Professional Golf Caddie, PGA Tour

My name is Joe LaCava and I'm a PGA Tour Caddie. I started out with Ken Green, who was also from Danbury, Connecticut in 1987. Then I had Fred Couples for 20 plus years, and now I'm with Tiger Woods. Well, the tee times come out Tuesday afternoon, and then I normally get there two, to two and a half hours before our tee time. And Tiger, my most recent guy, he's usually an hour fifteen to an hour and a half before his tee time he gets there and he'll putt and chip and he'll hit balls on the range. I'll grab a pin sheet, and that tells us where the pins are every day, and I'll go over that and I'll give that to him. We discuss certain holes where the pins are and stuff like that. We'll kind of get a little bit of a game plan for the day, but nothing crazy. Then we're both constantly on our Weather Underground app checking the winds. We wanna know which holes gonna be in the wind, downwind, crosswind. Like I said, we have a little bit of a game plan, but you're always gonna adjust because the wind will change, conditions will change, and stuff like that. But, you do discuss a little bit of the round before you go out. Once it finally comes to game time, my normal routine is I get the number. What I call the number, I get the yards to the holes. So, he hits his tee ball, and then he'll get out there. Then I have the benefit of getting the number first, because I have it before he has it. Then I give him all the information. So, I'll say, "You've got 174 yards to the flag, you got 168 to carry the bunker, the flag is six paces over the bunker. So, I have all that information, I know where the wind is most of the time. I'm already in my head, knowing what I think he's gonna hit, or he should hit. Once I give him the information a couple things will happen. He says, "What do you like?" That's when I'll say, "Seven iron." Or he'll say, "What are you thinking? " Or he'll say, "Do you like seven?" And if I'm already thinking seven, then of course I'll say the same thing. If I'm thinking six or eight, then we discuss why and then we gotta come to a conclusion on which club to hit. That's my routine from day to day on the golf course. When I get out there, and there's a bunker that's 290 yards to it, and it's blowing into the wind, he may ask me, "Can I get to that bunker, "can I reach the bunker?" And I gotta know if he can reach the bunker or not. Or if he can carry the bunker and stuff like that. I gotta know how the golfer is playing that day. And what his mental state is. It is a little bit of a psychology thing too, because sometimes when you gotta pump the guy up if he's down in the dumps. And sometimes you leave 'em alone and sometimes you get after them. The guy that I'm presently working for, Tiger Woods, believe it or not, everyone obviously knows his name. He lacks a little bit of confidence right now 'cause he hasn't played much lately. He's been injured. So he's, I don't wanna use the word fragile, but he needs a kick in the butt once in a while, in a good way. He's never not gonna try, he's never not gonna grind it out, but I gotta reinforce the fact that, "Look, you're the best player in the world, "no one can beat you." And he needs to hear that. People are shocked when I tell them that, I said, "But it's true right now." Just because, like I said, right now he's not quite at the top of the world, confidence-wise. And I have to kind of beat that into him. I've always gotta have a lot of information. He always wants to know where the wind is, how the hole played the day before, short, longs better. He always wants a lot of information. Where I worked for Fred for 21 years, he didn't need a lot of information. He was a field player, and didn't want a whole lot of numbers. Almost like, it didn't confuse him, but he just didn't want all that stuff in his head. Tiger's the other way around, he likes to break it all down. One time he gave me the old, 'cause a lot of times we used a clock, 'cause his dad was a military guy, so where the winds coming from. One time he have me the old 10:15. I said, "Well, hang on a second partner, "I can't tell you 10:15, "I can tell you 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, "maybe 10:30 but I can't tell you "if the winds coming from 10:15." He's very detailed oriented, so I've learned to be more detailed oriented. Versus Fred where he didn't need a whole lot of information. Tiger goes in streaks. Right now he's on the peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He's always gotta have a couple in there 'cause he likes to eat all day. I have the almonds in there, you gotta always have plenty of water. He's got the energy drinks going. And then, obviously, depending on the weather, that'll dictate whether you have the rain suit in there or not, the umbrella and stuff like that. I always have nine golf balls, which is way too many. But, I'm thinking to myself, the last thing I need to do is run out of golf balls. Extra gloves, and stuff like that, and that's it. I mean, just the basics. But you gotta have all that stuff ready to go. And maybe some extra spikes and stuff like that. But other than that, that's it. The only thing I do when I'm not at an actual event, lately I've been going down to Tiger's place in Florida and working with him and doing some practice while he gets ready and comes back from these injuries. But in terms of actually preparing for a golf course or a match, no nothing like that. I do all my work once I get to town, like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. And there's a Pro Am on Wednesday and Thursday through Sunday's the tournament. That's when I do all my heavy lifting and my work. If I'm not at an event, I'm not doing anything in regards to the tour events and stuff like that. In terms of promotional stuff, I do some side stuff. I play some golf with clients and stuff like that. And do some dinner stuff like that, some speeches, but nothing crazy but just a little to maybe get out of the house and make a little extra money, yeah.