A man’s ‘wild experience’ of going from fan to caddie at PGA’s Canadian Open

Aurora, Ont.’s Paul Emerson says his heart rate went up pretty quickly when he was called into action to carry clubs after a pro golfer’s caddie wiped out on steep grass at the third hole of the RBG Canadian Open in Hamilton on Sunday.

“He was pretty badly hurt,” Emerson recalls of when Fluff Cowan, the caddie for Taiwanese professional C.T. Pan, went down in pain.

“He didn’t have a caddie anymore, so I just simply said, ‘Do you need help?’ and CT said, ‘Yes. Please. Thank you.'”

And just like that, Emerson was hauling clubs in a salmon-coloured T-shirt and blue bib for the PGA pro.

“There weren’t that many people there at the time, but a lot of them were kind of laughing and pointing at me in a positive way and just sort of surprised by it all,” Emerson remembers.

The 50-year-old lawyer was at the tour stop with a friend and their kids when he heard a shout of pain from Cowan, who once carried bags for Tiger Woods.

The caddie for Ireland’s Shane Lowry initially grabbed Pan’s bag when Cowan went down while Lowry had to pick up his own clubs off the green to complete the hole.

That’s when Emerson volunteered, with Pan accepting the help, lasting for holes four and five at the Hamilton Golf and Country Club.

The attorney says Pan only had two asks: keep the clubs dry and keep clear of the greens.

“He made it pretty clear, he said, ‘On the Greens, stay out of the way,'” Emerson said.

The depth and straightness of Pan’s shots for a “slight person” is the biggest takeaway Emerson had from his out-of-body experience.

“The sound that it makes is unlike anything we hear with our regular friends,” he said.

“It’s just unbelievable the way they hit it … and it stays on a straight line the whole time and disappears into the sunset.”

Volunteer Mike Campbell would take over for Emerson on the fifth hole but not before television and social media had picked up on his exploits.

An old friend of Pan’s, Al Riddell would finish the final nine after getting a call from the clubhouse to come in.

Riddell, who lives just 15 minutes from the club, had been Paul Barjon’s caddie before he missed the cut on Friday.

Pan, having used four caddies in all, shot a respectable 1-under 69 in the final round.

The 76-year-old Cowan was not seriously injured in the fall.

Emerson’s half-hour on the course turned into what he characterized as a “full day of hilarity” amid a deluge of messages from close friends and acquaintances.

“It’s been a wild experience,” he said.

“I guess people like the story of trying to be a good person.”