When the LPGA kicks off its 2012 season this week at the Women’s Australian Open, first-year player Hannah Yun will have Natalie Gulbis’ former caddie, Greg Sheridan, on the bag.
“My dad…heard that he and Natalie were no longer working together so he [phoned] Greg and asked him if were willing to come out for a few days to try out,” Yun, 19, told us last week from her home in San Diego. “He stayed for 10 days and we’re going to Australia and New Zealand together.”
That would be for the LPGA’s first start of the season at Royal Melbourne Golf Course and the Ladies’ European Tour’s New Zealand Women’s Open the following week. Yun planned to play 11 or 12 tour events this season — more if she scored well enough to move up the money list. She hoped to have Sheridan — her third caddie in three months — with her for the duration.
Like fellow tour rookie Lexi Thompson, Yun had her father looping for her during her two-year stint as a professional on the Futures Tour, the LPGA’s minor leagues. Unlike Thompson, whose father Scott told us recently he would lug his daughter’s clubs “for now; that’s always up to the player,” Yun turned to outside help during the grueling five days of qualifying school finals in December.
Greg Sheridan caddied for Natalie Gulbis for eight years before hooking up with LPGA Tour rookie Hannah Yun (Photo: wikimedia.org)
“My dad was caddying for me in the first round and it was not working out,” Yun said. She made it clear she did not fire her father because the two were fighting or that he was doing a poor job, but that her elder believed he may have put too much stress on his daughter and she found it difficult to compose herself.
“It’s hard to play with the father-daughter relationship, which is different than a caddie-player relationship,” said Yun, who recited the pluses and minuses of a dad/caddie-daughter/player affiliation. “The pro is that no one knows you better than your parents. Even a slight, little movement in body language, they know what you’re thinking and feeling and they know our games and our tendencies the best.”
The downside, Yun noted, can be when golfer and caddie have differences of opinion about what club to hit and other split-second decisions that players have to make on the course.
“Its different from a player-caddie relationship because he’s your father and you’re the daughter and they want to help you and protect you and make sure you play well,” Yun said. “It’s different from a player-caddie relationship where the player is the boss and has the final say. Sometimes it’s difficult to differentiate those two.”
Yun had nothing but praise for the Lexi-Scott Thompson arrangement, which — with the 16-year-old last year becoming the youngest golfer to win an LPGA event – “is obviously working for her.” But when her own dad-kid association “just did not work out at Q-school,” she said she knew it was time for a change.
Her interim bag-hauler was Dave Andrews, a women’s golf fan and New England golfer who had met the Yun family three years ago during the Futures Tour annual stop at his home track, Beaver Meadow Golf Course in Concord, N.H. Some may remember Andrews, who has since become a Yun family friend and spends his winters in Florida, as the TV viewer who blew the virtual whistle on Camilo Villegas’ rules gaffe during the opening round of the PGA Tour’s 2011 Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
After her disappointing first round of Q-school, in which she scored a 4-over 76, Yun’s father asked Andrews, who was a spectator during the tourney at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, if he would caddy for Hannah for the next four days. The alliance worked out well, with Yun going on to shoot 74-71-72-71 — good enough for a share of 15th place and her full LPGA card for the 2012 season.
“He really helped me to relax,” Yun said of Andrews. “I’m comfortable around him. He let me have fun and let me play my game.”
Having Andrews lug her bag was always a stop-gap situation for Yun, who hoped to have a long and prosperous career alongside her new bagman. As for Sheridan, the veteran LPGA bag carrier was on Gulbis’ bag for eight years, including when she won the 2007 Evian Masters — her first and only official tour win. Tax and business consultancy McGladrey even built an ad campaign around the strong partnership between the two.
“There are some days [Greg] has to play security, some days he’s got to play counselor,” Gulbis, who put on a golf clinic last summer at Massachusetts’ The International, said in a McGladry promo. “So it has to be a friendship out there and we’re a great team.”
Now, Yun seeks that same type of bond with the long-time looper.
“I’m hoping it turns out well,” said Yun, “and we have a long career together.”
Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. View all her articles here. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer
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