Jimmy Johnson to be inducted into Caddie Hall of Fame

Though it was his sense of adventure and a firm belief in his golf skills that led Jimmy Johnson out of Texas and onto the Sunshine Tour in South Africa in late 1979, it was something else that kept him there.

Impeccable character.

“We struck up a friendship when he first got over here,” said Nick Price, the Zimbabwean who was just digging in as a professional golfer in the late 1970s. “We played a few times together that year and it was a pleasant experience.

“The next year our friendship jelled,” Price continued. “At the Christmas break, he said he wasn’t going (back to Texas) so I asked him to come up to Zimbabwe with me. Christmas is nice up there, I told him, and we had a wonderful time.”

This week Johnson, 64, will blend into the background as Justin Thomas’ caddie at the BMW Championship at Caves Valley in Owings Mills, Maryland. But he’ll also be inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

Price, an 18-time PGA TOUR winner, said he wasn’t surprised that they connected all those years ago, because “Jimmy is an easy person to get along with.”

Years later, in fact, Price hired Johnson as his caddie. When news circulates of his Caddie Hall of Fame induction, Price added, “A lot of people will feel very good, because so many people know him as such a good person.”

Johnson has taken it all in with his typical humility.

“I’m pleasantly surprised, to be honest,” he said. “But when I first heard the news, I was shocked. I told Vince (Pellegrino, senior vice-president of tournaments for the Western Golf Association) when he called me with the news that it would have been the furthest thing from my mind.”

Price said he felt he could speak for anyone who has met Johnson – and especially for Steve Stricker and Thomas, the players Johnson has caddied for since 2008 – that the honor is spot on.

Pointing to Johnson’s body of work – approximately 650 tournaments across 25-plus years, with 25 victories – Price called it “brilliant.” But he emphasized what isn’t part of the data.

“Each move Jimmy made involved changes,” he said. “Steve was younger and played different than me, and then Justin was even younger, and he plays different than both of us.

“So many differences. It was not an easy thing, but Jimmy adjusted. It’s a credit to him.”

The Caddie Hall of Fame was started in 1979 and currently is administered by the Western Golf Association, which conducts the BMW Championship.

Its members are a veritable Who’s Who of the PGA TOUR, including Steve Williams, Mike “Fluff” Cowan, Jim “Bones” Mackay, Joe LaCava, Bruce Edwards, Fanny Sunesson, and Andy Martinez. There are also icons who started in the game as caddies (Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, to name a few), plus celebrities and golf dignitaries who earned a love of the game as caddies (Bill Murray and his brothers, former USGA executive director David Fay, investment giant Charles Schwab, and former MLB Commissioner Peter Ueberroth).

But if there’s an enshrined caddie with whom Johnson will forever be linked, it’s Jeff “Squeaky” Medlin. A popular, wire-thin caddie with a high-pitched voice, Medlin was instrumental in Price’s three major championships and No. 1 world ranking in the early 1999s. He was diagnosed with leukemia and had to step away from his work in late 1996.

But he stayed in Price’s ear.

“He told me, ‘Nick, get JJ (Jimmy Johnson) to caddie for you,” said Price. “I told him I was thinking of it, but I didn’t know if I should, because we were such good mates.

“Squeak just looked at me and said, ‘He’ll be good for you.’”

Medlin had pulled the right club, one final time.

Playing against the best

Johnson wasn’t always the guy carrying someone else’s clubs. He arrived on the Sunshine Tour at 22, a kid from Dallas who played collegiately at North Texas State and faced contemporaries like Hal Sutton, Fred Couples, Chip Beck, Phil Blackmar, Payne Stewart and Bob Tway. In the ’78 U.S. Amateur at Plainfield CC in New Jersey, Johnson lost in the third round to Bobby Clampett, then fell short at the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament.

Goodbye, Dallas; hello, Johannesburg. Johnson was ready for golf and prepared for adventure. He never imagined it being a 17-year run, but close calls at Q School back home – three times he missed at the finals – kept him chasing his dream half a world away.

“Jimmy was such a good player,” said Price. “He was diligent, worked hard, played methodically and managed his game well. Really, the fact that he never got over the hump, as I call it, saddened me. It saddened a lot of us who really liked him.”

The highlight to Johnson’s Sunshine Tour career came with a victory in the 1991 Bastille Players Tournament at Paarl Golf Club in Western Cape. By 1996, though, Price knew that Johnson going to call it quits and that Medlin’s advice, offered late in the year, was worth exploring.

“I was just going to be filling in,” said Johnson, who had caddied a little for Mark McNulty, “until Squeaky got back.”

It didn’t take long for the success, and the emotions, to flow their way. Price won the MCI Classic at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, shooting 65-69-69-66, his first PGA TOUR win in more than two years.

Price being Price, he dedicated the win to Medlin, who would die two months later, and was thrilled to share it financially with Johnson.

“It’s one thing to hire a friend,” said Price, “but it’s gratifying when you have success with him.”

It was a productive ride: From 1997 through 2003, Price and Johnson won three times on the PGA TOUR, once in Japan. Upon turning 47 in 2004, Price pared down his schedule and urged Johnson to seek out other bags. He did, bouncing around from Michelle Wie to Adam Scott, back to Price, over to assorted others. Johnson settled in for a three-year run with Charles Howell III, who experienced the dry, quick wit that Price loved about Johnson.

Once, after Howell suffered a poor putting performance, his caddie shook his head and quietly said: “If you don’t start putting any better, I’m going to go back to Michelle Wie.”

Price laughs when he recounts stories like this. When Johnson landed with Stricker, he added, “I knew it would be great because Jimmy and Steve have very similar personalities.”

Assuming we all agree that eight wins and nearly $11 million in prize money qualify as great numbers, then Price is correct – Stricker and Johnson jelled splendidly.

But at 48, Stricker did as Price had done, telling Johnson that it would be sensible to work for a younger player. Enter Thomas, who was 22 when he hired Johnson in June of ’15. The duo have been nothing short of meteoric – a PGA Championship and PLAYERS Championship among 14 wins, two different stints at No. 1 in the world, and the 2017 FedExCup title.

When it was suggested that the ’17 PGA win at Quail Hollow must be the highlight, being the only major, Johnson paused. “I’d call it an exclamation point,” he said, “because (if it hadn’t have happened), I was going to be OK with everything. It’s been a wonderful ride and I’ve been very, very fortunate to work for such great players.”