Geno Bonnalie—never shy about whipping out his phone to film funny moments—captured a shuttle driver at Kapalua giving his boss, Joel Dahmen, some funny advice during a ride to the course. We’re sure the advice itself is pretty solid, but “get to the 18th hole early” isn’t exactly useful for a PGA Tour winner who is competing in the event.

Have a look and listen as Bonnalie and Dahmen do nothing to stop the guy from doling out his golf fan pearls of wisdom:

“Try to get to hole 18 an hour early to get a good seat”@Sentry_TOC #SentryTOC pic.twitter.com/ei77IZQ1iJ

— Geno Bonnalie (@GenoBonnalie) January 5, 2022

That’s good stuff. And you can’t blame the guy for not recognising Dahmen. After all, this will be his first time playing in the Sentry Tournament of Champions after picking up his maiden PGA Tour win last year.

Plus, as fellow tour pro J.T. Poston said a few years back after being mistaken for a valet at the Honda Classic, there’s a simple way to avoid these kinds of mix-ups: play better. Maybe by the end of this week, the friendly people at Kapalua will recognise Joel. Until then, though, we hope Geno keeps filming.

The post Caddie captures unsuspecting shuttle driver giving advice on watching the PGA Tour—to a PGA Tour pro appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
When Justin Thomas won the Players Championship two weeks ago, he cashed the biggest single-tournament payday on the PGA Tour, a whopping $2.7 million. By extension, his longtime caddie, Jimmy Johnson, was also well-compensated.

Typically, the going rate for a caddie on tour is a base salary of roughly $2,000 a week, plus 5 percent of the player’s earnings for a finish outside the top 25, 7 percent for a top-10 and 10 percent for a win.

If the math sounds appealing, it should. Total prize money on tour last season topped more than $400 million.

But most caddies don’t start out at the highest and most lucrative level of the game, far from it. How far?

Geno Bonnalie first landed on the bag of Joel Dahmen after Dahmen earned Korn Ferry Tour status for the 2015 season—the two have been friends since they won a two-man best-ball tournament as teens in Lewiston, Idaho, where Bonnalie’s mom called Dahmen’s mom to help arrange the pairing. With Dahmen’s playing status secure, Bonnalie pecked out an email to his friend officially applying for the job as “Joel Dahmen’s caddie” and the rest was history.

That’s not to suggest the road has been easy or profitable. Quite the contrary, particularly early on.

“The #1 question I get asked when people find out I caddie for a job: ‘How much money do you make?’” Bonnalie tweeted on Sunday.

The #1 question I get asked when people find out I caddie for a job:
“How much money do you make?”

A thread…

— Geno Bonnalie (@GenoBonnalie) March 21, 2021

And thus began the insightful if not entertaining thread.

“I was working a desk job making just over 50k a year, when Joel won the money list on the Mackenzie Tour and got KFT status,” Bonnalie said.

That job, by the way? An “export coordinator” for a company called Vista Outdoor, Bonnalie explained via text. “I shipped ammo to foreign countries,” he said.

More daunting was the money he was about to make, or not make.

Bonnalie’s starting salary that first year on Dahmen’s bag: $850 a week and 7 percent of Dahmen’s earnings, he explained. Their first event together was in Leon, Mexico. Bonnalie said the flight cost a little more than $800, then there was accommodation and food. Dahmen shot 77-74 to miss the cut.

“The first few events were one week on, one week off, which meant flights back to Idaho after each event (very cheap),” Bonnalie continued. “Our first made cut came at our 3rd event in South Carolina. Not sure what place we finished in [T-64], but my additional income was $118. I remember being SO happy. It was the first time in 3 weeks that I didn’t order the cheapest thing on the menu at dinner (cause I was so rich).

“Joel and I both were very conscientious of our spending throughout the year (because you had to be), but I never remember thinking that we were absolutely destitute.”

Still, along the way Bonnalie mowed lawns and did other odd jobs on his off weeks. He also did what he could to save as much as possible on the road, whether it was travelling with a frying pan and hot plate and buying a rotisserie chicken, pack of tortillas and cheese at Walmart, or crashing at seedy hotels.

“Any Knights Inn or Red Roof Inn are all pretty bad,” he told Golf Digest when asked about the worst of his accommodations. “I never really minded, though. As long as there was a shower and a spot to sleep, I didn’t really care what it was like. I never felt unsafe, though I probably should have.”

By year’s end, Bonnalie had worked 19 events for Dahmen, whose best finish was a tie for 10th at the Price Cutter Charity Championship. Dahmen’s payday: $14,962, which equated to a little more than $1,000, plus the weekly base rate, for Bonnalie. For the year, Bonnalie earned $20,635.53, though he said he’s sure that he ended up in the red.

“I’m positive I lost money for the year, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made,” the now 37-year-old said on Twitter. “I’m thankful to have a boss who is really freaking talented, and a wife who is the most patient person I know.”

MORE: Caddie Confidential: Helen Storey takes us inside the ropes with Lee Westwood

Things also have improved significantly since.

In 2017, Dahmen made it to the PGA Tour and earned a little more than $300,000. The years since have been even better. In each of the last four seasons, Dahmen has racked up at least $1.4 million in earnings, including a career-best $2.1 million in 2020 when he tallied five top-10s and missed the cut just four times in 22 starts.

And with that, Bonnalie had one, final parting thought: “Now please stop asking me how much I make, unless you tell me what you make first.”

The post This Twitter thread from a PGA Tour caddie will make you think twice about becoming a PGA Tour caddie appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Sam Weinman
There’s always an element of intrigue to how PGA Tour caddies get to where they are. There is no draft, or formal application process. Very often the men and women who land a bag on tour point to a hybrid of good timing and persistence, with the occasional “No one else was around” thrown in as well.

The journey for Geno Bonnalie, the caddie for Joel Dahmen the last five years, wasn’t much different. The two men grew up near each other in Idaho, and were already friends. But in Bonnalie’s case, there actually was a job application—at least if you count the plaintive email Bonnalie sent Dahmen in 2014 laying out why he was the right man for the job. The email, which Bonnalie shared as part of a candid first-person essay for The Caddie Network about his journey to the tour, is a fascinating window into the player-caddie relationship, and what the two value from each other.

You should read the whole story to understand just how devoted Bonnalie is to go, but as far as takeaways for other prospective caddies, Bonnalie’s missive serves as a decent blueprint.

For starters, it always helps to be unambiguous with your intentions, as Bonnalie does here: “I would like to officially apply for the position of ‘Joel Dahmen’s Caddie’ for the Web.com & PGA TOUR. I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I don’t want to put any pressure on you to hire me, I just want to explain why I would be a good fit for the job and let you decide.”

Then you need to detail why you deserve the job: “I don’t think you realize how much I love golf, everything about it. It literally consumes my thoughts. I promise you that no one would work harder than I would. I will be at the course earlier than everyone, I will be a charting/documenting machine.”

A caddie would also be wise to explain how he won’t put undue financial pressure on the player (extra credit for offering to live out of a Honda Civic) by living frugally: “I already have a plan to get rid of my truck and buy a Honda Civic and modify it to be my house. I have also looked at the schedule and know that there are some weeks where it is over 1,000 miles to the next location. That’s okay. That’s only 16 hours & $125 in gas… easy. I know there would be a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my future, but I have a way of surviving on nothing. I made it through college, J.”

Of course, just to prove you’re not desperate, you need to make clear you have your own standards as well: “I do have some requirements from you, though, if you do consider me for this: 1. I expect you to give it 100% every week; 2. Never give up; 3. Be completely honest with me at all times.”

To read the email,  it’s no surprise that Bonnalie landed where he did, and it seems to be working out for Dahmen as well. Last season was his best on tour with $1.476 million in earnings, and he’s on pace to exceed that in 2018-19.

The post Read the email a caddie sent that landed him a job on tour appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Joel Dahmen’s profile received a heightened spotlight thanks to a weekend pairing with Tiger Woods. The 30-year-old journeyman grabbed attention for a different reason Sunday night.

In the final round of the Quicken Loans National, Dahmen was paired with Sung Kang. On the 10th hole at TPC Potomac, Kang’s second shot found the hazard. What followed was a bizarre, rarely-seen sequence on tour.

Kang believed his ball crossed the hazard, giving him a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. Dahmen disputed the account, asserting Kang’s ball failed to cross. The argument continued for so long that the group behind the duo, Ben Crane and Ryan Palmer, played through.

A rules official eventually sided with Kang, as the South Korean player was allowed to take a drop on the side of the hazard closer to the hole. He would save par on the 10th and turned in a six-under 64, a score that translated to a T-3 finish that earned him an invite to the 2018 Open Championship.

Dahmen, however, continued to feel Kang’s drop was unjust, airing his grievances on Twitter Sunday night.

When asked why Palmer and Crane played through, Dahmen was blunt: “Kang cheated. He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue. I lost.”

This accusation quickly drew follow-up inquiries on the matter, and Dahmen was happy to oblige. “It was a typical dispute about where or if it crossed the hazard,” he said. “It clearly did not cross the hazard. We went back and forth for 25 minutes and he ended up dropping closer to the green.”

In spite of his protest, Dahmen said he had to sign the card. “At that point there is nothing I can do. If I don’t sign the card, a rules official will. I would just be delaying the inevitable.”

Dahmen’s caddy Geno Bonnalie backed up his player, and confirmed the argument on the 10th. “We didn’t agree on the spot where it ‘crossed,’” he said.

Though the Rules of Golf 26-1/15—Procedures for Relief from Lateral Water Hazard allow a player to drop from the last point where the ball rolled into the hazard, Dahmen maintains 26-1/21—Example of Serious Breach of Lateral Water Hazard Rule was at play. But unless video proves Kang wrong, the ruling from the official that allowed Kang to take his drop stands.

The PGA Tour and Dahmen’s representatives have not yet responded to comment on the accusation, while attempts to reach Kang proved unsuccessful. Dahmen, a cancer survivor, has made 14 cuts on tour this season.

UPDATE — 11:30 a.m.: Kang’s representatives have responded to Dahmen’s accusations through the PGA Tour’s communication staff:

“He is standing by the ruling that was made by PGA Tour Rules officials on Sunday and will have no further comment, other than he is looking forward to focusing on finishing out the season strong, and he is excited about the opportunity to play in the Open Championship again in a few weeks.”

11:50 a.m.: Golf Digest received the following statement from the PGA Tour:

“During Sunday’s final round of the 2018 Quicken Loans National, there was a discussion between fellow competitors Sung Kang and Joel Dahmen as to where Kang’s second shot crossed the margin of the lateral hazard at the par-5 10th hole before ultimately coming to rest in the hazard.

“A PGA Tour Rules Official handled the ruling, interviewing both players, caddies and marshals in the vicinity. The official then took Kang back to where he hit his second shot, and Kang confirmed his original belief that his shot had indeed crossed the margin of the hazard. With no clear evidence to prove otherwise, it was determined by the official that Kang could proceed with his fourth shot as intended, following a penalty stroke and subsequent drop. The PGA Tour will have no additional comment on this matter.”

This story will continue to be updated.

The post PGA Tour player accuses fellow pro of cheating at Quicken Loans National (Update: Kang, tour respond) appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.