Boy, does Cayce Kerr have stories to tell
The noted caddie who has carried for such major champs as Couples, Els, Green, Singh and Zoeller takes readers on a fun inside-the-ropes journey in 'Walking With Greatness.'
Long-time PGA Tour caddie Cayce Kerr is “a raconteur of the highest order,” according to a fellow caddie’s foreword in Kerr’s new book, “Walking With Greatness.”
That’s “raconteur,” not “racketeer.” Big difference. Misters Merriam and Mister Webster define a “raconteur” as a person who excels at telling anecdotes. Kerr, with help from co-author Andrew Both, lives up to that billing in a big way.
Kerr was a caddie fixture on the PGA Tour for decades from the 1970s on, working more than 1,000 tournaments and for major champions such as Fuzzy Zoeller, Hubert Green, Vijay Singh, Fred Couples, Ernie Els and others.
Kerr lived the pro caddie life to the fullest, from sleeping on hotel-room floors shared with other caddies to flying in Kevin Costner’s private jet. Being a tour caddie is just as hard, demanding, fun and rewarding as you might think. Times two.
It’s our good fortune that Kerr, retired and residing in San Antonio, decided to share his printable anecdotes. “Walking With Greatness” ($30) is not some tedious, day-by-day narrative of tournaments and days gone by. It is a series of anecdotes, often hilarious and sometimes remarkable, one at a time, just the way a caddie would maneuver his player around a course, one shot at a time. In this book, as in a round of golf, you never know what’s next.
Some of the stuff you wouldn’t believe if Kerr hadn’t seen it, heard it or lived it.
THE FAILED ASSASSINATION
While caddying for Zoeller in a PGA Tour Champions pro-am event at TPC Tampa Bay, Kerr saw comedian George Lopez leave two sand shots in the bunker at the 17th green. When a woman — and others — laughed a little too loud and a little too long, Lopez turned, aimed at her and swung, sending a missile that whistled past her face by mere inches. Wrote Kerr: “Fuzzy always has something to say, but on this occasion he was speechless. Everyone was in shock. An obviously ashamed Lopez did not say anything to us. He just held his head low, we finished the hole and went to the 18th tee. He lost my respect that day.”
LOST IN SPACE
Kerr and Hubert Green, his pro, played the Bob Hope Classic pro-am at Indian Wells and were paired with astronaut Alan Shepard. Somewhere on the back nine, Shepard noticed Kerr and Green looking up toward the adjacent mountains. “That’s what the moon looks like,” Shepard interjected. Wrote Kerr: “It was hard to argue given that neither Hubert nor I had been to the moon.”
DON’T TELL O.B. BRANDEL
One book chapter discusses unusual tour caddie nicknames, including a South African nicknamed Thirsty. His real name was Basil van Rooyen. He often worked for Frank Nobilo (of later Golf Channel fame) and referred to his pro as “Front Edge Frank” due to Nobilo’s habit of leaving putts short — but not to Nobilo’s face, of course. Wrote Kerr: “Nobilo is such a nice guy I hope he never knew.” Well, he will now.
THE $800,000 RANGEFINDER
In the mid-1990s, Kerr tumbled onto modern rangefinders during a practice round at the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills when Zoeller, his player, wanted a specific yardage for a shot.
A spectator claimed he had a technology for that, an item that measured distance with the push of a button. It sounded unlikely but six months later, Kerr contacted the fan and his research eventually led to a distribution deal with Swarovski, a renowned Austrian firm with an optical instruments division.
Kerr bought 350 rangefinders for $1,000 apiece and sold the then still-rare commodity to tour players at a premium.
Arnold Palmer paid $3,300 for one, Kerr’s going rate. Phil Mickelson bought one. Greg Norman took three. Famed stock advisor Charles Schwab agreed to buy one after a demo by Kerr, but said he couldn’t pay up immediately. Kerr figured he was good for the money and sure enough, Schwab handed him a check the next day signed by Helen Schwab, his wife.
“I won’t tell anyone who’s the real boss in your family,” Kerr told him. Kerr sold all of his stock by year’s end, a profit of $800,000-plus, and at times was traveling to tour stops with $500,000 stashed in his van. Wrote Kerr: “I only stayed in motels where I could park right outside my door. And I was packing heat, a Colt .45 pistol.”
THE FRED COUPLES STUNT DOUBLE
Kerr faced a long line at the Edinburgh airport rental car counter in Scotland while traveling to a tournament with his player, Fred Couples. Annoyed by the wait, Couples settled into a nearby chair and closed his eyes for a nap. Some American tourists, obviously golfers on a road trip, saw Kerr talking to Couples and asked if that really was the world-famous golfer.
Kerr knew how much Couples disliked dealing with fans so he told them that Couples was actually his cousin, who indeed resembled Fred, and was going through a bad divorce so he was in a foul mood and should not be disturbed. The fans bought the story and left. When Kerr later told Couples, he loved it. “You’re a beauty,” he told Kerr.
THE ULTIMATE CADDIE RECORD
Is it possible for a caddie to go 18 holes with two different players in the same round on the same weekend day at a major championship? Incredibly, the answer is yes.
Kerr pulled it off at the 1996 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills. He was on the bag for Anthony Rodriguez for the first two Open rounds. Rodriguez shot 77-71 and barely made the cut. Meanwhile, young David Berganio was just three shots off the lead with an overly excitable buddy on his bag for the first 36. Berganio, suddenly in contention, wanted a veteran tour caddie with him on the all-important weekend. Rodriguez and Berganio had third-round tee times hours apart, so Kerr was able to walk 18 holes with his guy, get a bite to eat and then go another 18 with Berganio in the afternoon.
United States Golf Association official Jeff Hall noticed and asked Kerr if he hadn’t already done 18 holes that morning. Wrote Kerr: “I wasn’t 100 percent sure you were allowed to work for two players in the same round so I told him there was another caddie who looked just like me.”
Sunday, Berganio had an outside chance to win so he asked Kerr to quit Rodriguez, who was in dead last, so he’d be fresh. Kerr dropped Rodriguez and went with Berganio, who finished 18th and holed a four-footer on the last hole to qualify for the following year’s Masters. And no, Kerr later learned, it was not against the rules to go around twice, not that anyone else in major championship history has probably ever done it.
The anecdotes never stop coming in “Walking With Greatness.” Like the time Kerr picked up a caddie known as Weed, who paid for his own bail to get out of the DeKalb County (Georgia) Jail in the wee hours of Sunday morning before the PGA Tour’s Atlanta stop’s final round. It was so late, the caddies decided to save money on a hotel room and go straight to Atlanta Country Club, where they slept peacefully on the 18th green until the grounds crew arrived after daybreak to mow that green and awakened them.
Some stories are funny, some are curious and some are simply unbelievable. “I can assure you that they all are true,” Kerr writes in the book’s introduction. “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.”
There’s plenty more, including Kerr’s view of Zoeller’s infamous “collard greens” remark and Tiger Woods’ reaction; what Vijay Singh is really like; the time Kerr accidentally got caught with 15 clubs in the bag and drew his player a four-shot penalty; and the unfortunate incident at the Masters when Ernie Els told Kerr he couldn’t feel his hands on the first green and proceeded to six-putt for a 9.
The book is full of adventures and the final pages reveal that Kerr is in the middle of another one. He was diagnosed with stage colon cancer and is undergoing treatment. “My uncle Charlie suggested that if I was ever going to put my thoughts in print, perhaps it was now or never,” Kerr wrote. “There is nothing like the prospect of dying to focus the mind, so I decided … to put down these words for posterity.”
We are in his debt for doing so. His stories paint a picture of a wily tour caddie, a lover of golf, a champion side hustler-businessman and, in the truest sense of the word, a raconteur.
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Book pub date just got pushed back to mar 25; was supposed to be mar 11 fyi
No fancy writing, just a bunch of his assorted recollections. enjoyable.