What the Joel Dahmen/Geno Bonnalie split reveals about pro golf

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — All around Portrush, everybody’s asking the same question: Did you hear about Geno and Joel?

And surely at the Barracuda Championship (opposite field PGA Tour event this week) and the Price Cutter Championship (Korn Ferry stop), the chatter will be about the same.

If that caddie-player marriage — the wry and amusing Geno Bonnalie on the bag, Joel Dahmen, the 172nd-ranked golfer on the World Golf Ranking list — cannot ride off happily into the Senior Tour sunset together, what hope is there for any similar PGA Tour union? And not just player-caddie. We’re talking player-teacher, too. Also player-psychologist, player-chef, player-agent, player and … Ryder Cup opening ceremonies partner!

But J. & G., that stops you cold. They seemed so happy on the Netflix show. Right?

You’d think all the money on the PGA Tour right now would make the caddie-player relationship more secure than ever. Players and caddies are so evolved in their thinking, you’d imagine they’re all experts at conflict resolution, “best practices” practices and the rest. But, no. It’s a minefield out there.

Max Homa (OWGR 101) and Joe Greiner: splitsville.

Collin Morikawa (OWGR 6) and J.J. Jakovic: over.

Englishman/Sketchers guy Matthew Fitzpatrick (OWGR 59) and Englishman/Seve impersonator Billy Foster: “irretrievable breakdown,” to use the British term for irreconcilable differences.

Oh, Tom Kim (60th) and Paul Tesori. Their shared religious values got them together. Better putting might have saved the union.

Going back to last year, and chiefly because the caddies are so famous they can travel the world on just their nicknames: Justin Thomas and Jim “Bones” Mackay parted ways amicably, as did Jim Furyk and Mike “Fluff” Cowan.

Devoted students of the Bonnmen bromance know some of the famous Netflix moments of their relationship, like Dahmen, who has been in his mid-30s forever (he’s 37) telling Bonnalie midflight, “I love the f— out of you.”

Again, better putting might have saved the thing.

One never knows.

Really, you can’t. Just as you cannot ever really say why these relationships don’t last forever. They never do. You’re tempted to say that the player always has the upper hand in these relationships. But there have been many high-profile caddie-player relationships where the caddie really did quit before getting fired. Steve Williams was, effectively, asking to be fired when he worked for Adam Scott at the 2011 U.S. Open, in a period when his regular player, Tiger Woods, was not playing due to injury. Bruce Edwards left Tom Watson for Greg Norman for the money — and later regretted it. On some level, there are deep conflicts and resentments in most of these longstanding player-caddie relationships. Even with Seve Ballesteros and his caddying brothers, that was the case. Neither Dahmen nor Bonnalie have said much publicly about this breakup, aside from the fact it has happened. Dahmen is not playing this week, but he confirmed the breakup to Dan Rapaport of Skratch Golf, himself a star of stage (memorable Tiger Woods interviews) and screen (Full Swing appearances).

The role of the caddie has been ridiculously super-sized over the past 20 years, in part because Golf Channel has so many hours of broadcasting to fill, and the player-caddie relationship gives broadcasters one more thing to talk about. In Arnold Palmer’s day, in Jack Nicklaus’s, in Tom Watson’s, things were different. Those players, in their primes, had one caddie for their British Open appearances and another for when they played in the Masters. Through the mid-1970s, there were a handful of summer tournaments, including the U.S. Open, the Western Open, the PGA Championship and the Westchester Classic, where Tour players were required to take local club caddies, usually high school and college kids. Those days are long over. The caddie is now an elemental part of the team, until he or she is not. Golf Channel could have a show called As the Caddie Yard Turns. Michael Greller and Jordan Spieth could provide a season’s worth of stories.

So Joel Dahmen, trying to find one of the very few northbound trains on the OWGR list for a 37-year-old golfer, and his caddie, Geno Bonnalie, are kaput. For now. Caddies and players sometimes split and get back together. It has happened before. Bruce Edwards and Tom Watson reunited after the brief Edwards-Norman experiment. Raymond Floyd fired Adolphus “Golf Ball” Hull four times. Floyd’s wife, Marie, hired him back five. Relationships defy science and logic.

Xander Schauffele won last year’s British Open with Austin Kaiser as his caddie. They’ve been together all through Schauffele’s pro career and they were college teammates at San Diego State going back to 2011. Near the end of a press conference on Tuesday, Gabby Herzig of The Athletic, noting the various caddie-player breakups, asked Schauffele about his relationship with Kaiser.

“I regret this at times, but I told Austin he’ll never get fired for something he says to me,” Schauffele said. “That was a mistake.”

The tent laughed together but of course there’s often a germ of truth in every funny comment.

“There are a lot of variables in golf,” Schauffele said. “Austin is a great guy, a great caddie. He’s one of my best friends. I think, if you can keep your caddie as a constant, it’s an advantage.”

Until it’s not.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.

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