® 42 tour pros isn’t always apicnic. in Lake Forest, Ill., knows working with Championship atConway Farms West, takingabreak attheBMW NOVEMBER 11, 2013 2013 11, NOVEMBER ❮ GOLFWORLD.COM

PHOTO CREDIT PHOTO CREDIT times happens, “a weak excuse to try to get out of playing.” delayed plane or a broken-down courtesy car or, as some- “It’s almost always a problem.” wry smile that most people on tour recognize right away. calling to ask how my kids are doing,” West said, smiling the I This one, in West-world, was relatively minor. It wasn’t a on the PGA Tour: putting out brushfires. and Tim West was doing what he does most Mondays t was a hot, humid June Monday at Congressional CC Nolan, one of 28 pros scheduled to play that day. that play to scheduled pros 28 of one Nolan, al’s Monday pro-am, West got a phone call from Keith “Whenever this phone rings, I know it’s not someone Shortly before the first tee time of the AT&T Nation- Nolan doesn’t currently have PGA Tour status, but West There is no day quite like Monday on the PGA Tour. The had asked him to play that day because finding 28 “Monday locker room is close to empty because most players haven’t guys” in a 132-man field is never easy. “If you have 156, getting arrived yet. Some tournaments don’t even sell tickets 28 isn’t that tough,” he said. “When you’ve got an invitational for the day because the number of fans likely to show up like this one, 22 is a much better number. But the tournaments doesn’t justify the cost of getting the course up and running don’t want to turn away groups that want to play. Can’t say I for the public. blame them. You’re talking about real money here.” But for those who work on Monday, it is very important Nolan was running a little late but figured he would be on to get the day right. The amateurs aren’t paying as much time unless he had to stop at an ATM machine for cash. “I as those who pay to play in the more glamorous pro-am on need 100 bucks to tip my caddie,” he told West. On Mondays Wednesday, but they are ponying up a significant amount many players use local caddies rather than PGA Tour caddies. and expect an entertaining day in return. Especially someone like Nolan, who had been, as West put it, Monday is also the last real chance to find out if there is “called in from the bullpen” to play after a late dropout. anything on the course that needs to be fixed or tweaked: “Get over here right away,” West said. “I’ll find you a hun- Are the green speeds adequate? Is there enough sand in the dred bucks.” bunkers? Is the rough too high or too wet or too thick? Looking in his own wallet, West had $20. He couldn’t “When most guys show up on Tuesday to play practice a!ord the time to go find an ATM either because his job rounds, if something’s wrong with the golf course, we hear during the next three hours was to make sure all 28 pros got about it right away,” says tour rules o"cial Steve Rintoul. to their tee times and met their amateurs, who were paying “I’d rather hear about it Monday. If Tim [West] tips me o! $10,000 per group for four players to play with a pro who was that there’s an issue, I know it’s something I need to look into unlikely to resemble , or Rory right away.” McIlroy. Stars don’t play on Mondays although fallen stars Searching for the $100 he needed for Nolan, West looked sometimes do because the only way for them to get to play on around the range and saw Tommy (Two Gloves) Gainey Thursday is to show up on Monday. walking past. Gainey had volunteered to play on Monday

44 NOVEMBER 11, 2013 ❮ GOLFWORLD.COM Talk show: Conversation and relationship building is West’s stock in trade. Chatting up golfers such as Brian Gay (salmon pants) and Michael Thompson (blue shirt) at Conway Farms is part of the “Commissioner’s” job.

got there,” West says. “I always told him he was one of the first of the tour’s vice presidents in charge of nothing. He may have invented the role. We Wests are trendsetters.” West spent most of his boyhood in Nashville (where he still lives) and went to Western Kentucky with no idea what he wanted to do in order to help out West. Having won the 2012 McGladrey after college. Genetics may have prevailed though, because his Classic, Gainey didn’t need to play on Monday, and he cer- first job was as a salesman—in golf. tainly didn’t need the $1,000 each pro receives for participat- He worked for Supreme Golf out of Cincinnati until he was ing. But he was there, knowing that West needed players. o"ered a job as a road representative for Ram. After West “Hey Gloves,” West said. “Can you spot me a hundred until spent a couple of years supplying stores and golf shops in tomorrow?” Tennessee and Kentucky, Ram decided to send him out on Gainey laughed, looked in his wallet and pulled out $100. tour. He had two assignments: Make sure , then He gave West the ritual hard time about it, but the next day, Ram’s most visible player, was happy and try to get as many after West had repaid him, he said without a trace of a smile: players as possible to play the Zebra putter. “Tim West is always good for it, I know that. [When] he gives “Watson was easy,” West says, laughing. “I look at some of you his word on anything, you can count on it.” these guys out here who won’t have careers that will match With Gainey’s money in hand, West headed toward the some of his months who act like bigger stars than Tom ever course. Play was about to get underway. did. He was about as low maintenance as any player you “Gotta go check on the kiddies,” he said. “Make sure could possibly work with. everyone’s behaving.” “I got lucky with the Zebra,” he continues. “We’d just signed Lee Janzen, and he was about to become a star. Then Nick n the PGA Tour, West is known as The Monday Price started using the putter when he was the best player in Commissioner. Almost everyone associated the world, and that put us completely back on the map.” with the tour in any capacity—from players to After four years on tour for Ram, West got itchy selling caddies to tournament directors to sponsors to just one product and decided to go independent. Over the media members to , the commis- next few years he repped everything from grips to rain gear. sioner the other six days of the week, calls him Working for so many people in so many areas meant he was Oby that uno!cial title. in contact with just about everyone in golf. “Can’t remember who put it on me first,” West says one af- But it was an old friend of his father’s who changed his life. ternoon, standing on the back of the range at Hilton Head. “I Moose Wammock had worked for the tour as the tourna- think it actually might have been Tim [or as West calls him, ment manager for what was then the Tournament Players “the other commissioner,”] but I’m honestly not sure.” Championship in the 1970s and ’80s before starting his own West, 51, has been part of the PGA Tour’s traveling circus events company. In the late 1980s Monday pro-ams began since 1989. Even though he describes himself as someone who to appear on tour, and it was Wammock who worked with never played much golf, his roots in the game are deep: His tournament directors to put them together. father, Art West, worked for commissioner in The Monday pro-am is completely di"erent from those marketing starting in 1979, around the time Beman moved the played at most tour stops on Wednesday. Players must play, tour’s headquarters to Ponte Vedra Beach. if asked, on Wednesday. If you are in the Wednesday pro-am “They were still working out of trailers when my dad and you no-show, you can’t play on Thursday—unless you

GOLFWORLD.COM ❯ NOVEMBER 11, 2013 45 are Phil Mickelson and you can’t get to Dallas because of bad Have cart will travel: knew everyone,” Hougham says. “When weather. Jim Furyk wasn’t as lucky in 2010 at the Barclays West, making the I told him who had been committed to rounds during the when his alarm didn’t go o! and he was late. The rule on pro-am at the BMW play, he actually told me who hadn’t showing up late for the pro-am has since been amended. The Championship shown up before I even told him. So I no-show rule still applies. in September, said to him, ‘Can you get me a field of is always on the Mondays are voluntary—sort of. Amateurs understand move—especially on guys who will actually show up?’ He did, that none of the tour’s current stars will be in their foursome. Mondays. and we’ve worked together every year For their money, though, they expect to play with a pro, since.” perhaps even someone whose name is familiar. West credits Hougham for getting the word out to tourna- That’s where Wammock then, and West now, come into ment directors that he was reliable. His Monday Commis- play. In 1995 Wammock asked West to help him with his sioner title became “ ‘uno"cially o"cial’ when Finchem burgeoning Monday business. West agreed, but a couple began using it regularly,” West says with a laugh. “It’s an easy of years later, Wammock had a stroke. West tried to keep job really. Sort of like trying to pin Jello to a wall.” the business going until Wammock got healthy, but his boss Or some golfers to a commitment. never did, returning to the tour briefly before his health When tournament directors are handing out sponsors’ forced him to retire. Tournament directors began turning exemptions, a player’s willingness to play on Monday is to West more and more to get them a Monday field. By 1999 often a key to his getting a spot. The deal is fairly simple: If West’s moniker of “Monday Commissioner” had stuck. you want a Thursday tee time, you need to accept a Monday “What’s great about Tim isn’t just that he knows every- one—for $1,000. body, but he knows who to ask and who not to bother asking,” That’s why past major champions such as John Daly and says Kym Hougham, who was the tournament director at the Janzen might show up in a Monday pro-am lineup. in the late ’90s and now is the execu- “Some guys absolutely get it, others don’t,” West says. “I had tive director in Charlotte at the Wells Fargo Championship. one guy, who is now a big name, who wanted to play in Charlotte “The first year I was running the Deere I went to Houston, when he was a rookie. Kym was willing to give him a spot but talked to a bunch of guys and thought I had my Monday field wanted him to play on Monday. I told the kid the deal. He nod- set—20 guys. About eight of them no-showed for di!erent ded and said, ‘That’s fine, but I’d rather play Wednesday.’ reasons, and we had to give people refunds. “I explained to him Wednesday wasn’t an option. In fact, “I’d met Tim in Houston, and I realized right away that he there were no options. He looked at me nodded and said,

46 NOVEMBER 11, 2013 ❮ GOLFWORLD.COM ‘OK, explain my options again?’ I tried one more time. I said, ‘OK, here are your options: You play Monday and Thursday thank you to the people who are putting or you don’t play at all.’ I swear to God he looked right at me and said, ‘But I’d prefer to play Wednesday.’ ” up the $6.5 million they are playing for West shakes his head, looks at his cellphone and laughs. that week. Some guys are great. … [others] “You simply cannot cure stupid.” You can cure irresponsible—sometimes. Several years don’t want to do anything in return.” Tim West ago, another rookie who would go on to win on tour, agreed to play in a Monday pro-am in return for a spot on Thursday. He showed up Monday morning, picked up his courtesy car and with wherever I am so I never feel like I’m really on the road. left. When West called to remind him he had a tee time, he “It’s nice, though, when I get to stay home for a while and said he didn’t feel good, was really sorry and would make it up relax during the o!season,” says West, an occasional golfer. to West. West suggested he would do exactly that—the next “And, a lot of weeks, I get home by Wednesday. Though I’m day—by making an appearance in a corporate tent. out that week, I still get four days at home.” “He no-showed again,” West says. “I asked the tournament Even so, West was more than happy to have an assistant director what he wanted to do. He said, ‘I want his car back.’ with him during the summer of 2013: His older, 23-year- I went to the dealer who supplied the tournament cars, got old daughter Paige (his younger daughter is a high school another set of keys, drove to his hotel with a volunteer, found senior) was on tour working with him. the car and drove it back to the dealer. “That’s been great on two levels,” West says. “More time “The next morning the kid called me and said, ‘Tim, some- with her and the fact that she’s had a chance to get to know one stole my courtesy car!’ I said, ‘I know—it was me.’ ” people and understand a lot about what I do. In fact, by now, West works between 25 and 30 events a year. Some weeks he she may know more about what I do than I do.” is only responsible for Monday, which means putting together Because he is on the range working so much and because a field and making sure everyone shows up on time. Other he is an extrovert by nature, West spends a lot of time with weeks he is asked to stay until the weekend to run an occasional caddies. Although he has access to player dining, he often Saturday pro-am o!-site and to shepherd players to corporate opts to eat at the caddie tent. “Feel more at home there,” he hospitality tents to grip and grin with sponsors. says. “There’s a lot less pretension out there than hanging “I try to get to [new players] early,” West said as he waited around the clubhouse, though I gotta say most of the people I to take Jordan Spieth to a hospitality area this past summer. work with are great.” “I think it’s important they understand that part of their job Earlier this year West decided there might be a better way should be to say thank you to the people who are putting up to put the Monday pro-ams to good use than to just hand out the $6.5 million they’re playing for that week. Some guys are $1,000 to each player and throw the amateur fees into the great—Rickie Fowler is always gracious. Guys like Joe Ogilvie, tournament’s general charity fund. Gloves [Gainey], Rory Sabbatini. I know Sabbatini might “I’d like to see each tournament kick in $100 per player surprise some people, but he gets it about as well as anyone during the Monday pro-ams,” he says. “From that, we can out here. I can always get Phil [Mickelson] to do at least one start an emergency fund for caddies who have a financial a year, and he actually seems to enjoy it. crisis. A lot of them make very good money now. But a lot of “Of course there are guys who just want the $6.5 million them don’t.” and don’t want to do anything in return,” West says. “When West hopes to have the fund going by the start of 2014. they go, they make it clear they don’t want to be there so I Robert Garrigus has pledged to match any money the tour- don’t ask them again. I’d rather not have a guy like that go in naments put into the fund on a weekly basis. West would like because all it does is make everyone uncomfortable.” to have at least $100,000 available for caddies in need by the West smiles. “Some of them do come back down the lad- end of next year. der though and people remember.” “Caddies are important to the tour—everyone knows that,” West says. “This is a way, an important way, for all of est has been on tour for 25 years and is about us to give something back to them. It should not be that hard as familiar a figure on the range as anyone. for anyone to do this.” With his white-rimmed sunglasses, shaggy He smiled. “Of course it shouldn’t be that hard to show up white hair and ever-present cellphone, he for a tee time either.” is often the person who players turn to for The cellphone buzzed again. West looked at the message, information, advice or gossip. If something is then at the time. “Gotta roll,” he said. “I need to get to an Whappening on tour, West almost always knows about it. ATM and get that hundred bucks I owe Gloves and then get He’s been on the road most of his adult life, and he doesn’t back here to make sure everyone’s happy when they finish.” mind it. “I almost feel at times like I have it down to a science,” He walked to his car as the sun began working its way toward he says. “I know where to stay and where to eat and where not the western horizon. It was still Monday, which meant the com- to stay and where not to go eat. I know the people I’m working missioner had a lot more work to do before he slept. n

GOLFWORLD.COM ❯ NOVEMBER 11, 2013 47