Butch Harmon criticized his former student Tiger Woods for hiring caddie Joe LaCava away from Dustin Johnson. Harmon, who is now Johnson's swing coach and had recommended that Johnson hire LaCava, said Woods should have asked Johnson's permission to speak with LaCava about the job, which has been vacant since Woods fired his longtime caddie Steve Williams in July. On Sunday, Harmon told Sky Sports he was "shocked" by the move.
"The thing that bothered me the most was T.W. not calling Dustin and asking if he could talk to Joe. That's the way it's done. I'm a little disappointed with the way Tiger handled it. But I'm not surprised."
But Tiger’s camp has a different version of the story, stating that LaCava reached out to them. LaCava corroborated this story on Woods's website.
“I contacted Tiger and Mark [Steinberg] because this is a unique opportunity to be part of something very special. Tiger and I have been friends for a very long time, and I know what he can do. I want to thank Dustin for the opportunity to work with him, and I wish him nothing but the best.”
According to Lawrence Donegan of The Guardian UK, the Johnson-LaCava partnership wasn't a perfect fit.
This comes as no surprise to those close to LaCava, who was apparently telling friends at last month's US PGA Championship in Atlanta he had quickly become disillusioned with life on the fairways with Johnson. The caddie is a well-rounded individual, an old-school type who found it hard to come to terms with his young employer's free-wheeling style on and off the course. In short, they were a bad match.
Pace-of-play woes at Solheim Cup
While this year’s Solheim Cup might go down as the most exciting edition of the biennial event, very few people wanted it to go on any longer. The prescribed pace of play was an extremely generous 5 hours and 20 minutes. On Day One alone, three out of four afternoon matches exceeded that timeframe. John Huggan of Golf Digest Woman has the details:
“It wasn't pretty but it was definitely ponderous. A huge factor in the slowness being the much-criticized need of so many players to have their caddies line them up for both full shots and putts. It is surely time for that time-consuming and often-pointless practice to be outlawed.”
Obama and Clinton tee it up
President Obama and former President Bill Clinton played golf at Joint Base Andrews golf course in Maryland on Saturday. According to USA Today's David Jackson, Obama said that he and Clinton discussed various strategies for creating jobs as they played.
During a speech last night to the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama said he and Clinton talked about creating jobs, as well as Republican opposition to higher taxes on the wealthy to finance a new jobs plan.
"They say it kills jobs -- oh, that's going to kill jobs," Obama said. "We're not proposing anything other than returning to the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans that existed under Bill Clinton."
"I played golf with Bill Clinton today," Obama said. "I was asking him, how did that go? Well, it turns out we had a lot of jobs. The well-to-do, they did even better. So did the middle class. We lifted millions out of poverty.
In a written statement, the White House said Obama and Clinton played for about four hours and were joined by Clinton’s longtime aide Doug Band and White House Chief of Staff William Daley. No scores were disclosed.
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