Soon after that, Norman walked up to Bruce one day on the range, handed him his phone number, and said, “Please give me a call whenever you can.”
Curious, Bruce called and Norman came quickly to the point: “I’m looking for a caddy,” he said. “Would you be interested in coming to work for me?”
Bruce was stunned. The thought of leaving Watson had never crossed his mind. They had been together for fifteen years. The last few hadn’t been nearly as successful as the first eleven, but Watson had rallied in 1987. He had almost won the U.S. Open, coming up a few inches short on a birdie putt on the 72nd hole that would have forced a playoff with Scott Simpson for the championship on Monday. He had come back to win the Tour Championship (a new event that year, played at the end of the season by the top 30 on the money list), and that victory had vaulted him to number five on the money list. It was his first tour win in three years and came as a great relief to both player and caddy. Even without that win, Bruce wasn’t looking to work for anyone else. He told Norman he was extremely flattered but he was committed to Watson. Norman said he understood but if Bruce ever changed his mind, the job was his.
Unfortunately the victory in the Tour Championship did not turn out to be a turning point for Watson. He had one of his worst years ever on tour in 1988, falling to 39th on the money list, the lowest he had finished on the list since his rookie year, 1972. Like all players who are struggling with their game, Watson was exasperated, perhaps more so than most because it had not been that long ago that he was the world’s best player. He was not yet forty, he was in excellent shape, and his game had deserted him.
“It was a bad time,” he said. “If you work very hard at something and reach a certain level and then you can’t do what you do anywhere close to that level it is absolutely no fun—to put it mildly. I was like a writer with a permanent case of writer’s block. Nothing I did, nothing I tried, could get me out of it. I talked to Byron, I talked to people I respected, I fiddled and tried to go back to swing thoughts that had worked in the past. Nothing.”
Watson would never take his frustrations out on Bruce, but seeing his friend so frustrated and upset was tough on Bruce. Going to the golf course, which had been such a joy for him for so many years, became something he almost dreaded, “because I knew there was a good chance we weren’t going to have a good day. I knew that was going to hurt Tom and that hurt me,” he said. “It was a tough time for both of us.”
And there was Norman, if not the number one player in the world, certainly the number one money-earner in golf, beckoning. He called Bruce again to see if perhaps he had changed his mind after having some time to think about it. Bruce was adamant. He worked for Tom Watson and would continue to work for Tom Watson until Watson told him he wasn’t working for him anymore. Or quit playing—which at that point was more likely than Bruce’s getting fired.
Watson said he never heard any rumors about Norman trying to entice Bruce to come work for him. But he was certainly aware of how respected Bruce was by other players, many of them top players, and knew that any number of players whom Bruce had worked for on off weeks would have loved to have him with them on a permanent basis. One night, after another frustrating day, Watson said to Bruce, “You know, if you ever get an opportunity to work for someone else in a job which can further your career, you should seriously consider it.”
Bruce was stunned. He was even a little bit angry. “What about loyalty?” he said. “I’ve worked for you for fifteen years. Why would I work for anyone else?”
“Because,” Watson answered, “at the end of the day this is a business, and you owe it to yourself if you have the chance to work for someone else who can make you more money to go and work for him. In fact, if that chance comes up I would
want
you to take it, because it would be the best thing for you. If I’m going to be loyal to you, that’s the way I should feel. I’m not playing well right now, and you know I’m going to cut my schedule back more the next few years to spend more time with the kids. You have to think about your future. You have to do what’s best for you, not what’s best for me.”
Bruce really didn’t want to take Watson seriously. But he knew Watson was serious, because Watson was not the kind of person to even broach the subject without having given it a good deal of thought. “It was a father talking to a son,” Watson said, years later. “It was time for him to think about leaving the nest and moving on with his life. When I looked at myself at that point, there was no reason to think that I was going to snap out of my playing funk anytime soon. I wanted what was best for him, and never for a second would I have seen his leaving as an act of disloyalty.”
Bruce still wasn’t ready to leave the nest. It was still quite comfortable, even with Watson’s struggles. He was doing just fine financially, especially with the extra income he was making working for other players. He stuck with Watson for the rest of 1988 and began 1989 hoping that a new year would bring about a renaissance in Watson’s game. But the new year was very much like the old. Watson had only played nineteen times in ’88 and he wasn’t planning on playing any more than that in ’89. There were now missed cuts on occasion, something that had almost never occurred during the heyday. In fact, from 1977 through 1983—seven seasons—Watson had missed a total of eight cuts in 148 starts, including not missing any in 1980. In 1988 and 1989 he missed nine cuts in a total of 37 starts.
Even when he did make the cut, he wasn’t contending the way he had in past years. His highest finish in a major in 1988 was a tie for ninth at the Masters. He wasn’t in the top 25 in any of the other three. What bothered Bruce most was what bothered Watson most: the notion that the condition might be permanent. “It was more about attitude than anything else,” Bruce said. “I had never seen Tom not try, I had never seen him not willing to work. He had gotten where he was by outworking everyone else on tour. But I did sense a shift in priorities. He wasn’t playing that well and he wanted to be home more. That has to change your approach to what you’re doing on a daily basis.”
The moment that finally forced Bruce to sit down and think about Norman’s offer and Watson’s words came at the Memorial Tournament in May. Watson’s game was way off and he played the last few holes on Friday with no chance to make the cut. For one of the few times in the sixteen years he had been with him, Bruce sensed that Watson was having trouble caring. He was still trying on each shot, but he was almost listless, as if the way he was playing had simply taken the fight out of him. “It really depressed me,” Bruce remembered.
When the round was over and Watson had signed his card, he told Bruce to contact him over the weekend because he was thinking of withdrawing from the Colonial, which was the following week. “I think I may need a break,” he said.
Bruce knew the break wouldn’t be for that long—the U.S. Open was only a few weeks off and Watson almost always played at Westchester, which was the week before the Open. But it was completely out of character for Watson to withdraw from a tournament for any reason other than illness or a family emergency. This was neither. This was just him feeling over-golfed.
Bruce spent most of the afternoon thinking about what Watson had said about making a business decision and doing what was best for him. He knew he would make a lot more money working for Norman. The idea of not working for Watson scared him, but he knew that Watson was going to be making decisions on his future based on what was best for him and had counseled Bruce to do the same. Finally he took a deep breath and went to the range, where he knew Norman was hitting balls. He pulled him aside and said quietly, “If the job is still available, I want it.”
Norman was clearly surprised—it had been a year since he first approached Bruce—and asked Bruce to call him that night. When Bruce called, Norman told him he was delighted that he had reconsidered and asked him if he could start in a week at Westchester. Bruce swallowed hard and said he’d be there.
The next morning he called Watson. “I actually thought about flying to Kansas City to tell him in person,” he said. “But the way the caddy world works, I knew it would be all over the range at the Memorial by that afternoon that I was leaving Tom and guys would start calling Tom looking for the job, and I didn’t want him to find out that way.”
“Hey Bruce, what’s up?” Watson asked when he heard his friend’s voice.
For a moment Bruce couldn’t even speak. Finally he said, “Tom, I think I’m gonna take an offer from another player. He’s going to play more than you’re playing right now and he’s offered me a lot of money, so since you said you’re going to cut back some more on your schedule, I think I’m going to take it.”
“Who’s the player?” Watson asked.
Bruce took a deep breath. “Greg Norman.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Bruce knew that Watson had to be shocked, and even if he had told Bruce this was the right thing for him to do, it was tough for him to take. To use the Watson analogy, it was as if Bruce were going off to college: Your parents know it’s the right thing for you to do, but they still cry when they say goodbye. Watson wasn’t crying, he was just very quiet. Bruce was the one who thought he was going to cry.
“Do you want me to find someone to work for you at Westchester?” he asked.
“No,” Watson answered firmly. “I’ll just show up there and find someone when I get there.”
Bruce couldn’t help but think, “Just like you did on that day in St. Louis sixteen years ago.”
“As soon as I hung up the phone, I started to cry,” Bruce said. “At that moment, that was the toughest thing I had ever done in my life. I knew Tom believed it was the right thing for me to do, but it still felt awful. I was filled with guilt.”
True friends never want to feel they have let one another down in any way. Watson honestly believed at that moment in time that he had been letting Bruce down by not playing better and because his life had reached a point where he wanted to play less. That was why he had pushed him to leave. Even knowing that, Bruce still felt guilty about leaving.
“For sixteen years, he was the constant in my life,” he said. “I lived in different places, met a lot of different people, made a lot of different friends. But the one person I always knew I would see sooner or later was Tom. And there was never a day I didn’t want to work for him. Near the end, some of the days were tougher than others because he wasn’t playing well, but I never felt as if I had a bad day with him. Frustrating maybe. But never a bad day. You couldn’t have a better friend or a better boss.”
Now, though, he had a new boss.
When Bruce showed up at Westchester with Norman’s bag slung across his shoulder there were waves of shock among both players and caddies. On Tuesday, when Norman went out to play a practice round, he and Bruce found a small posse of reporters—most of them from Australia—waiting for them as they came off the ninth green. Bruce sprinted to the 10th tee, not wanting to talk to anyone. Norman lingered for a few minutes. When he walked on to the tee, he pulled out his driver, smiled at Bruce and said, “That was all about you, Bud.”
“Great,” Bruce said. “That’s just what I need.”
He heard all sorts of comments that week from other caddies, from players, even from fans. “They ranged from ‘You’ll help make Greg a real winner,’ to ‘You won’t last working for him,’ to ‘Traitor.’”
That one, naturally, hurt most.
On the first day of the tournament, as he walked down the fairway with Norman, someone yelled from behind the ropes, “Hey Bruce, that bag on your shoulder doesn’t look right!”
“Yeah, but it feels right!” Bruce yelled back. And then a thought crossed his mind: “For now.”
The Norman Years
FROM DAY ONE
, Life with Greg was a lot different than Life with Tom. Bruce had gone from working for a star golfer to working for a rock star. The flashiest thing Watson had ever done in his life was point at Bruce on the 17th green at Pebble Beach. Away from the golf course, he lived about as low-key a life as a celebrity could, often walking into restaurants unnoticed unless there were serious golf fans in the room. Without a golf club in his hands, Watson looked no different from most people walking down the street: 5 feet 9, reddish-brown hair, conservative clothes, and an unassuming manner.
Norman, in striking contrast, was 6 feet 2 with a mane of white-blonde hair that was impossible to miss wherever he went. Watson dressed quietly; Norman designed his own clothing line. Watson’s entourage was Linda, perhaps the children, occasionally Bruce. Norman had family, friends, agents, personal assistants, golf course design consultants—a whole retinue of people everywhere he went. Watson played golf for a living, and when he wasn’t playing golf he was home playing golf with friends, spending time with his kids, doing a little hunting with his dad and his pals. Norman never shut down. He was all over the world playing golf, designing courses, making appearances for sponsors, scuba diving. Private jets were the norm for him, usually with a car idling on the runway awaiting his arrival.
In the beginning, Bruce found it all very exciting. He was amazed by Norman’s ability to walk between the ropes and shut out the hundreds of things going on in his life and focus on golf. He was working more than he ever had, because Norman played all over the world. Watson generally played overseas three weeks a year—the week before the British Open (sometimes), the week of the British Open, and in Japan in the fall. Norman was then a client of the International Management Group (IMG), which is, if nothing else, very aggressive about placing clients in overseas events in return for huge appearance fees. Norman was the best-known and highest-paid golfer in the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s and could command appearance fees well into six figures, especially in his native Australia. He made two trips a year there and played in Japan, Europe, and South Africa. Private jets were just starting to be the rage among top players, and Norman—along with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus—was one of the first to purchase a Gulfstream jet capable of transoceanic flights. In fact Norman has far more career victories overseas—sixty-six—than he does on the PGA Tour—twenty.