Golf Star Makes Surprise Caddie Change After Disappointing Masters Finish
If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission. Pricing and availability subject to change.
Just a few days before the Masters teed off on April 10, golf star Max Homa was dropped by his longtime caddie Joe Greiner.
'It was not my choice, so it sucked, but we always had a deal that we're friends first and friendship mattered more than the work thing, and he was wise enough to do what he did," Homa revealed.
Advertisement
"It's hard. I'm just so used to him caddying. And even just on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays, you just have this easy rhythm. But I was happy that he did it, because I would rather – you know, at the end of my days we continue to be great friends than one of us resent the other for how hard this game can be on a relationship. So, it sucks because I just pictured always walking fairways with Joe. But again, that was not the deal. I would rather walk life with Joe forever than this dumb game.'
Greiner hopped on the bag for Justin Thomas at the first major tournament of the year after Thomas' caddie suffered an injury earlier in the month. With Thomas' caddie healthy, Greiner was once again out of the job - but not for long.
PGA Tour star Collin Morikawa dropped longtime caddie JJ Jakovac for the services of Greiner, according to a report from former PGA Tour golfer and current analyst Colt Knost.
Knost admitted when he first heard the rumor he thought there was "no way" Morikawa would split from his longtime caddie, especially after the duo won two major championships together.
Advertisement
The decision comes after Morikawa finished t-14 at the Masters after entering as one of the favorites to win the tournament and three weeks before the start of the PGA Championship.
Related: Amanda Balionis, Rory McIlroy Interview Turns Heads at the Zurich Classic
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
33 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Dustin Johnson says he 'can grind for another six years' before stepping away
OAKMONT, Pa. (AP) — So much about Dustin Johnson returning to Oakmont is about reliving past glory. He won his first major championship at the U.S. Open under extreme and bizarre conditions that allowed him to exorcise so many demons in the majors and become the best player in the world. That was nine years ago. The question now is how much golf he has left. 'I think I've got another six years in me,' Johnson said, contemplating the question only briefly before coming up with a most arbitrary number. 'I can grind for another six years. And then I'm going fishing.' Johnson already has a Hall of Fame career with his 24 titles on the PGA Tour, two majors, the only player to sweep the World Golf Championships, one of only five players to have been No. 1 in the world for more than 100 weeks. He turns 41 in two weeks. Why grind? 'Because I want to get back,' he said. 'Because I know I've still got it.' Johnson was the biggest name to sign with Saudi-funded LIV Golf in 2022 when the golf world was turned upside down. He was on the fringe of contention that summer at St. Andrews and the next year in the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. He won in each of the first three years on the rival circuit of short fields (54 players) and short weeks (54 holes). The last 16 months have made him feel like an afterthought. He has not finished among the top three on LIV in his last 20 events. He has missed the cut in five of his last seven majors. He tied for 10th last week on LIV, which he considered progress. 'I feel like my game's been really close," he said. 'I haven't really got a lot out of it. So it was definitely nice to have a nice finish last week. I played good every day. I didn't ... you know, still kind of giving away some shots. I need to clean that up a little bit." There is rarely any urgency to anything Johnson does, and that six-year window comes with a caveat. He has two more years left on his 10-year exemption from winning at Oakmont in 2016. Next month will be his last free pass to the British Open from his 2020 Masters victory. He needed a special invitation to the PGA Championship this year. Johnson has played only one non-major since joining LIV. That was the Saudi International at the end of last year. He missed the cut. Yes, Oakmont seems like a long time ago. Few players have endured more misfortune in the majors and have been able to shake it off. There was the 82 in the final round at Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open. He was knocked out of a playoff at Whistling Straits that year in the PGA Championship for setting his 4-iron into sand where spectators had been sitting. That was deemed to be a bunker. He had a 12-foot eagle putt to win the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, only for it to slide some 4 feet by on a green that had hardly any grass. He missed the birdie putt and finished one behind Jordan Spieth. His mental toughness is underrated. Imagine playing the last seven holes of a U.S. Open not knowing the score because the USGA was trying to decide whether to penalize him for a ball that moved on the fifth green of the final round at Oakmont. Johnson played on, not giving it another thought, winning by three after he was assessed one penalty shot in scoring. 'That Sunday was a little weird,' he said. Chaos would have been another word to describe it. That's not in Johnson's vocabulary even though it seems like it should be. Ask almost any PGA Tour loyalist which LIV player they miss seeing, and Johnson's name is at the top of the list. 'There have been two guys since 2010 that I thought in full flight, I loved watching them play. And it was Rory (McIlroy) and DJ,' Adam Scott said. Scott recalled a morning round at Riviera in the cool Pacific air. They were playing the 13th, which bends to the left around the eucalyptus trees. Scott hit a perfect draw. Johnson unloaded his high cut over the trees, a carry of nearly 310 yards in the heavy air. 'I just thought, 'That is insane.' Just the freedom he played with and the freedom of the swing and athleticism,' Scott said. 'And then he gets up and hit a three-finger 7-iron, super soft, a buttery shot after pounding one. Super impressive.' Those were the days. Those are the memories, all while Johnson is trying to believe he can create new ones. He is running out of time. And that's OK. When not on LIV — and not fishing — he is home with his two boys, Tatum and River. The latter was born on the Monday before Johnson's U.S. Open title defense at Erin Hills. He says he would have withdrawn if he wasn't the defending champion. He missed the cut. Back then, a missed cut at a major was rare. Now he is searching for a good week of driving, like he had at Oakmont in 2016. He is playing with Spieth, his longtime partner at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Those were fun days. 'It's always good to play majors. It's the only time to see the other guys,' Johnson said. 'We've got a good group in LIV, but I don't get to see everybody. Hopefully, things will kind of come back together somehow.' Within six years? Johnson was asked if he could see himself on the PGA Tour Champions if it ever got sorted out. 'I've always said if I'm playing the Champions tour, something really, really went wrong," he said, breaking into a big smile before adding, 'But with me, there's always that chance.'
New York Post
34 minutes ago
- New York Post
Rory McIlroy explains how it's gone so wrong for him since Masters triumph
OAKMONT, Pa. — Rory McIlroy has not looked like himself since he reached the pinnacle of the mountain he'd been trying to climb for nearly 15 years when he captured the Masters in April to complete the career Grand Slam he'd been chasing. McIlroy tied for 47th at the PGA Championship last month, curiously refusing to speak to the media after all four rounds. On Tuesday, McIlroy spoke of 'trying to have a little bit of amnesia and forget about what happened six weeks ago'' when re-setting his motivation and goals. 'I worked incredibly hard on my game from October last year all the way up until April this year (and) it was nice to sort of see the fruits of my labor come to fruition and have everything happen,'' McIlroy said two days before the first round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont. 'But at the same time, you have to enjoy that. You have to enjoy what you've just accomplished. I certainly feel like I'm still doing that and I will continue to do that. 'At some point, you have to realize that there's a little bit more golf left to play this season — here, Portrush (the British Open), Ryder Cup — so those are obviously the three big things that I'm sort of looking at for the rest of the year. Weeks like Quail Hollow (the PGA) or even weeks like last week (Canada), it makes it easier to reset in some way, to be like, 'OK, I sort of need to get my stuff together here and get back to the process and sort of what I'd been doing for that seven months from October last year until April this year.'' 3 Rory McIlroy during a practice round before the US Open on June 9, 2025. AP McIlroy, the 2011 U.S. Open winner, missed the cut at the 2016 U.S. Open when it was last at Oakmont. 'I don't really remember much about 2016,'' he said. 'I think I just tried to erase it from the memory bank.'' 3 Rory McIlroy talks to the media at the US Open. Getty Images That week, though, was the beginning of what became a line of demarcation for McIlroy's performances in U.S. Opens. He went on to miss the cut at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills, which is a course McIlroy has not hidden his dislike for, and again in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills. 3 Rory McIlroy missed the cut at the Canadian Open. Getty Images 'I missed the cut at the U.S. Open in 2016, 2017 and 2018,'' McIlroy said. 'We were here (Oakmont) in '16, Erin Hills in '17, which is what it is, and then 2018 at Shinnecock. And I felt Shinnecock was a really hard one because I love that golf course, and to perform the way I did there, it really hurt me. 'Then I would go play Hartford (the Travelers) the next week and I'd feel really comfortable on a PGA Tour setup, and I think it was that week where it clicked. It was like, 'Why am I so comfortable here in Hartford but last week I had no clue what to do?' 'So that's when I made the decision at that back end of 2018 into 2019, I want to try to build my game around the toughest tests that we have in the game. Then as you've seen since 2019, six top 10s in a row at this tournament, obviously finished second the last two years in a row. And I've definitely become a much more confident US Open player and I'm way more comfortable on those firm, fast setups like you saw at Pinehurst last year and LACC the year before that. 'The U.S. Open went from probably my least favorite major to probably my favorite because of what it asks from you, and I love that challenge.''
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘It felt impossible': McIlroy struggles in practice at Oakmont before US Open
For an example of how fiendishly difficult Oakmont may play in this, the 125th US Open, take the testimony of Rory McIlroy. The Masters champion visited the venue just outside Pittsburgh at the start of last week on a scouting mission. On Tuesday, he gave a grisly definition of what unfolded. 'Last Monday felt impossible,' McIlroy said. 'I birdied the last two holes for 81. It felt pretty good, it didn't feel like I played that badly. It's much more benign right now than it was that Monday. They had the pins in dicey locations and greens were running at 15.5 [on the stimpmeter]. It was nearly impossible. This morning it was a little softer. The pins aren't going to be on 3 or 4% slopes all the time. Advertisement Related: Rory McIlroy annoyed over driver disclosure at US PGA Championship 'If you put it in the fairway, it's certainly playable. But then you just have to think about leaving your ball below the hole and just trying to make as many pars as you can. You get yourself in the way of a few birdies, that's a bonus. 'I'm glad we have spotters out there because last Monday you hit a ball off the fairway and you were looking for a good couple of minutes just to find it. It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. The person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win.' Oakmont's rough is notoriously thick, which plays a key role in scores being high. Ángel Cabrera prevailed when five over par in 2007. 'There's going to be times when you miss the fairway by a foot and you're going to have to punch out 20, 50 yards at best,' said Jon Rahm. 'At that point, it's luck of the draw.' Advertisement In theory, none of this bodes particularly well for McIlroy. He has endured recent struggles with driver in hand, including when missing the cut at last weekend's Canadian Open. That club has been replaced before the third major of the year. McIlroy's issue is not really a technical one, though. Scaling the mountain at Augusta National in April, where he completed the career grand slam, has placed the Northern Irishman in intriguing psychological territory. Quite naturally, the resetting of goals has proved tricky. 'I'm sort of just taking it tournament by tournament at this point,' the world No 2 said. 'You dream about the final putt going in at the Masters but you don't think about what comes next. I think I've always been a player that struggles to play after a big event, after I win whatever tournament. I always struggle to show up with motivation the next week because you've just accomplished something and you want to enjoy it and you want to sort of relish the fact that you've achieved a goal. 'Chasing a certain goal for the better part of a decade and a half, I think I'm allowed a little bit of time to relax a little bit.' McIlroy will spend the opening two rounds in the company of fellow European Ryder Cup players Shane Lowry and Justin Rose. Advertisement A year ago, Byson DeChambeau pipped McIlroy to the US Open at Pinehurst. 'The rough is so long,' said the defending champion of Oakmont. 'I think everybody knows this is probably the toughest golf course in the world right now. You have to hit the fairways, you have to hit greens and you have to two-putt, worst-case scenario. When you've got those putts inside 10 feet, you've got to make them. It's a great test of golf.' DeChambeau has emerged as LIV Golf's most valuable asset, which renders the end of his current contract with the Saudi Arabian-backed tour an interesting moment in time. The Californian appears confident of staying within his current playing domain. 'Next year is when it ends,' he said of his LIV deal. 'We're looking to negotiate end of this year and I'm very excited. They see the value in me. I see the value in what they can provide, and I believe we'll come to some sort of resolution on that. Super-excited for the future. I think that LIV is not going anywhere. 'His Excellency [Yasir al-Rumayyan] has been steadfast in his belief on team golf and whether everybody believes in it or not, I think it's a viable option. I think it's a viable commercial option.'
