Tiger Woods to reunite with old friend at The Open who left Rory McIlroy ready to fight | Golf | Sport
Tiger Woods will be in a group with his old caddie, Joe LaCava, at The Open this week for the first time since the pair separated. LaCava ended a 12-year association with Woods in 2023 to take up a full-time role on Patrick Cantlay’s bag.
A star-studded grouping will see Woods tee off at Royal Troon on Thursday afternoon alongside Xander Schauffele and Cantlay, bringing him and LaCava together in a competitive setting for the first time since they went their separate ways.
While there remains a great deal of respect between LaCava and Woods, the caddie has had run-ins with players in the past, and he worked Rory McIlroy up into a fit of rage during the Ryder Cup last year.
McIlroy was left incensed by the extent of LaCava’s celebrations when Cantlay holed a long birdie putt in the final match of the day last November. Frosty words were exchanged at the end of the round and senior figures were unable to calm McIlroy down.
“Here’s what angered me,” the four-time major winner told the Irish Independent. “My relationship with Cantlay is average at best. We don’t have a ton in common and we see the world quite differently.
“But when I saw he was getting stick on the 17th and 18th greens, I tried to quieten the crowd for him. And I don’t think Fitz (Matt Fitzpatrick) and I were afforded the same opportunity to try and hole those putts to halve the match. I shook Joe’s hand, and Patrick’s hand. As I’m walking back to the locker room I can feel this red mist coming over me. ‘No! That wasn’t right.'”
McIlroy also explained that Shane Lowry stopped him going into the USA team room to ‘sort things out’. LaCava texted McIlroy an offer to ‘clear the air’ the following morning, but the seething Northern Irishman did not reply.
When caddie Ricky Elliott and coach Claude Harmon III reached out to McIlroy to try and diffuse tensions, he told them: “Joe LaCava used to be a nice guy when he was caddying for Tiger and now he’s caddying for that d*** he’s turned into an a**.”
Thankfully for McIlroy, he will be coming to the end of his opening round on Thursday by the time Cantlay tees off at Royal Troon with LaCava by his side. McIlroy has been paired with Max Homa and Tyrrell Hatton and given a 10:09am (BST) tee time.
The 35-year-old is still desperate to end his decade-long major drought, though his record at The Open is solid, notching top-six finishes in six of his last eight starts since he won it in 2014.
