Tour pro, caddy get into heated argument after caddy’s questions move
Matt Wallace and Samuel Bernard on Saturday’s 18th hole on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort.
ABC
Matt Wallace apparently wanted to knock off the cart path.
His caddy, Samuel Bernard, wanted a drop.
And their conversation continued for a while after the shot.
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“He and Sam are having an intense discussion about this,” announcer Dan Hicks said on the NBC show. “It doesn’t seem to be going so well.”
That’s the best way to describe a wild scene on Saturday’s 18th hole on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort. During the third round of the Valspar Championship, Wallace hit his second shot down the concrete cart path, then he and Bernard were exchanging pleasantries when Wallace’s iron shot appeared about 30 yards from the hole.
As shown by NBC camerasafter the swing:
— Wallace looked down, started walking, and started shaking his head. He and Bernard started talking. Bernard handed him a towel to clean the iron.
— Wallace raised his right hand. Bernard wanted to keep moving. cried Wallace. Some of those words included a visible “shut up.”
— Bernard took the bat from Wallace. Bernard spoke. Wallace then got in his face a bit. Bernard spoke again. Wallace took off his golf glove.
— Bernard spoke. Wallace shook his head. Both talked.
“I should have had her miked,” analyst Paul Azinger said on the NBC show.
As a matter of fact. So what happened?
The dusting up was apparently connected to “flow”. Or lack thereof.
Afterwards, NBC course reporter Cara Banks spoke to both the player and the caddy. She said they made peace. But on the second shot on 18, Wallace wanted to tee off from the cart path where his ball had landed after his tee shot. However, Bernard wanted him to fall off the path to the right, which would have landed him in a patch of grass and pine needles.
“I can confirm that the partnership is fine,” Banks said on NBC. “They will be together again tomorrow. Matt was just frustrated after his bogey on 17 and that misguided drive on 18. He was frustrated that Sam asked whether or not he should drop before that second shot.
“He felt like he should just play it as it lies, how he did it, and Sam questioning him disrupted his flow.”
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From there, Wallace pounded on his third shot, curled the putt, and finished the tournament with a one-under-70. He starts Sunday with a five-under, three shots behind leader Adam Schenk.
Notably, Wallace and Bernard were part of NBC’s Mic’d Up segment early Saturday; Wallace noted that Bernard is the only French caddy on the PGA Tour. Wallace also had at least one other televised confrontation with a caddy.
At BMW International 2019 — in two places, according to viewers of the show — Wallace exchanged words with then-caddy Dave McNeilly. A few weeks later, in an interview with the IndependentWallace said he regretted it.
“The two times I’ve had a chance to win tournaments, I’ve gone back to how I used to win tournaments and it was intense, way too much,” he said.
“I used to do that on my own whereas now I have a caddy and foolishly probably blamed him where I have to take full responsibility for what I did there – and I know it. I’m working on that.
“I’m not proud of how I handled this situation and I definitely addressed it and moved on.”
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