By Joel Beall
A three-time Masters winner was an unexpected add to the tournament Monday.

That would be Jim (Bones) Mackay, longtime caddie for Phil Mickelson. Mackay, who was on the bag for all three of Mickelson’s Masters triumphs, was spotted on the grounds Monday working with Jimmy Walker.

The 2016 PGA champ has employed Mackay before, with Bones helping out at the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

After parting ways with Mickelson in 2017 after 25 years together, Mackay joined NBC Sports as a commentator for its golf coverage. However, Bones has come out of retirement multiple times in the past three seasons, including fill-in loops for Justin Thomas and Matt Fitzpatrick this year.

One of those temporary gigs with Thomas led to a win at this year’s WGC-St. Jude FedEx Invitational, with Bones also caddying for Thomas at the following week’s PGA Championship while Thomas’ usual bag man, Jimmy Johnson, dealt with health issues.

Walker is hoping Bones can provide a much-needed spark. The 41-year-old Texan has missed the cut in eight of his past 10 starts, with his last top-10 finish coming in 2018. He enters the week 407th in the World Ranking.

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Jim (Bones) Mackay will bring 25 years of expertise as a caddy for Phil Mickelson to a new occupation as an on-course reporter for Golf Channel and NBC. Sources have confirmed that Mackay will sign a multi-year deal, debut at The Open Championship and work the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Presidents Cup in August and September.

“When Phil and I split up, several people got in touch,” Mackay said Tuesday in explaining how this career change happened in 16 days. “People have been nice enough over the years to say something to me about how they thought [broadcasting] was something maybe I could do at some point in my life. It was always something I’d say thank you to, and personally thought about. When Phil and I split, I got several phone calls, and it became a bigger opportunity, really seriously, the last few weeks.”

In Mackay’s account of his mutual split with Mickelson, announced on June 20, being a broadcaster was not a subject they discussed. Mackay also confirmed he received calls from several golfers about continuing his career as a caddie that in his words were “very intriguing.”

Intriguing also would be a word to describe the decision Tommy Roy, NBC’s lead producer for its golf coverage, made to put Mackay on air. From Roy’s perspective, Mackay brings more than just the caddie perspective to the job. “First of all, he’s a great communicator,” Roy said Wednesday. “That’s the No. 1 attribute you have to have to be in this business as an announcer.” Roy picked that up in years of eavesdropping on conversations between Mickelson and Mackay during NBC broadcasts.

No. 2 is that Bones has been in the arena, as Roy said, “Under the most pressure packed circumstances, and to get through those with the highest highs and some of the lowest lows is an incredible wealth of experience to call on.”

No. 3 is something Roy experienced making Mackay and fellow caddie John Wood part of the Golf Channel and NBC coverage of the 2015 RSM Classic. Coming through that week on Sea Island, and in dinners Roy has shared with Mackay over the years, was Mackay’s understanding of the story lines beyond what he and Mickelson were doing, seeing the bigger picture at tournaments.

“To have that before getting into the TV business is astounding quite honestly,” Roy said. “So he’s got all these attributes that he can put to use and we can put them to use.”

Finally, there is the element of Mackay being a recognizable and well-respected personality in the golf world. “He’s as well known and maybe more known than some of the players and he’s very likeable, too,” Roy said. “There’s a ton of potential here.”

These words are flattering to Mackay.

“The first thing I’ll say is, I obviously have a ton to learn,” Mackay said. “Early on, my only goal is to get comfortable and get better. But for what I could bring is a caddie perspective, I may have something more to say about the dynamic of player and caddie going on out there. But again I have a lot to learn. Right now, it’s just a question of jumping in with both feet and learning as much as I possibly can, as quickly as I can.”

Interestingly, too, with his schedule, there remains the potential for Mackay to do some caddieing while also broadcasting. “I don’t think it rules anything out,” Mackay said. “I’m going to be working 20-odd weeks a year. I think being a caddie is always going to be in my blood, but right now it’s one thing at a time.”

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By John Strege

Stories of interest you might have missed…

Phil Mickelson, a San Diego native, first had Jim Mackay caddie for him at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 1992, and San Diego Union-Tribune golf writer Tod Leonard was there, as well as over the next 25 years. He writes in this story on the end of the Mickelson-Mackay pairing:

As a pair, their verbal dances as they analyzed shots or putts were highly entertaining. There were times when it seemed they didn’t need to speak to be on the same wavelength.

“An unbelievable team,” San Diegan Dennis Paulson said Tuesday.

He played alongside Mickelson on the PGA Tour and in retirement has followed him dozens of times as an on-course commentator.

“It’s the communication factor,” Paulson said. “They were both really smart. They both thought outside of the box. It was important for Phil to have somebody who saw shots like ‘Bones’ did. You could see that from the beginning.

“The fact that you had a caddie who could say, ‘You want to skip what off of what?’ … If Bones hadn’t been that way from the very beginning, they wouldn’t have lasted.”

Mickelson was from Mars, Mackay from Venus, and they ruled in their own universe.

A college practice facility as good as Augusta National’s?

San Jose State’s new practice facility has made a splash, San Jose Mercury News columnist Mark Purdy writes, even evoking a comparison with Augusta National.

“Can you believe this?” Roger Maltbie, who played golf at San Joes State, said. “It’s like walking out on the driving range and practice area for the first time when you first get to Augusta on Monday morning. It’s like, ‘Wow.’”

Writes Purdy: “The setup is indeed impressive, even if I personally wouldn’t go quite as far over the top in my description of the facility. Augusta National’s practice grounds are not under threat from San Jose State. But I must admit, the transformation of the university’s former soccer practice field and baseball field into a state-of-the-art golf experimental lab does tend to blow you away.”

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