Cup champion Ludvig Aberg sent the first putt of a five-man playoff toward the hole on No. 18 at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
When waiting to hit a 43-foot putt of your own, any help on a read is worthwhile.
So List watched, just like the fans gathered in the grandstands as the sun set behind Country Club of Jackson. Then, he stepped up and nailed the putt of a lifetime.
The crowd erupted before quickly silencing for the remaining three shots in the playoff. When Ben Griffin, Scott Stallings and Henrik Norlander missed their birdie attempts, the victory was sealed. For List, it secured his second career PGA Tour win and first since Jan. 29, 2022, when he won the Farmers Insurance Open in a playoff.
“This is why we play and compete,” List said afterward on the broadcast. “For these moments.”
List finished 18 under for the tournament after carding 2-under 70 on Sunday. He entered the final round four shots back of Griffin.
List opened his week with back-to-back rounds of 66 and shot 68 on Saturday. It seemed like he’d come up shot of victory Sunday. However, with Griffin carding a pair of bogeys across his final three holes, the field opened up for a five-man playoff — the first on the PGA Tour since 2017.
“I thought I played really well all day and just hung in there,” List said. “I didn’t think it was going to be enough, but here we are. I’m so happy to be here.”
List was so convinced that his tournament was over at the end of regulation that he gave his hat to a kid while walking off the No. 18 green. However, as Griffin started to let the lead slip, List realized he needed the hat back.
He found the kid, who was glad to let him wear it for the playoff. After the trophy presentation, the hat was rewarded to the kid again.
“I’ve got another hat in the locker room, so it wouldn’t have been the end of the world,” List said. “But that one did me right.”
List’s 4-year-old daughter Ryann was the first to meet him on the 18th green after the playoff ended. His wife Chloe and his 2-year-old son Harrison, who was in the midst of enjoying a red lollipop, followed closely behind. As he lifted both kids, he leaned in to give Chloe a kiss.
As he leaned back, List’s eyes opened wide as he looked around at the scene.
“All my emotion came out after that putt, and then it was a shock − really, still is,” List said. “To have them there means everything.”
The Sanderson Farms Championship works closely with Friends of Children’s Hospital, which is a nonprofit organization benefiting Children’s of Mississippi − the state’s only children’s hospital.
That’s significant for List, whose son Harrison was born prematurely and battled health issues. The family, which resides in Augusta, Georgia, spent much of its time at Children’s Hospital of Georgia. Because of that, List took a break from play between mid-June and mid-July in 2021.
Now, he’s back on the PGA Tour, where he has collected two wins since his return, and his son is growing to love the game. Plus, the sport has now given them a Sanderson Farms Championship trophy — fittingly, a rooster — to take home.
“My daughter has been kind of on me (saying) it’s time to win another trophy,” List said. “She really enjoyed the surfboard at Torrey Pines. I told her earlier in the week there was a rooster or chicken or whatever you want to call it. She’s pretty excited.”
Two men, same name, but very different reasons for being at the 87th Masters this week.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Two men, same name, but very different reasons for being at the 87th Masters this week.
Scott Stallings, the 38-year-old PGA Tour pro in his 13th season on the circuit, hadn’t earned a spot in the Masters since 2014 until he nearly won the BMW Championship in August and qualified for the 30-man field at the Tour Championship, which earns an exemption for the Masters in April. The Other Scott Stallings, which is how the golfer Scott Stallings lists him in his phone, is a 60-year-old realtor from Atlanta, who had entered the annual Masters lottery for tickets with little luck.
But on New Year’s Eve, he and his wife, Jenny, who coincidentally shares a name with Scott Stallings the golfer’s wife, went to their vacation home in St. Simons Island, Georgia, and noticed a UPS envelope by the door. Jenny ripped it open and announced, “We have tickets to the Masters.”
She read a little closer and realized it wasn’t tickets to the Masters, it was an invitation to play in the Masters.
“Anything can go through your head, like, wow, what if I just showed up with my clubs and got on the course,” Scott, the realtor said during a phone interview. “We knew right away that we had to get it into his hands.”
Apparently, there are 20,000 people with the name Stallings in America. Stallings, the golfer, had never updated the new address of his management firm in St. Simons Island with Augusta National. The UPS driver knew there wasn’t a Scott Stallings at the address on the label and did the next best thing: delivered the over-sized envelope containing the Masters invite to the address of the Scott Stallings he did know, assuming it must be for him.
In the meantime, Scott Stallings, the golfer was beginning to wonder where his invite to the season’s first major could be.
“I just thought my wife had it and she was trying to surprise me,” he said. “She goes, ‘I promise on our children that I do not have this invitation you’re looking for.’ ”
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Scott Stallings, the realtor’s wife, went on Instagram and sent pictures via direct message to Scott Stallings, the golfer, as proof of the mix up. The note began, please read, this is not a joke.
And that’s how Scott Stallings finally received his Masters invite with an assist from Scott Stallings, the realtor.
When it showed up, Stallings the golfer took a video during which his wife piped up and said, “I told you I didn’t have it.”
One good deed deserves another, and on Sunday, Scott Stallings the golfer met Scott Stallings the realtor not far from where the Masters will be contested. The golfer gave the realtor badges for Monday and Tuesday practice rounds, and presented them with a gift, framing the original invitation that he had received in the mail. He signed it, “Thank You. From one Scott Stallings to the next.”
Scott Stallings, the realtor, followed Scott Stallings, the golfer, on the second nine at Augusta National with TV cameras from Atlanta news stations in tow.
“Everyone within shouting distance reacted,” Scott the realtor said. “Are you that guy? Yeah, I’m that guy,” he said.
“It’s been surreal,” Jenny, the wife of Scott the realtor said.
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About the only negative from the experience has been the response from Augusta National, which left it to Stallings to make right. (He also invited them to a fundraising dinner he hosted for the Tennessee Golf Foundation in which a chef from back home fired up a Green Egg and grilled a feast of beef, chicken, pulled pork and all the fixings.)
“I think they took it the wrong way as if they were at fault,” Scott the realtor said. “It was a feel-good story. We had no intention of it going viral the way it did. He tweeted it out and it exploded.”
Scott the golfer remembers that after he re-tweeted the humorous tale of his missing Masters invite, his phone exploded with messages. “I woke up and I was like, Who died?”
The story went viral and Scott the realtor enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame.
“After about three-four calls from Augusta National, they were like hey, man, can you calm this guy down? It’s like I’m not in charge of another grown man,” Scott the golfer said. “Neither of us thought it was going to get the attention that it did.”
Scott Stallings, the realtor, hanging out at Augusta National with wife Jenny after Scott Stallings, the golfer, arranged for practice-round tickets on Monday and Tuesday for the 87th Masters. (Courtesy The Stallings)
So, he took it upon himself to celebrate the fact that the two Scotts had finally made it to the promised land.
“You just don’t see stuff like that anymore. More often than not, people are looking out for themselves,” Scott the golfer said. “I told him, he restored my faith in humanity.”
Without badges for the actual tournament, Scott the realtor and his wife, Jenny, were driving home late Tuesday afternoon but the Masters won’t be far from their minds.
“We’ll be glued to the TV,” he said. “We do want to see Scott win the Masters this year. It’s in the stars.”
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In Scott Stallings’ case, that means his Masters invitation.
You might remember last week, three-time PGA Tour winner Scott Stallings was patiently waiting for his invite to play at Augusta National in April in the first major of the year. Yet it never arrived.
Instead, it went to Scott Stallings, who happens to share the same name as the professional golfer but doesn’t have quite the skills.
The other Stallings, an Atlanta realtor, received the golfer’s invite by mistake and shared it on social media, quickly going viral. Nothing to fret, however, as the golfer Stallings received his invitation from the realtor Stallings in the mail after the hilarious mixup.
On Monday, Scott Stallings posted a tweet that quickly made its way through the golf world.
A different Scott Stallings received the PGA Tour pro’s Masters invite and reached out through DMs to get the letter back in the mail. An unreal coincidence, and an unreal story.
The pro’s tweet leads our social media roundup this week, as does a first look at the upcoming TaylorMade Stealth 2. And since we’re back at Kapalua, it’s only right to look back at the incredible 2000 dual between Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.
Spoiler alert: Tiger won.
Check out some of the best social media posts from the past week below.
If you share a name with a professional golfer, check your mail, you might have a Masters invitation waiting for you.
Let’s set the scene: Imagine you’re three-time PGA Tour winner Scott Stallings.
You haven’t won since 2014 but last season you finished runner-up at the BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs and earned a career-high seven top-10 finishes. For your efforts you took home a cool $3,933,593 over the season, but more importantly you finished top 30 in the race for the FedEx Cup, earning an invitation to the 2023 Masters.
Stallings finished T-27 in his Masters debut in 2012 and missed the cut in his only other appearance in 2014, so one can only imagine he’s been checking the mail for his cordial invitation from Augusta National like Clark Griswold waiting for his holiday bonus in Christmas Vacation.
Augusta National sent the invitation to Stallings, just the wrong one.
Literally had been checking the mailbox five times a day and then I got this random DM today 🫠 pic.twitter.com/X8UBRN1gNs
This case of mistaken identity is so darn funny. And it has a great, honest ending.
Every professional golfer’s dream is qualifying for the Masters and that dream really doesn’t become a reality until you receive your official invitation in the mail.
PGA Tour veteran Scott Stallings qualified for this year’s tournament and has been going crazy checking the mail for an invitation that hasn’t yet arrived.
Well, there’s a funny story behind the delay. The folks at Augusta National apparently sent the beautiful invitation to a random guy who is also named Scott Stallings. Imagine finding that in your mailbox one day!?
Scott Stallings the pro golfer found this out when he checked his DMs on Twitter. This is pretty incredible:
Literally had been checking the mailbox five times a day and then I got this random DM yesterday 🫠 pic.twitter.com/yMvUYm3ioK
That’s amazing. And what a nice guy that other Scott Stallings is. I probably would have just shown up on tournament week with my clubs and tried my best to get in.
“(The Tour Championship) was my No. 1 goal to start the year,” said Stallings, who vaulted to No. 12 in standings.
WILMINGTON, Del. – Scott Stallings isn’t a numbers guy, but when he saw PGA Tour rookies Harry Higgs, Maverick McNealy and Robby Shelton qualify for the 2019 BMW Championship by finishing in the top 70 and he didn’t yet again, Stallings realized those three players shared one common trait: a stats coach.
“I need to know what you did with them that’s going to help me,” Stallings told Hunter Stewart, a former player turned stats guru.
Three years later, after hiring Stewart, Stallings not only made it to the BMW Championship this week, held at the south course at Wilmington Country Club in the First State for the first time, he nearly won the tournament, shooting a final-round 2-under 69 to finish second to Patrick Cantlay on Sunday.
But there was a pretty sweet consolation prize for Stallings, who in his 12th year on Tour booked his first trip to the Tour Championship, which is reserved for the top 30 in the season-long FedEx Cup point standings.
“That was my No. 1 goal to start the year,” said Stallings, who entered the week at No. 47 and vaulted to No. 12 in the FedEx Cup. “To compete with the best players in the world and make it to East Lake was better late than never, I guess.”
Stallings, 37, opened with a pair of 68s and climbed within a stroke of the lead with a 66 on Saturday as he searched for his first victory since the 2014 Farmers Insurance Open. Stallings tied for the lead early with a 6-foot birdie putt at the third hole, but gave a stroke back with a bogey at the fifth. He bounced back by stiffing a pitch from 72 yards to inside 3 feet for birdie at the sixth. Stallings built a two-stroke lead with a birdie at 11 and a bogey by Cantlay, playing a group behind him, at No. 10.
But Cantlay, who successfully defended his title and won for the eighth time in his career, carded three birdies on the way to the clubhouse, including a 6-foot putt at 17, which turned out to be the difference. Stallings made a three-putt bogey at 13 and a birdie at 14, but couldn’t buy a putt down the stretch. Stallings missed a 9-foot birdie putt at 18 to tie Cantlay, one of four birdie tries from 18 feet or less that didn’t drop.
“It did exactly what we thought it was going to do,” Stallings said of the final birdie effort, “it just did it behind the hole.”
Cantlay is the first player to successfully defend a FedEx Cup Playoff event.
WILMINGTON, Del. – Patrick Cantlay drove off with the BMW Championship trophy again.
The 30-year-old Californian made birdie at the 17th hole at the south course at Wilmington Country Club on Sunday and held on for a one-stroke victory over Scott Stallings. Cantlay shot 2-under 69 for a 72-hole total of 14-under 268 and became the first player to successfully defend a FedEx Cup Playoffs event.
A year ago, Patrick Cantlay needed six extra holes at Caves Valley to claim the BMW title en route to winning the FedEx Cup. New course, but same result as Cantlay claimed his eighth PGA Tour title and second of the season.
Cantlay won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Xander Schauffele as his partner, but hadn’t won an individual title since going back-to-back at the BMW and Tour Championship last year. Scottie Scheffler, who tied for third, will start next week in the driver’s seat at 10 under with a two-stroke lead at the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup title will be on the line.
“This is the only week of the year where you actually get strokes on the field, but I think I’ll be best suited if I just ignore that and just go out there and play my game and do my best,” Scheffler said.
Patrick Cantlay plays a second shot on the eighth hole during the final round of the BMW Championship at Wilmington Country Club on August 21, 2022 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Cantlay will start in second place, two strokes back of Scheffler in the staggered-start leaderboard; no player has ever defended the FedEx Cup title.
“I’m in a really good spot,” Cantlay said. “It’ll be a little different type of a challenge this year, obviously, being two behind Scottie. He’s played a lot of great golf this year, so I expect the same. But it’s a golf course I really like, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Stallings, who closed in 69, was seeking his fourth PGA Tour title and first since the 2014 Farmers Insurance Open. He missed a 9-foot birdie putt at 18 that would have tied Cantlay.
“It did what exactly we thought it was going to do, it just did it behind the hole,” Stallings said.
But the 37-year-old Stallings, who started the week No. 47 in the points standings, did succeed in booking his first trip to the Tour Championship, which is reserved for the top 30 in the season-long FedEx Cup point standings, in his 12th year on Tour.
“That was my number one goal to start the year,” Stallings said. “To compete with the best players in the world and make it to East Lake was better late than never, I guess.”
Cantlay opened with a pair of 68s and then surged into the lead with a hole-out eagle at 14 and overcame missing some short putts on Saturday to shoot 65.
In the final round, he trailed Stallings by two strokes after making his second bogey of the day at No. 10, but he was rock-solid from there. He made three birdies on his way to the clubhouse, with birdies at Nos. 11, 14 and 17. The last of the bunch included a 351-yard drive that benefited from a good bounce as his blast landed short of the bunker, hopped over the sand, wangled its way through the first cut and into the fairway just 64 yards from the hole. From there, he wedged to 6 feet.
“Maybe one of the best breaks I’ve gotten coming down the stretch, and when you get a break like that you need to pay it off, and fortunately I did,” Cantlay said.
But after a wayward drive into a fairway bunker, Cantlay still needed one more trick up his sleeves to close out the win. He hit a big slice 8-iron from 158 yards, which found the green 47 feet away.
“It came off almost exactly how I would have pictured it, how I visualized it,” he said.
In the tournament within the tournament to finish in the top 30 in the points and qualify for the FedEx Cup finale next week at the Tour Championship, K.H. Lee, who finished as the odd man out last year at No. 31, made birdie at the first four holes and shot 65 to jump from No. 35 at the start of the day to No. 26. Rookie Sahith Theegala made birdies on four of his final seven holes to shoot 68 and finish No. 28. Australia’s Adam Scott scrambled for par out of a greenside bunker at the last that kept him in the top 30 (No. 29) and prevented Ireland’s Shane Lowry to qualify for next week in Atlanta for the first time in his career. Aaron Wise squeaked in at No. 30 despite a final-round 73, 19 points ahead of Lowry.
“I guess that’s the beauty of the FedEx Cup Playoffs the way they are,” Scott said. “You can scratch it around a lot for the year and have a couple good weeks and get heavily rewarded by getting to East Lake and being in that top 30 and all the perks that come with it.”
WILMINGTON, Del. – Patty Ice sure warms up for the BMW Championship.
A year ago, Patrick Cantlay needed six extra holes at Caves Valley to claim the title en route to winning the FedEx Cup. New course – Wilmington Country Club’s South Course is this year’s host venue – but through 54 holes, it’s still the Patty Ice Show. He’s on the verge of becoming the first player to successfully defend a FedEx Cup Playoffs event.
Cantlay holed out a lob wedge from 108 yards for eagle at the par-5 14th hole to jump into the lead and birdied 18 to shoot 6-under 65 for a one-stroke lead over Xander Schauffele and Scott Stallings.
Cantlay reeled in three birdies on his front nine but took three putts from 32 feet at 11 for his first bogey. He bounced back with consecutive birdies before his eagle heroics. At 14, Cantlay walked to the green and visualized his third shot to the front-hole location, flighted the ball perfectly and it spun back into the hole. The crowd went wild.
“It was downwind and just got lucky and fed off the slope perfect, right in,” he said.
On 17, Cantlay made another miscue with the putter, missing his first putt of the season from 3 feet or less. According to stat maven Justin Ray, Cantlay was the second player all season to shoot 65 or less despite missing three putts from inside 5 feet (Scott Brown at the 3M Open was the other).
“The greens are a little beat up and it probably wasn’t a good stroke, so I’ll go take care of that after the round, practice a little bit,” he said. “It’s very unlike me, and things like that happen.”
But Cantlay didn’t let the bogey spoil his round. He nearly spun another lob wedge into the hole at 18. This one sucked back and stopped 8 feet past the hole. Cantlay was dialed in, leading the field in proximity to the hole during the third round, averaging 25 feet, six inches. For good measure, he canned the putt to regain the solo lead and tied for the low round of the day (with three other players).
“I thought a little past and to the left it would come back off that slope,” he said. “The only thing I was concerned about was spinning it too much coming back down the slope.”
Cantlay, 30, won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with Schauffele as his partner, but hasn’t won an individual title since going back-to-back at the BMW and Tour Championship last year. He’s in position to repeat at the BMW and be in the driver’s seat for the FedEx Cup title; no player has ever defended that title.
“You know, my head is not even there right now,” Cantlay said. “I think the best way to handle this playoff system is to just focus on doing your best in the tournament that you’re in and not worry too much about the points. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
