At the U.S. Amateur, Merion Golf Club caddies know the course like few others

When local caddie Conor McGinley first heard the U.S. Amateur was coming to Merion Golf Club, he said, he didn’t want anything to do with it.

“I’m just going to go out to the Hamptons and I don’t need to deal with this stuff,” he said.

But then he saw Stuart Grehan, an Irish golfer, win the 131st British Amateur on June 20, and thought, “hold on a minute.”

McGinley, who has been a caddie for 24 years and is a golf fanatic, knew that only four people in the history of golf had ever won the British Amateur and U.S. Amateur in the same year, and one of them happened to be Bobby Jones in 1930 at Merion Golf Club.

McGinley was put in contact with Kehran from a mutual friend on Facebook, got on a phone call with him, and made his case for why he should be Kehran’s caddie.

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“I’ve caddied for every level, so I’m more than capable of caddying for you,” he recalled saying to Kehran. “But this is all up to you now. Instead of bringing your father-in-law or your brother or whoever, come and go with a proper local caddie because that is huge, especially at Merion.”

Forty-four local Merion caddies were on the bag for the world’s best amateur this week, with 11 advancing to match play. For many of those caddies, they believe it is a major advantage.

“You can see it right away because you’re walking with guys who aren’t Merion caddies and you can see them taking lines and you can see them missing putts and you can see them even misreading all types of greens,” said LaRue Temple, who has caddied at Merion for 29 years and for athletes ranging from Eli Manning to Rachel Kuehn, a member of Team USA who won the 2022 Curtis Cup at Merion. “You can see them doing things that a local caddie would be like that is not a good idea.”

The major edge for golfers using local caddies is their understanding of the grain in the greens and the layout of each hole. The caddies at Merion know where to miss each shot and what targets and line to take off each tee. They have seen almost every hole location during their rounds at Merion, Temple said, so they are able to tell players the right part of the green to aim at.

Many of the local caddies grew up in the area or have been working at Merion for almost 30 years.

Sean McConnell, who started caddying at Merion in 2021, graduated from Haverford High School in 1992 and watched the 1989 U.S. Amateur when Chris Patton won at Merion.

“I grew up around here and was like ‘maybe I’ll get to play Merion one day, and now I walk it everyday,” he said. “I don’t take it for granted.”

His son, Austin McConnell, was the one who got him the job. Austin, a sophomore at Penn State and is an Evans Scholar, started caddying at Merion in April 2021 and knew his dad had some knowledge of the sport since he played at Methodist University and graduated in 1997.

Both Sean and Austin caddied in the championship, with Austin advancing to match play, caddying for 17-year-old Dawson Lew from Canada.

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When most golfers come to Merion, they aren’t aware that the greens have grain that impacts the way the ball breaks and rolls, caddie Kevin Shindler said.

“It definitely helps with the reading of the greens,” he said. “A lot of people don’t realize that this course has a lot of grain. They associate that with just Bermuda grass down in Florida. It’s not as strong as it is down there, but it’s very real and people don’t always realize that. Having a caddie who has been here a while knows you can’t really see the grain, but just have to know what it’s doing on each hole is helpful.”

Shindler caddied for Tianyi Xiong, who advanced to the Round of 64, but lost his match on Wednesday.

For McGinley, being a caddie in major amateur championships is more than being a “bag carrier.” It’s also about building a relationship with the golfers to help them succeed in match play.

“You’re saving at least a couple strokes by having a local caddie that actually knows the course, but it’s not just knowing the course, it’s knowing how to manage people and deal with their emotions,” he said.

Many of the Merion caddies who didn’t advance to match play were out supporting the ones who did on Wednesday.

“I don’t care who it is, I just want to see one of our guys in the final match and maybe prove that point of having a local caddie is beneficial,” McGinley said. “But at the end of the day this is golf and golf doesn’t care.”