AUGUSTA, Ga. — Caroline is here for Scottie Scheffler. Gabriel is here for Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry.
But Caroline and Gabriel won’t forget Jose Maria Olazabal.
“I was super happy,” said Caroline, a 9-year-old whose favorite club is the driver.
Early Saturday afternoon, she’d been watching various players on the right side of the Augusta National driving range, along with her dad, Greg, and grandparents, Gaylon and Lauran, after already having a day at the Masters. After a drive in from Tallahassee, Florida, they’d been down to Amen Corner, snapped a photo by the clubhouse and walked the first nine. But Caroline was waiting for Scheffler.
Olazabal seemingly knew the look. Though he’d missed the cut, the two-time Masters winner was knocking golf balls on the range when he turned around.
“Jose Maria Olazabal saw her and thought she looked cute and her smile was cute,” her dad said. “So he started signing something. We didn’t think anything of it and then the next thing you know, he walks all the way over to us and hands this 58-degree wedge that’s signed by him to Caroline.”
It was also unprompted. Nothing was asked for.
What did Caroline think?
“Well, you had said before that, ‘Do you think you’re going to get anything?’” she said, referring to her dad. “I said that I don’t. And then he just started walking up, and then I’m like, you were right.”
As she was talking, Olazabel spotted Gabriel.
The 13-year-old and his dad, Angus, had flown in from Dublin, and he, too, was waiting. Hopefully, he’d see fellow Irish lads McIlroy and Lowry. Then came Olazabal to his right.
“I was watching the players go around,” Gabriel said, “and me and my dad decided to come here because we’re looking forward to seeing Rory and Shane on the range because they were both Irish. And then we just saw him walking towards us all of a sudden, and I didn’t know what he was doing. And he was just walking past me in the front row watching the range, and he just came up to me and was like, this is my sand wedge I’ve been using all season. And he just handed it to me.
“So it’s pretty overwhelming.”
Gabriel has a knack for these things. He said Jon Rahm tossed him his ball after his win here two years ago.
Asked by a reporter why he gave the clubs away, Olazabal smiled and just said they were worn. A patron nearby then shouted:
“Very kind of you.”
