Greg Bodine’s voice shook and his hands trembled. A teardrop was momentarily held in place by a cluster of his lower eyelashes before it fell down his cheek and onto his caddy bib.
Bodine’s 13-month employer, Bryson DeChambeau, has just captured the U.S. Open twice. Bodine had recently emerged as a caddy who won big championships. As the 36-year-old looper answered questions from a small group of media on Pinehurst’s 18th green and claimed his trophy, there was an evident sense of emotion surrounding the outcome.
Over his head, DeChambeau lifted the salvaged piece of gear. Bryson struck the winning bunker shot with which club? The assembly burst into applause. Have you spoken with him before to the round? DeChambeau accelerated throughout his triumph lap. How did Bryson get to this level in his game?
Standard fare, the inquiries made right away to each caddie whose player has just taken home a trophy. “How are you feeling?” is then asked.
Bodine released a long breath. He lowered his head and fixed his gaze on the surface where the little group was positioned. A protracted silence. “There is a backstory,” Bodine remarked, thinking ahead 13 months to the day he was hired by DeChambeau. The tears had started to flow.
“The day that Bryson called,” Bodine said. “My wife and I found out that she had a miscarriage. We were actually at the hospital when Bryson called me.”
Caddying never really felt like a job for Bodine.
Growing up, he was a competitive golfer, and by the time he graduated from high school, he was already planning to join professional golf and become the bag carrier for his cousin, Seattle-based Andrew Putnam, a gifted young player. After that dream came true, it soon became into a profession. Two years after Bodine, also known as “G-Bo” on tour, initially looped for Putnam at the PGA Tour Q-School, he secured Tony Finau’s bag in 2014.
He spent almost seven years with the now six-time tour winner. Before they mutually decided to split up in 2020, he helped Finau ascend to the top 10 in the world. Why? It was just that the two were losing together. Back home, Bodine had a little family: his kids, Parker and Brooks, were one year old and three years old, respectively. With the two sons, Bodine’s wife Kelsey had her hands full. Finau was performing for thirty to thirty-five weeks out of the year, and the lucrative events were getting harder to come by. It was time to make a shift. Bodine needed to consider returning home.
The @nelkboys turned Bryson's own caddie against him… pic.twitter.com/qlpJclTVLM
— Crushers GC (@Crushers_GC) February 19, 2024
Following a brief time spent caddying for Patrick Rodgers, Bodine was clear about his career goals. It took him a while to get used to his new fantasy, so he went back to Kirkland, Washington. The Pacific Northwest native went back to his pre-caddying life in March 2021, leading a straightforward family life, and launched Evergreen Golf Club, an indoor golf facility. Bodine presented the company to investors, including his co-founder and former Seahawks player Jermaine Kearse, and committed a significant portion of his caddie earnings to it. The business got going by the winter of 2022.
“I had a handful of people reach out to ask me to come back and caddie, on the PGA Tour and on LIV,” Bodine says. “But I was committed to getting Evergreen off the ground.”
Once that was done and Evergreen was running smoothly, Bodine could start to direct his full focus toward what had really drawn him away from life on tour: his family. Kelsey was pregnant with their third child.
“Being back home, one thing that we were looking forward to was growing our family and starting that next chapter,” Bodine says. “My wife was pregnant. She was in her second trimester. We told a handful of people and we were getting close to finding out the gender.”
Early in May 2023, Kelsey realized one evening that there was a serious problem with the baby. That evening, they scheduled a meeting for first thing the next morning. Bodine answered an incoming call on his iPhone that morning before packing up and leaving for the hospital. Brett Falkhoff, DeChambeau’s agent, answered the phone and greeted him.
“Bryson’s making a caddie change, and he’s interested in hearing what you’re up to,” Falkhoff said. “OK if he gives you call?”
Without thinking, Bodine gave in. The question surprised him, but it did not shock him. After nearly a year of performing on the LIV tour, DeChambeau had experienced little success. During the brief conversation, Falkoff called DeChambeau’s game “rock bottom,” according to Bodine. They would often been paired with DeChambeau when looping for Finau on the PGA Tour, and they had always gotten along.
However, the call evoked a plethora of thoughts, memories, and wonders that passed through Bodine’s mind almost instantly. He was unable to consider caddying. He forgot about the call with Falkoff quite quickly.
Kelsey was brought to a private room at the hospital and subjected to a battery of tests. Bodine waited impatiently in the corridor for his wife to come out with some sort of encouraging update, a ray of hope for their child. At that moment, Bodine noticed his phone flashing and realized that Bryson DeChambeau was making a call.
“I didn’t tell him what was going on, he probably just thought I was sitting at my work or at my house or something,” Bodine says.
For a brief period, the two caught up, discussing everything from Bodine’s experience caddying in major tournaments like the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup to the current state of DeChambeau’s game. They appeared to be in agreement, and it flowed smoothly. They agreed to give each other a call back and catch up later in the day before saying their goodbyes. Bodine continued to offer DeChambeau no clue as to his whereabouts, his family circumstances, or his emotional state of anguish.
Gradually, the test results started to pour in. It had turned into the Bodines’ greatest nightmare.
“Can you be in Tulsa in four days?” DeChambeau asked nonchalantly over the phone later that evening.
Bodine struggled to find words. He had taken the call with DeChambeau without knowing if it would lead to a caddying post, much less one that started in four days, four days after the miscarriage. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. And Kelsey’s were, too.
“Can I have a day to think about it?”
It was too difficult for Bodine and his wife to even consider making the choice for themselves. They then looked to their families. They had dinner with her parents and brunch with his. They spoke with mentors and close friends. Stunned and grieving, they trusted their group with the impossible task of comprehending a career-changing offer. Even if the job did not work out, the LIV event may provide much-needed diversion. Could Bodine, though, take it? Did the family have this planned out? What is the benefit of this? They resorted to religion.
“The night before, before anything suspicious was going on with Kelsey’s body, I never thought I would caddie again, and I thought we were having a third child that fall,” Bodine said. “I’m a very faith-driven guy, so I kind of took it as God telling us that this is a door opening, and that was a door closing.”
DeChambeau has been on a run in the majors since Bodine took over caddie duties. (Warren Little / Getty Images)
As long as everyone was traveling to Tulsa, everyone was on board. That week was Brooks’ sixth birthday, and Bodine was not going to celebrate it alone. Parker was also making progress. Along with Bodine’s mother, the family of four packed up their belongings, scheduled their travel to Oklahoma, and embarked on an unforeseen new chapter in their lives.
“You look at your kids, and weeks like that will remind you how precious they are.”
DeChambeau was having a terrible time on LIV. In 48-man competitions, he was routinely placing outside the top 20. His best placing on LIV thus far was a tie for sixteenth.
Bodine, meantime, was living off pure adrenaline. By day, he readjusted to the physical demands of caddying and DeChambeau’s style of play; by night, the family celebrated Brooks’s birthday at the pizza place across the street and the hotel pool. This was not how any of them had imagined their week would unfold. However, it did. It was also something for which to feel thankful. They tried to smile through the ache, accepting only partial success.
With Bodine on his bag, DeChambeau shot 12-under-par to tie for fifth place in Tulsa that week and earn $703,333. It is safe to assume that Bodine had a successful first tournament as well, given the customary 7 percent caddie fee. There was a clicking sound.
That Sunday night, the family returned to Seattle, but DeChambeau and Bodine left for the PGA Championship in Rochester, New York.
DeChambeau was one stroke behind going onto the back nine of the season’s first major on Sunday at Oak Hill. After winning the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, he tied for fourth place at the end of the tournament, which was his highest major finish to date. Bodine read greens, got his yardage figures, and carried the bag that week, but his heart was somewhere else. In the middle of the competition, Kelsey was supposed to have her D&C surgery—a procedure that typically follows a miscarriage to remove the uterine lining—back home.
DeChambeau enjoyed additional success the following week, placing in the top 10 in LIV’s D.C. event. DeChambeau finished in the top 20 at the U.S. Open at LACC two weeks later. The run went on. The semi-retired caddy continued.
“Those first few months I was able to do it and get away with it,” Bodine said. “Bryson was there to play golf. I didn’t want pity or anything. I’ve told him that I’m always going to be ready to be his biggest cheerleader, but there was a lot going on.”
Bodine needed a cheerleader of his own.
In England’s Hertfordshire, it was early evening. Alone, Bodine strolled through the Centurion Club’s opening holes, getting his yardage book ready for the LIV competition that weekend. With DeChambeau on the verge of victory in last week’s event in Spain and The Open rapidly approaching, Bodine needed to go to work. He made the decision to head out onto the course and begin his weekly training in advance.
All of this got to be too much by the fifth hole. Bodine collapsed on his own, standing alone in the midst of the deserted fairway.
He called home, to Kelsey.
“I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be here right now,” Bodine told her.
The emotions were building, ever present on their many phone conversations when Bodine was traveling. He recalled, “We would frequently spend evenings trying to support each other through this whole ordeal.”
His next call was to DeChambeau.
“I don’t think I can be here right now.”
Although DeChambeau was aware of the struggles that Bodine and Kelsey had been going through over the previous six weeks, he was unaware of Bodine’s true physical condition up to that time. The following day, the caddy who had not missed a week in seven years with Finau took a trip back to Seattle, and DeChambeau was able to find replacements for the tournament.
“Bryson knew the surface layer, but I’m pretty good at showing up to work. As a caddie, you can’t really have everyone feel sorry for you. Your job is to be an enabler and to lift your player up. I completely hit a wall after Spain. I told him I wouldn’t be doing this unless I thought it was absolutely necessary,” Bodine said.
Upon returning to Kelsey and the boys, Bodine concluded it would be best if he also stayed in Seattle for The Open. He needed to hit stop. He was unsure if he would ever caddy once more. Everything else was irrelevant. nothing but your house. Bodine began attending therapy in order to deal with the anxiety he was experiencing following the miscarriage, and he processed his feelings in order to identify the cause of his response. He spent many late nights talking with Kelsey while they sat on his back porch. DeChambeau arrived every several days. He reestablished his schedule and spent time with the lads.
After three weeks, his mental state remained severely damaged. But now was the moment to make a choice: LIV Greenbrier in West Virginia would be the first of two weeks’ worth of domestic LIV activities. DeChambeau desired Bodine’s return. Kelsey was helpful once more. Bodine still firmly believed that he might have to take a plane home on the Tuesday following the competition. His parents consented to travel with him. Worth a try was that.
Bodine returned to DeChambeau’s bag in time for the latter’s 58 at Greenbrier last year. (Eakin Howard / Getty Images)
Thirteen birdies.
During the Sunday round of LIV Greenbrier, with Bodine in the lead, DeChambeau shot a remarkable 58 thanks to 13 birdies and one bogey in the torrential rain. Leaping into the air upon the final birdie putt, he overcame a six-shot deficit to win his maiden event on LIV.
Bodine looked in shock, a grin growing between his ears, as he stood close by with an umbrella resting on his shoulder. This week, when LIV returns to the West Virginia resort, the two are back together.
“I looked around and I was like, I’m still mentally drained, and I still don’t know where life is going to take me, but I knew I had made the right decisions,” Bodine said. “I made the right decision to go home from the U.K, and the right decision to come back for Greenbrier. With how everything went on the course, with Bryson winning, it just felt like a large sense of gratification and thankfulness.”
Bodine experienced the same intense flood of emotion on Pinehurst No. 2’s 18th green.
Bodine had simply held it together for far too long throughout the previous 13 months, whether it was to be a decent husband, father, or caddie. If there was one thing he had learned from this continuous mending process it was to trust. Have faith that everything will work out in life. Have faith in the people surrounding you. Have faith that it is acceptable to let go sometimes.
“It’s been a battle,” Bodine said, “But I knew I was there for a reason. I knew that’s where I was supposed to be.”
(Top photo of Bryson DeChambeau, left, and Greg Bodine: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
