{"id":223865,"date":"2025-06-29T11:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T11:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/223865\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T11:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T11:27:10","slug":"the-most-difficult-player-to-caddie-for-on-the-entire-pga-tour-has-been-named-by-smylie-kaufman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/223865\/","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0\u2018most difficult player\u2019 to caddie for on the entire PGA Tour has been named by Smylie Kaufman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Being a caddie on the PGA Tour must feel like an incredibly thankless task at times, with the margins so tight for the very best players on the planet. <\/strong><\/p>\n

While most of us will never know how influential the caddie is in each partnership on the PGA Tour<\/a>, that does not mean that the person carrying the bag avoids criticism all of the time. <\/p>\n

Few will forget the scrutiny Harry Diamond came under after Rory McIlroy<\/a> finished second at last year\u2019s US Open. McIlroy swore at a heckler during the Genesis Invitational this year<\/a> after they criticised Diamond. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it was JJ Jakovac who paid the price when Collin Morikawa<\/a> decided to make a change to his game earlier this year, with Morikawa awaiting his first win on the PGA Tour since 2023. <\/p>\n

Smylie Kaufman names the most difficult player to caddie for on the PGA Tour<\/p>\n

There was a further surprise this week, with Morikawa parting ways with Joe Greiner after just five tournaments together. Some fans hit out at Morikawa over the decision<\/a>, noting that the finger of blame for his struggles needs to be pointed at himself eventually. <\/p>\n

And speaking on The Smylie Show, Smylie Kaufman<\/a> explained why Morikawa has potentially struggled to find the right person to carry his bag in recent months. <\/p>\n

\"CollinPhoto by Ken Murray\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI was curious, because at the beginning of the week, I was wondering, \u2018well, that\u2019s kind of weird that Joe Greiner\u2019s not working this week. They must have had that pre-planned thing when he got hired on Collin\u2019s bag because it seemed like all was well\u2019. I talked to Joe Greiner at the US Open. I said, \u2018hey, how\u2019s Collin doing?\u2019 He said he was good. \u2018Feel like I learned something every week working for the guy\u2019. But I also say this when it comes to working for Collin Morikawa, I think that\u2019s probably one of the most challenging bags to work for, because of the way he plays the game,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very difficult to club him, because he hits shots that no one else hits. When I describe to you that he can be 180 yards and can just say, \u2018you know what, I think I\u2019m just going to take a lot off this five iron, I\u2019m just going to chip-fade one\u2019. Shoot, he could have been working for Max and that could have been \u2018let\u2019s hit seven iron here\u2019. I think it\u2019s very tough, I think he\u2019s probably the most difficult player to caddie for, and I say that because he\u2019s really, really, really good, and he\u2019s really, really accurate. He\u2019s very good at hitting his numbers, but I think it\u2019s challenging to caddie for somebody that sees spin so much differently than most other tour players.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Collin Morikawa explains decision to part ways with Joe Greiner<\/p>\n

Morikawa made the decision to part ways with Greiner ahead of the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club. It remains to be seen who the world number five\u2019s new permanent caddie is going to be. <\/p>\n

The news broke on Wednesday ahead of the 28-year-old\u2019s press conference. And he went on to explain the thinking behind the decision to not continue working with Greiner. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think I\u2019m still learning that. Look, when I split with J.J. Jakovac, I had him except for one tournament my entire career and you get used to that. J.J.\u2019s an amazing caddie and I wish him all the best,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I leave that, it\u2019s a process for me to find because I only know one way. I think people, they\u2019re going to be surprised but the way I put it is just because two people are great at what they do doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re going to be great together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Joe is an amazing caddie, but I think just the way we kind of saw things or just day to day how we kind of went about it, we were just a little bit on a different page. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s right or wrong, but for me it just didn\u2019t feel right.\u201d<\/p>\n

You cannot blame Morikawa for wondering whether a change would benefit him. He certainly will not be the last player who initially struggles to vindicate changing his caddie. <\/p>\n

But there must be a part of him which wonders whether he made the right call letting Jakovac go. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Being a caddie on the PGA Tour must feel like an incredibly thankless task at times, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4106],"tags":[85442,2826,4298,88369,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-223865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-collin-morikawa","9":"tag-golf","10":"tag-pga-tour","11":"tag-smylie-kaufman","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114766416777755259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}