75TH ANNIVERSARY
MEASURING CADDIE CREDIT in pro golf is a subjective ex- ercise. Few moments are as
from memory wouldn’t be. Whether on the original CBS telecast or on replay, the 40 seconds of horror can’t be unseen. A ground-level clo- seup of the first putt captured the toe of Els’ putter seized by an evil twitch that produced glancing contact and a slapstick pull. His next three attempts, all from closer range, never touched the cup. The fifth putt, a one-footer hit one- handed, grazed the lip, while the sixth was raked in for a quintuple-bogey 9. With each miss, Els reacted with the same sad, palms-up, “I-told-you-so” half-gesture directed at his caddie. Be- fore the trainwreck commenced, Els had softly but shockingly confided in Kerr that the initial par putt seemed impossible. “Ernie told me the putter felt like a
clearcut as Steve Williams calling Tiger Woods off a bounced-in sand wedge from deep rough in favour of a risky, nuked and spinning lob wedge on the 72nd hole of the 2008 US Open, setting up the most momentous 12-footer ever. Usually, only the two people involved really know what the caddie provided, and even for them, there’s an element of mystery. However, no ambiguity exists about what transpired between Ernie Els and Cayce Kerr following the first hole of the 2016 Masters. While calling Els’ six-putt from three feet an unforgetta- ble moment in golf history might be a stretch, labelling it the hardest to erase
‘The Best I Ever Did’ When caddie Cayce Kerr rescued Ernie Els BY JAIME DIAZ
22 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2025
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