2025 is The Year of Caddie Weirdness. How will it end?

Is 2025 the year of…caddie weirdness?

That’s what I keep thinking about as we approach the end of the season, when players seem properly angsty about both their play and whoever is carrying their bags. 

First came Max Homa and Joe Greiner’s April split, a divorce initiated by Greiner. Homa has since settled in with Tiger Woods’ ex-caddie, Lance Bennett, but finding a new steady isn’t always easy. (Looper Bill Harke was on the bag for a few weeks between Greiner and Bennett.) You can ask Collin Morikawa, who has run through four different loopers this year. I was there, at the Genesis Scottish Open, in the moments immediately after his first round with Caddie No. 4, Billy Foster, Matt Fitzpatrick’s former looper who Morikawa signed for a two-week stint. After their first 18 holes, Morikawa was properly chuffed. Two under! 

“When you have a new caddie, it’s hard for them to learn your game quickly but I feel he has a good sense of the shots you need to play,” Morikawa told me. “I actually relied a lot on him kind of clubbing [between] 7-iron and 8-iron, 6-iron and 5-iron. That type of stuff. And we hit some quality shots today.”

We.

Unfortunately for Morikawa-Foster, that was as good as it got. They carded a 76 the next day and missed the cut, and then flamed out before the weekend at Portrush, too. Morikawa had entered that fortnight run hoping to enjoy himself, “kick some ass” and learn a bit more about what he needs from a looper.

It’s hard to know if he achieved any of that, but we’ll get a good sense of it when he selects Caddie No. 5 for the playoffs. (Foster is now carrying Lee Westwood’s bag, as was always the plan.)

Then there was the split of Joel and Geno, Geno and Joel, the game’s most lovable caddie duo, largely because they love each other so damn much. The world got a taste of that on Netflix. I got a plateful in July, spending a bunch of time with them at the Scottish Open. To be in their orbit is to be reminded why they worked so well together. Joel has specific needs — a caddie who can go with the flow, but always has the number when he needs it; a caddie he can be vulnerable and very real with, even complain to — and Geno was all of that. But…it wasn’t working this summer, and it needs to work. 

Ever since Joel and Geno’s T2 finish in the Dominican Republic — which probably should have ended in a victory — the duo’s last eight events together ended with seven missed cuts, including that fateful Scottish Open. When news broke of their breakup — strictly in the professional sense — it rocked the golf world something proper. 

In the weeks since, the reason(s) for the separation haven’t really been explained, probably because it’s not easy to explain. I’m sure both of them will eventually speak on the matter. And like any good rock band, they may even reunite. But for now, they’re apart. Dahmen has been putting his former coaches to work the last two weeks, and he’s sniffed contention each time. 

Sometimes that’s all it comes down to. A change of scenery, viewpoints, questions. Which brings us to Joaquin Niemann. The man who can’t buy his way into contention at a major championship, but can certainly buy anything else, having won five LIV events this year. 

Niemann not-so-quietly stormed away from Royal Portrush, literally stomping on his clubs after missing the cut. But then he rather quietly showed up to LIV’s England event just a few days later — with a new coach and a new caddie — and stomped on the field, winning by three. His new bag man, at least temporarily, was his friend Diego Salinas. 

When asked if Niemann’s win justified his decision, the 26-year-old Chilean said no. Rather, this was the result of building his game in the right way. (In other words, whoever is carrying the clubs might not matter all that much.)

“I’m trying to get better every week,” Niemann said, “and I feel like I don’t have to justify anything, any decision that I make. I feel like every decision is the right decision.”

Maybe that’s the takeaway during this season of caddie turnover: the boss is the boss.