Tim Tucker just can’t stay away.
The veteran PGA Tour caddie is back on a bag this week, looping for Chesson Hadley at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas.
Why would Tucker, who owns a successful shuttle operation at Bandon Dunes and who has invented a putting alignment device and who loves to dive into with data, go back to his old gig?
“Because Chesson’s a great guy,” Tucker said after monitoring Hadley’s Tuesday range session. “He asked me a year ago to caddie here and I didn’t. I told him I wished I would have because, you know, it’s fun to get around different players and see what they’re doing. You learn more, you can help them in some of a different way. So it’s awesome. And he’s a great guy.”
Tucker, who has invented a putting aid called True Aim, has long been a tinkerer.
On Tuesday, he was watching Hadley hit iron shot after iron shot while calculating data from a Trackman as well as a Foresight launch monitor. Some of the discussion involved altitude, temperature, wind speed and even barometric pressure.
“I was in the military, I was on a rifle team. And we used anemometers for long range,” he said as he explained how back in 2016 he and DeChambeau really started to explore metrics. “We started to apply that to golf ball density, temperature and barometric pressure, all that mattered determines how far the ball is going, temperature and altitude in time, then it’s quantifiable. So we started with that, when we started working into green density and understanding with angle of descent of an iron shot with a certain spin rate leading into a certain slope, then the run out was predictable. And so we started doing that, and we just kept on and we never stopped.”
Tucker was alongside DeChambeau for all eight of his PGA Tour victories, including the 2020 U.S. Open but it was their breakup in July 2021 on the eve of the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit that made headlines in the golf world.
“It’s just one of those things that just happened. For better or for worse,” Tucker said. “Bryson doesn’t need me to play great golf, and he’s proven that. The kid is amazing athlete.
“He turned me into what people would say is a reliable, good caddie. Whether I am or not, that’s the perception because of him, right? And, you know, he helped me make a lot of money. Help me get my kids through college. You know, and so I’m forever in his debt.”
Today, the two are still friends.
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