The story of John Ellis, Pebble Beach and love requited at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

USA Today

28-01-2025

The story of John Ellis, Pebble Beach and love requited at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Raised in the Golden State up Highway 101 in San Jose, caddie John Ellis always dreamed of winning at famed Pebble Beach Golf Links, home of six U.S. Opens. He had his chances, playing in the PGA Tour's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am four times as a player and considers it to be his favorite golf course. When he shifted to caddying for Wyndham Clark, Ellis told him he just hoped one of his victories would be at Pebble.
'I always told him I'm going to make it happen,' Clark said.
Neither Ellis nor Clark could have imagined winning at Pebble Beach in this fashion – shooting a course-record 12-under 60 during Saturday's third round of the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am to erase a six-shot deficit and claim a one-stroke victory over Ludvig Aberg when the final round was canceled.
'Of all my wins, that's probably his favorite,' said Clark, whose three victories include the 2023 U.S. Open. 'It's his favorite place on Earth, so for us to win there, he jokingly said he's going to retire right after that, and I said, 'No, you're not.''
Theirs is a working relationship forged at University of Oregon in 2016 after Clark transferred there from Oklahoma State for his senior year. At the same time, Ellis's pro career was fizzling out.
A three-time state champion at Live Oak High in San Jose, where he is enshrined in the school's athletic Hall of Fame, Ellis, 45, grew up along the 13th hole at Santa Teresa Golf Club. He had turned pro in 2003 after being named a two-time All-Pac-10 player at Oregon and bounced around golf's minor leagues, winning the 2004 Northern California Open, the Canadian Tour's Order of Merit in 2008 and twice qualifying for the U.S. Open in 2008 and 2011. Between 2004 and 2011, 'Jelly,' as the other caddies call him, played in nine PGA Tour events, missing the cut in seven of them, and earning $55,651. He made just 16 Korn Ferry Tour starts between 2005 and 2015. With his playing career stalled, Ellis turned to coaching, returning to his alma mater as an assistant to Casey Martin.
'I was tired of having to hole 5-foot putts for my job,' Ellis said.
Clark, who lost his mother at age 19 and was prone to emotional outbursts on the course, was in need of a fresh start, too. Martin looked to Ellis to help rebuild his confidence on the course.
'He and Wyndham hit it off,' Martin said. 'He has an amazing ability to kind of tease Wyndham and to get his point across without being overly serious.'
'Why do we get the teachers we get?' wondered PGA Tour.com writer Cameron Morfit in an article on the Ellis-Clark bond. 'And why do we get them exactly when we need them most?'
Ellis delivered the reality check Clark needed. He would beat his teammates in practice but Ellis had his number. 'I couldn't make it on Tour, so if you can't beat me, how the heck are you going to make it out there?' Ellis said.
Ellis became Clark's barometer of where his game stood. He accepted Ellis's challenge and by midway through the spring semester Clark started whipping up on Ellis. It was no coincidence that under Ellis's watchful eye, Clark blossomed into the 2017 Pac-12 Conference individual champion and was named Golfweek's Collegiate Player of the Year. 'It was because of the money games I played against John,' Clark said.
Ellis did such a good job grooming Clark that when he struggled on the Korn Ferry Tour after turning pro, Clark texted Ellis an image of a sinking ship and asked him to caddie for him temporarily. Ellis immediately helped Clark stay afloat and earn his PGA Tour card. He had played enough at the highest level to realize Clark had all the tools to be a star. He agreed to be Clark's full-time caddie for one primary reason.
'I wasn't going to let him make the same mistakes I made,' explained Ellis.
Strangely enough, Ellis had a reputation for being a hot-head, too, the type of player who didn't hesitate to snap a club in half if it was misbehaving. But as a caddie for the past seven years, he has been a calming influence for Clark.
'He was Tyrrell Hatton as a player and Tony Robbins as a caddie,' CBS analyst Colt Knost said.
And yet Clark's attitude had gone from bad to worse. Ellis recalled that at the 2022 CJ Cup in South Carolina, Clark finished with just 10 clubs in the bag.
'I thought he was at an all-time low,' Ellis said.
In what he described as an intervention, Ellis was a prominent voice in convincing Clark to begin seeing mental coach Julie Elion, who has helped him work though some of his underlying issues.
While it's hard for anyone to fully understand the impact that the death of Clark's mother had on him, Ellis at least can relate to what it is like to lose a parent at a young age, or in his case, nearly lose one. Dave Ellis, a former San Jose State University quarterback and beloved football radio analyst for the Spartans for 20 years, suffered a heart attack when John was 18.
'I had all the classic symptoms,' said Dave Ellis, who juggled roles teaching adaptive education at Gavilan College and worked at a facility for struggling youth, in a San Francisco Chronicle article. 'I said, 'Uh-oh.' But I still finished the class. I know it sounds dumb, but people who (know) me aren't surprised.'
After receiving an angioplasty, he had a lump on his head examined that his wife, Peggy, had been nagging him to get checked out. They discovered a massive tumor was pressing on his brain. A surgeon removed it but Dave Ellis spent six days in a coma and had to be trained in how to walk and talk again. That's not all he had to re-learn.
'You'd look at him,' John told PGA Tour.com, 'and he'd give you this stare, like, 'Who are you guys?' He had to re-learn who we were. It took a few weeks. It made walking and balance hard for him; he battled through so much and taught us never to give up. It gave me perspective about what mattered.'
Dave Ellis eventually returned to the broadcast booth one season later and lived another 21 years, long enough to enjoy seeing his son's name in the same tee time listings in the Mercury News that he'd have John cut out when he'd take him out of school to see the pros play at Pebble Beach every year as a kid. That's why the venue for Clark's performance in Saturday's third round of the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was so meaningful.
'I've been 100 times and I still get goosebumps every time I turn on 17-Mile Drive,' John says.
Ellis has been on the bag for other victories, including a major – he was awarded the inaugural U.S. Open Caddie Award – and tense moments in the most recent Ryder Cup and yet he claimed never to have been more nervous as a caddie than when he was standing on the 18th tee at Pebble Beach and Clark had a legitimate shot to shoot 59 or 60. A two-putt birdie clinched the course-record 60 for Clark, who holed a career-best 189 feet, 9 inches of putts, and posted a 54-hole total of 17-under 199. When Ellis was asked whether that's the best he's seen his boss putt, he answered, 'I've never seen a human putt better let alone my own guy.'
Then they had to wait for the signature event to become the first 54-hole tournament on Tour since the 2016 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The decision to call it due to inclement weather handed Clark his first victory since the 2023 U.S. Open.
Clark called Ellis with the good news. They laughed and they cried. Then Ellis hung up and rushed to the home where Clark spent the week and relived the highlights of an unforgettable round. Ellis remembers every minute of the round whenever he looks at his wrist. Clark gave him a custom-made Oregon Ducks green Rolex watch to commemorate their slice of history. Engraved on the back are three simple words: 'Pebble Beach winner.'