Tiger Woods put them together first: Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau, a big-bombing dynamic duo sent out in Thursday’s four-ball matches at Royal Melbourne to kick off the 2019 Presidents Cup. Their sweaters were bright red and their bagmen’s bibs were, too. There was Finau’s caddie Greg Bodine, who’d been by Finau’s side since his rookie year on the PGA Tour. And there was DeChambeau’s caddie Tim Tucker, his partner-in-crime for eight past and future PGA Tour wins, including the following year’s U.S. Open.
Everything in the golf world has changed since then. But this sport works in mysterious ways, and as of this summer DeChambeau and Finau still employ Tucker and Bodine — they’ve just flipped employers. And their story is part of a fascinating fabric of mixing and matching happening with big-time players and caddies across the sport.
Finau and Bodine split in the summer of 2020, while DeChambeau and Tucker broke up in the summer of 2021. Each break was emotional in its own way; partnerships with this much history tend to be. So how’d they switch employers? In 2023, in the midst of the most turbulent stretch of his pro career, DeChambeau hired Bodine. And last week, searching for a missing piece, Finau hired Tucker, completing the caddie swap, six years later.
No, this wasn’t a one-for-one trade, as happens in other sports. But it was the latest fascinating turn on a caddie carousel that seems to be spinning particularly quickly this year, with high-profile players and loopers alike making real-time changes all season.
If you’ll rewind to March you’ll arrive at the year’s first surprising split, which came from Matt Fitzpatrick and Billy Foster, who’d teamed up to win the 2022 U.S. Open, the 2023 Ryder Cup and plenty more. They parted ways following the Players Championship.
Then there was Joe Greiner and Max Homa, who went their separate ways ahead of the Masters. Homa tried out Bill Harke in the weeks that followed, carried his own bag for a couple rounds and then settled in with Lance Bennett, whose former employers had included Tiger Woods.
The next was Collin Morikawa and J.J. Jakovac, who’d been together for two majors and the entirety of his PGA Tour tenure. Following their split, Morikawa hired Greiner, a logical-if-potentially-awkward move given Morikawa and Homa’s close relationship. Jakovac found a new employer in Michael Thorbjornsen, who’d been working with Bennett before he’d left to work for Homa, completing a confusing three-team trade (Greiner to Morikawa, Jakovac to Thorbjornsen, Bennett to Homa) until Greiner and Morikawa broke up several weeks later.
Golf’s greatest collective heartache came from the breakup of fan favorites and Netflix darlings Joel Dahmen and Geno Bonnalie. The two best friends had been inseparable since before Dahmen’s arrival on Tour; they called it quits in July following a trying stretch of seven missed cuts in eight weeks.
And a particularly telling split came following the Open Championship, when Joaquin Niemann broke up with his caddie (and coach) following his second consecutive major missed cut. Niemann has been brilliant on LIV, winning five times this season (four times pre-split, once more with his new caddie) but clearly wants more.
There are hundreds of other player-caddie changes that have happened in the meantime, of course — some permanent, some temporary, some hard to define. Greiner subbed in for Justin Thomas for a couple weeks in April, a well-timed move that contributed to a Signature Event win in Hilton Head. Morikawa tried out Foster for his links golf swing, though they missed the cut at both the Scottish Open and Open Championship. For part of last week and this upcoming BMW Championship, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will be without Ted Scott, who’s home tending to a family matter.
But back to our original protagonists: In July Tucker split with longtime employer Kurt Kitayama. Just a couple weeks later Finau split with longtime caddie Mark Urbanek. Kitayama found immediate success with his brother serving as fill-in replacement, while Tucker even filled in for Bodine on DeCheambeau’s bag at LIV’s event in the U.K. Finau, meanwhile, continued searching before hiring Tucker ahead of the FedEx St. Jude Championship. It’s unclear the terms of their agreement, nor when Finau will next tee it up, given he missed the final two rounds of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Morikawa, meanwhile, has hired Urbanek; he’s now gone through the ex-loopers of Homa, Fitzpatrick and Finau as part of a five-caddie season.
His and theirs are the latest saga in one of the more intriguing professions in sports, where the good times are great and the uncertain times are often and tough. Caddies are important — this much we know. But it’s tough to know exactly what makes a good one, it’s tough to know when you’ve got the right one and it’s tough to know when it’s time to move on. But it happens all the time — sometimes with your ex-caddie’s ex-employer.
