As my college years went by and around me people who had
maxed out their student loans were taking second or even third jobs, the free
ride I was on for tending pins and raking sand traps became harder to
explain.
You were what? A caddie?
You got a scholarship?
A caddie scholarship?!
The looks they shot me weren’t too different from what a
fourball player would flash after losing three ways to a pair of sandbaggers.
The conversations always seemed to leave my fellow students with more questions
than answers, and many would linger on that seeming oxymoron: caddie
scholarship.
File all this under Golf is the Greatest of all Games—Reason
No. 427. A Midwestern kid works summers at Olympia Fields or Minikahda or
Muirfield
Village, learns the caddie
trade, flourishes in high school, shows financial need and earns a four-year,
renewable, tuition-paying scholarship to one of several prestigious
universities. Oh, and he (or she) gets to live in a fraternity-style house with
other caddies.
The Evans Scholarship might be one of the best-kept secrets
in golf, although no one actually tries to keep it under wraps. Since 1930, the
Evans Scholars Foundation, based appropriately in Golf, Ill., has been awarding
scholarships to caddies, who mostly attend one of 14 major universities and live
in a chapter house that is part fraternity, part army barracks and filled with
caddies from every kind of background.
“Most people really can’t believe it,” admits Gabe Ottolini,
who recently graduated from Indiana University with a marketing degree.
“They’ll ask if you caddie for the golf team. They can’t believe you get all
your stuff taken care of, and that it lasts the whole four years.”
The notion that every resident living in the Evans Scholar
houses is one of these foundation-blessed collegians also stirs disbelief.
“People visiting
our house would look around and have trouble believing that all those guys
caddied,” says Ottolini. “It’s such a mixed bag of people. That’s the last thing
you’d think is the common thread.”
Ottolini, 23, was one of 800-some Evans Scholars enrolled
during the 2000-2001 school year. He caddied at Meridian Hills Country Club in
Indianapolis,
then earned an Evans Scholarship by ranking among the top 25 percent of his high
school class, getting recommendations from his club and surviving an interview
process that dries the throats of each new crop of candidates. Andy Krop was a
fellow Evans Scholar at Indiana who caddied at
Woodmar Country Club in Hammond, Ind.
He started caddying at age 12 and worked at the club for seven years, through
high school and into his freshman year of college.
“I heard about the scholarship through some of the older guys
and the club pro,” Krop says. “A lot of people have the misconception that we’re
golfers and strictly here for golf. Or they hear we’re caddies but don’t realize
this is a full-tuition scholarship and academics is a big part of it. They don’t
see the full picture.”
The program was established by Charles “Chick” Evans Jr., an
accomplished amateur golfer who won 54 titles during a long competitive career.
In 1916, Evans became the first player to capture the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open
in the same year. He later was compensated for his golf prowess, but, wishing to
remain an amateur, Evans earmarked the funds for charity. And that’s how the
Evans Scholarship was born.
The Western Golf Association became the program’s sponsor in
1930, the year the first two scholarships were awarded, and slowly the momentum
built. There were 84 Scholars enrolled by 1950; that number swelled to 440 by
1960. For the last two decades, the number of grants in any given year has
averaged 825, with approximately 125 going to women.
The program has sent forth more than 8,000 men and women.
Most have spent their college days in Evans Scholar chapter houses located at
Colorado, Wisconsin, Marquette, Illinois, Northwestern, Northern Illinois,
Indiana, Purdue, Missouri, Miami (Ohio), Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State
and Minnesota.
The houses are owned and operated by the Evans Scholars
Foundation, and maintained each year with a house fee paid by each scholar—a fee
that is generally far less than they’d pay if they lived in a dorm or off-campus
housing. Most Evans Scholars also work dining-hall jobs at nearby fraternities
and sororities.
Although golf is not an overriding theme once college begins,
it is without question a part of an Evans Scholar’s life. And caddying is the
bond.
“Especially your freshman year. That’s the best way to get to
know each other,” says Krop. “You start swapping funny stories about what
happened as a caddie on the golf course. It leads you to thinking we’re all in
the same boat down here.” Anyone reading this who has misplaced a member’s
heirloom putter or had to suppress laughter while watching Mr. Smith ricochet
one off a tree and onto his kneecap, knows how the lore gets compiled. Many
scholarship caddies head back to restock their trove of stories when school lets
out.
“A lot of us still caddie over the summer,” says Kate
Rehfield, a senior at Purdue last year. A former caddie at Medinah Country Club
in suburban Chicago, she has two brothers and a sister who
also earned the scholarship. “We’re one of the houses that is family-oriented,”
she says. “We sit around and reminisce about being a ‘B-jock’ and working up to
the ‘Honor’ caddie rank. About how golfers aimed for us [while shagging balls]
on the range, who paid the best and the worst, the best loops we had.
“I think it helps you appreciate more why you’re here and
what you’ve been given. If you’re on your own, you might take it for
granted.”
Andy Alan is an anomaly in the Evans system. His home is
Florida, where
caddying is sparse at mostly cart-filled courses. But the club where he worked
in Hobe Sound, Loblolly Pines, had a small caddie program that employed mostly
adult caddies.
Alan read about the scholarship, and although there is no
chapter house in his home state, he applied anyway and was awarded an Evans
Scholarship to the University of Michigan.
“I couldn’t believe it when they told me I was going to come
here for free,” Alan says. “Especially since I’m out of state. I could have gone
to the University
of Florida, but they
strongly suggested I go to a university that has a chapter house. They believe
it’s important for people to live in a house and experience the entire Evans
program. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I’m glad I did. I can honestly say that
if I didn’t live in the house, the Evans Scholarship wouldn’t mean as much to
me, what it’s all about.
“The guys here … not everybody is the best of friends, but
everyone gets along. We stick together. We’re proud to be Evans Scholars.”
Chapter-house life is an integral part of the program.
Friendships are formed for life. “Caddyshack” viewings are not mandatory, but
frequent. “We still watch it,” says Collen Evans, a Scholar at Marquette. “I know there
is a copy floating around in the house. We have a big-screen TV in the basement
and there was a big group watching it during finals week.”
