Golfer Cantlay's caddie earns over $1.7 million

The Tour Championship, which is the final leg of the PGA playoff, ended on Monday. The championship played by the top 30 players of the FedEx Cup had huge prize money – a total of 60 million dollars, which is about 70 billion won. Patrick Cantlay ranked No. 4 in the world was the one to win the largest amount. He beat Jon Rahm, who ranked No. 1 in the world, by one stroke and won 15 million dollars.

There was another man who got a big paycheck. USA Today and Yahoo Sports reported on Thursday the life-changing story of Matthew Minister who served as a caddie for Cantlay.

“Patrick and I have an arrangement and I’ll keep that between us,” said Minister. However, it can be estimated that he received around 1.5 million dollars as PGA Tour winners usually give 10 percent of their prize money to caddies. “It’s safe to say Minister made more money the last month than many people earn in their lifetime,” said USA Today.

Cantlay also won the BMW Championship, which ended on August 30, with the prize money of 1.71 million dollars. Minister is likely to have won about 2 billion won from the two championships.

The two met each other for the first time in 2017. Cantlay, who had missed more than two years after back surgery, asked Minister to caddie for him, which Minister accepted gladly. Cantlay has been performing outstandingly since then. The duo lifted championship trophies six times, including the Tour Championship. As Cantlay’s total prize money is over 35 million dollars since the two started to work together, Minister is likely to have earned over 3.5 million dollars.

Minister calls Cantlay, who is 18 years younger than him, “Boss,” while the golfer sometimes calls the caddie “Dad.” “Matt makes me feel comfortable” said the Tour Championship winner. “I can always rely on him.”


Heon-Jae Lee uni@donga.com