The Story Of Jordan Spieth's Caddy Going From 6th Grade Teacher To Masters Champion Caddy Is Awesome
WSJ- The man who celebrated with Jordan Spieth on the 18th green at Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday made his first trip here only three years ago. Michael Greller wasn’t even a professional caddie at the time. He was a sixth-grade math teacher who won a lottery for Masters tickets and spent the day following Rory McIlroy. “I had a few beers and enjoyed the walk,” he said. Greller’s path from standing outside the ropes to carrying the bag of the Masters champion is far more improbable than Spieth’s impressive victory. And it reveals both the randomness of the caddying business and the way Spieth has approached the game. When Tiger Woods won the Masters in 1997—at 21, the same age as Spieth—the man carrying his bag was Mike “Fluff” Cowan. With more than two decades of experience caddying on the PGA Tour, Cowan offered the kind of in-depth course knowledge that Woods, for all his prodigious talent, lacked. But in hiring Greller, 37, at the start of Spieth’s career and sticking with him as he ascended to this point, Spieth prioritized personal chemistry. That he went so far as to hire someone who had caddied only occasionally for amateurs ranked as one of the bigger upsets in pro caddying.
I’ve seen this story making the rounds today so I wanted to put it out there. You can read the whole story if you click on the article link. In short, Spieth’s caddy was a 6th grade math teacher no less than 3 years ago. In the first part of the article it talks about how just a few years ago he was a spectator at the Masters. Won tickets in a lottery, drank a few beers at Augusta and followed Rory. Flash forward to yesterday and now he’s on the bag of the winning Masters champion and I think I read somewhere that he’s made $370,000 in the last 30 days thanks to being on Spieth’s bag. Not a bad gig. Sounds like the relationship the two have is a good one and it’s obviously working. So I guess the moral of the story is do what you love, be good at it, get truck loads of luck and maybe you’ll make piles and piles of money doing it Or something like that.