THE UNDERCOVER PRO
My Life as a PGA Tour Fixer I didn’t lead with money and favours to silence problems SAY MY NAME AND MOST players will remember me as a middling agent, if at all. Ask agents about me, and they know the truth: I was a fixer. Maybe you’re picturing George Cloo- ney and Brad Pitt in “Wolfs” or some slick character from a John Grisham thriller. Well, I was never involved in shootouts or rolled up to crisis situa- tions in a tailored tuxedo. Hell, I wasn’t even called a “fixer.” My nickname was “mop man,” which I hated. I played football in high school and worked in the athletic department in college. Becoming an agent was a way to stay in sports and make a living. It just didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Many members of my family have worked in law enforcement, so I knew people and understood that sometimes getting things done means bending the rules. When I was grinding as an assistant at my first firm, I used those connections to help my bosses wiggle their clients out of some messes. Since I could never hold onto any marquee clients (they kept getting poached by senior agents, but that’s another story entirely) I figured out the surest path to a steady pay cheque was letting the hot- shots do their jock-sniffing while I han- dled the things the jocks didn’t want the public to sniff. Let me be clear: Among professional athletes, golfers are practi- cally choir boys. However, the cleanest are basketball players. Although there have been a few serious scandals in the NBA, this has been my experience. Golfers get themselves into sticky situa- tions on a more regular basis, and given the PGA Tour’s squeaky-clean image, both golfers and their management teams are perpetually and understand-
ably paranoid about bad publicity. That’s why there are “mop men.” One of the most sensitive cases I worked on involved a massive gambling debt. (No, not THAT famous lefthander who comes to mind when you think of betting.) Las Vegas casinos often have let celebrities rack up enormous tabs. Instead of cash, a casino might let a celebrity settle by schmoozing with its high rollers for a weekend. The golfer in this story skipped town after losing big in both a hotel card game and to an actor on the casino’s course. It was a very bad weekend that left a mess. I ended up meeting with representa- tives from both the casino and the ac- tor’s hustler-friend in Los Angeles (I wasn’t taking that meeting alone in the desert). The negotiations dragged on for three days, and there were several moments when I thought the other side might leak the whole mess to TMZ out of spite. Eventually we hammered out a deal: The player would sign over his incoming equipment endorsement to the actor and play several rounds with the casino’s biggest whales. Years later, I caught an interview where this player talked about how his wife saved him from going down a dark path. I had to laugh. Buddy, that was me who pulled your ass out of the fire. Another memorable incident was an October night shortly after the regular season. A tour player totalled his car driving like he was auditioning for “Fast & Furious.” Fortunately, it was a single- vehicle accident with no drugs, alcohol or property damage involved, and he walked away mostly unscathed. It was really the first time this young golfer had got into trouble, and he didn’t han- dle it great. When the golfer desperate- ly pleaded with the witness to not call the cops, the witness saw dollar signs. He basically told the golfer to make his silence worth his while. Within 30 minutes, I had the witness set up with courtside seats to three NBA games and dinner on the firm’s dime. I’ve mopped up a decent number of incidents that involved alcohol – not DUIs, just a golfer making a fool of himself. Then there were the affairs. The occasional cheating scandal had
to be managed quietly. In one case, we got word that a player’s wife was step- ping out on him without his knowledge. I’m not proud of this, but I went straight to the wife and showed her exactly what a post-nuptial agreement would look like if she kept up. That took care of that problem quickly. Honestly, now, looking back, most ep- isodes weren’t really that messy: missed bills or payment issues, problems golf- ers had with housing contractors, vague contract language with claims players hadn’t fulfilled certain obligations. A huge number of cases involved golfers’ kids. For a period, it felt like I was talking
ILLUSTRATION BY RAUL ALLEN
8 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026
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