Pat Perez in lockstep with caddie Mike Hartford

Pat Perez remembers his caddie’s “Tom Kite glasses.”

Mike Hartford remembers his boss’s sense of humor and enviable talent.

They met as teenagers, and Perez, 41, and Hartford, 42, have rarely gone more than a day or two apart since. It’s been a fruitful partnership; they’ve racked up three PGA TOUR victories, including two in the last 16 months, and more than $23 million in career earnings. After a tie for fourth Sunday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Perez moved atop the FedExCup standings, 43 points ahead of Sentry winner Dustin Johnson.

Perez and Hartford also recently became the longest-running exclusive player-caddie partnership in the game.

“I knew way back in the day,” Perez says. “After high school and college, still being in touch, I knew that he was going to be in my life forever. He was just that kind of guy; that kind of friend.”

“I just always wanted to be around him because he was so funny,” Hartford says, “but also because he was a great player and he was trying to help me work on my game.”

Jim Furyk and Mike “Fluff” Cowan have been together longer, but Furyk has had other full-time caddies, while Perez has never had anyone but the man he calls “H.” When Phil Mickelson and Jim “Bones” Mackay split last summer, Perez/Hartford went to the top of the list of the most time-tested active tandems on TOUR.

They have walked side-by-side since Perez’s rookie TOUR year in 2002, on the Web.com Tour before that, and as amateurs before that. When Perez won the 1993 Junior World at Torrey Pines, Hartford drove him to the course each day. (Perez had totaled his car and needed a ride.) They have been together so long that Perez used to work for Hartford, not the other way around. Hartford started a lawn-care business when he was 11, and hired Perez some five years later. “He was the fastest worker I ever had,” Hartford says with a laugh.

Their partnership has aged slowly, and well.

“I always say there are maybe five combinations out there where no one caddie could do a better job for a player than that particular caddie,” says John “Cubby” Burke, who has caddied for Brad Faxon, Davis Love III and others in a career that has spanned 32 years. “Everyone else is kind of interchangeable. There isn’t another caddie out there could do a better job for Pat than H.

“I would say the same thing about Bubba Watson and Ted Scott,” Burke continues. “Mickelson and Bones had it, and Freddy Couples and Joe LaCava. That’s about it. That’s rare air.”

But how have they done it? Even Perez admits he couldn’t have predicted the last 20 years.

They are opposites, the brash Perez standing out with his unfiltered opinions and flat-brim hat, the low-key Hartford blending into the background, but they share a similar sense of humor. At an interview and video shoot with the PGA TOUR at Tiburon Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, home of the QBE Shootout, they laugh so much that it seems to support the adage that humor is the shock absorber of life.

They also trust each other implicitly, so much so that when Perez wanted to hit 7-iron at the 164-yard 11th hole at the Sentry Tournament of Champions last season, and Hartford said it was a 9-iron, Perez didn’t argue. He took the 9 and nearly holed the shot for a kick-in birdie.

“Greatest call ever,” Perez says. “I’d have been over the cliff. A lot of guys would have trouble getting on board if they had a two-club difference of opinion with their caddie.”

Not Pat and Mike. They know one another’s birthdays. They know one another’s birthday meals. They talk every day, live four miles from each other in Phoenix, and go to the course together even in off-weeks. Hartford, unmarried, has a standing offer to have his wedding at the secluded mountain home Pat is building in Payson, Arizona, 90 minutes north of Phoenix.

Absolute dedication

Perez won the 1993 Junior World, beating none other than Tiger Woods (who finished fourth) by eight shots. Less well-known is how Hartford had a hand in that victory. No caddies were allowed at that tournament, but he found another way to contribute.

“My practice plan for the Junior World was to go up to La Costa to play nine holes before every match,” Perez recalls. “So H drove me up to La Costa [approximately 20 miles north of Torrey Pines] and then back to the course each day.”

“He was all warmed up for his tournament rounds,” Harford says. “He’d already played golf.”

After shuttling Perez in his silver 1983 Toyota Celica, Hartford and his grandfather, also a huge Perez fan, followed along on foot as the San Diego junior golf legend dominated at Torrey Pines. Perez won the Maxfli PGA Junior two weeks later in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Hartford had a little game himself. He not only was one of Perez’s high school teammates, he played at the next level for the University of California San Diego. “Freshman of the year,” Perez points out with obvious pride. But Hartford was not in the same league as Perez; it was obvious whose game looked like money.

Perez would play; Hartford would caddie.

The move would be a masterstroke, first and foremost because of Perez’s otherworldly talent. He is self-deprecating and sometimes calls himself old, short and/or one-dimensional, but his no-nonsense action, a piston-like back-and-through with a perfectly balanced finish, is one of the coolest moves on TOUR. It’s also highly effective, seeing him through seasons when he made little on the greens and seasons in which his short game flourished. (Last season being the prime example as Perez turned a weakness, putting, into a strength.)

Hartford, meanwhile, brought tireless dedication and invaluable counter-ballast.

Perez is a spender, the owner of five cars and hundreds of pairs of shoes. “I don’t know what I need five cars for,” he says, cracking them both up. Hartford is a saver, the owner of stocks.

Perez is a night owl. Teetotaler Hartford is a morning person.

Perez’s passion, his most endearing quality, can sometimes spill over sub-optimally on the course. Meanwhile, the steady Hartford simply soldiers on, ever mindful of the long view.

“H is the consummate professional,” Burke notes. “Pat always comes first.”

Not surprisingly, Perez and Hartford look back fondly on the Junior World and high school in general. But it’s not long before they dissolve into laughter again, in this case at the memory of the two of them in the Celica, and Perez’s memory of Hartford’s cautious driving.

“He’s driving 36 miles an hour in fifth gear,” Perez says, “and this thing is trying to stay alive.”

Hartford, who is still cautious on the roads, doesn’t deny it.

“I’d pick you up and drive you to school sometimes,” he says, smiling at the memory.

Ups and downs

If it’s true that player-caddie relationships resemble marriages, and that life imitates art, then Perez/Hartford sometimes resembles the cinematic union of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the movie, “When Harry Met Sally.” In the last scene, in which couples are interviewed side-by-side, Harry Burns (Crystal) and Sally Albright (Ryan) are talking about their wedding cake.

“There was this very rich chocolate sauce, on the side,” Ryan says.

“Because not everybody likes it on the cake because it makes it very soggy,” Crystal explains.

Here are Perez and Hartford, on Pat’s birthday meal of choice:

“He loves Mexican food,” Hartford says. “Chicken tacos, rice just on the side. He doesn’t like beans.”

Perez laughs. “That’s it,” he says.

“His favorite restaurant is Roberto’s,” Hartford says.

“Chicken taco at Roberto’s is the best thing on the planet,” Perez confirms.

Although they are savoring success now, not long ago Perez’s career was on the verge of turning into chicken feathers. He had shoulder surgery and sat out for most of 2016. His sponsor dropped him. He was left in the lurch. Hartford went to work for Danny Lee and waited for Perez to recuperate, with no guarantee that he would.

Today, Perez and Hartford, who gave eerily similar answers in a recent pop quiz about their union (Pat’s pet peeve: slow play), look back on that time as the low point.

“The lowest for this guy would’ve been caddying for Danny Lee,” Perez jokes, cracking them up again. (Note to Danny: He was only kidding.)

“The lowest would have been right after his operation, when I saw him at his house,” Hartford says, taking a more serious tone “He was taking pain pills, he couldn’t drive anywhere, his arm was in a sling. And then, seven months later, he won Mexico. That was the high point.”

Indeed, when Perez won the OHL Classic at Mayakoba at the outset of last season, he proved he was far from done. It reignited his career, and even took him to the next level. He made it to the TOUR Championship for the first time, finished a career-best 15th in the FedExCup, and showed you don’t have to be 24 to enjoy success at golf. Sometimes, you peak at 41.

Not a year after Mayakoba, in his first start of the 2017-18 season, Perez shot 24-under to win the CIMB Classic at TPC Kuala Lumpur. He started the new year ranked second in the FedExCup standings.

Future looks bright

Perez says he knows his limitations and is better at staying within himself. He says he has saved “I don’t know how many strokes” with his short game, going from 117th in strokes gained: around-the-green (-.039) in 2014 all the way to 4th (+.450) in that stat last season.

“You know your game better,” Hartford adds.

Asked to write down the one word that best describes their partnership, Hartford writes “Trust.” It took trust for him to wait on Perez to recuperate after shoulder surgery, and trust for Perez to hit that 9-iron instead of the 7-iron he wanted to hit at Kapalua last year.

“I was going to put ‘brothers’ and ‘family,’” Perez says. “You can’t spend that much time with someone and not have him be part of the family. I’ve talked to him about everything.”

Would they be good at anything else together? They’ve played some doubles in tennis, mostly winning their matches but in China losing badly to Sergio Garcia, who was playing by himself.

“We got smashed,” Perez says. “We couldn’t get the serve back. The serve was going over our heads. He’s got the sweatbands on and everything. We looked like idiots.”

Perez just got a new court at his house, and is looking forward to getting out there again, but adds only half-jokingly that he might not want to tangle with Garcia or Daniel Berger, whose father headed up the USTA. Perez is also leery of Matt Kuchar, whose wife, Sybi, played tennis for Georgia Tech. (The Kuchars have played in high-level mixed-doubles tournaments.)

“Yeah, they might not be invited,” Perez says, and he and Hartford again fall back laughing.

What of the future? Perez says that if the golf went away tomorrow, he and Hartford would turn their attention to something else. Tennis. Business. Shuffleboard. Whatever. It almost wouldn’t even matter; they would remain close.

“We talk every day about something,” Perez says. “We’ll have lunch, or he’ll come over for dinner, or something will happen to someone we know and we’ll text back and forth about it, sit there and talk s--- about that person, so that’s kind of cool.” Again, they both bust up laughing.

“My wife loves him more than anything because she knows what he puts into it,” he adds. “What we have out here; the bottom line is it’s just rare. You can go down the line and … the biggest word is trust. I could leave my entire operation with him for a year and I know nothing would happen to it except it would get better. If I had kids, left my kids with him, I wouldn’t even call. I would just know they were being taken care of. That’s rare out here.”

That was a hypothetical scenario until Tuesday, when Pat and Ashley Perez announced on Instagram that they are expecting their first child in September.

This is Pat and Mike's 17th year together on TOUR. They’ve yet to make a Presidents or Ryder Cup team. They’ve yet to win the FedExCup. But they have no complaints.

“The cap moment would be a major for us,” Perez says.

He likes Shinnecock Hills, the Long Island, New York, club that will host the U.S. Open in June for the first time in 14 years. Perez was in contention through two rounds there in 2004 but like many others, he struggled with the brutal conditions on the weekend, ultimately finishing T40.

“I just hope they don’t screw it up like they did the last time,” he says.

He also likes Carnoustie, which will play host to the Open Championship.

“I’ve already got a club made for it,” Perez says. “A 2-iron that’s going to be perfect. I’m looking forward to this year. I think it’s going to be really good.”

Hartford has gone quiet, for Perez is on a roll, and when that happens, it’s best to just let him go. He’s making up for lost time, doing what he does best. Besides, “H” is in his element, too, happily watching his friend open up the throttle and let it run from the best seat in the house.

They’re not going 36 mph in fifth gear, anymore.