Great Britain and Ireland took the Walker Cup back at Lahinch, and Mike Hicks — Payne Stewart's former caddie of 11 years — thinks a lot of people are looking at the wrong thing when they ask why.
Six singles matches on Sunday afternoon. The USA never got to the 13 points it needed. Mike puts the tension in the same room as the 1999 Ryder Cup, and his explanation starts exactly where you'd expect a caddie to start: with the caddies.
He goes twice this week. First Lahinch. Then the gear segment — the putter Payne Stewart won with, a stroke trainer turning up in college practice facilities, and a President's Cup preview out of Medinah.
Then Trent Hartge, better known as S'co Golfing, on teaching himself to a 2.6 handicap and turning golf videos into actual brand work.
Here's what went down on Episode 29.
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Caddie's Corner: The 51st Walker Cup at Lahinch
Lahinch Golf Club, County Clare. The United States needed 13 points to retain the Walker Cup and didn't get there — Great Britain and Ireland took six singles matches on Sunday to finish it off. Mike's comparison is the 1999 Ryder Cup: the kind of afternoon where the scoreboard turns over faster than anyone watching can process.
His read on why it turned starts with the bags. GB&I used local Lahinch caddies — people who have walked that links their whole lives. On a course that asks a different question every time the wind moves, that is not a small edge.
But he's careful about the other half of it, and this is the part worth hearing. Local knowledge is not tournament experience. Those caddies could give a player the line all day and still not be the person who talks a nervous 18-year-old out of the wrong club — which is roughly how you end up watching someone try to hit driver off the deck at the wrong moment.
Then the thing Mike keeps circling back to. This USA team ranged from 17 to 20 years old. In his view, playing for the United States of America is the most pressure that exists in this game, amateur or professional — heavier than any individual event these players had ever teed it up in. Decision making is the first thing to go.
He isn't worried about the aftermath, though. Losses at this level don't follow a young player around, and the ones who are going to be good are still going to be good.
Mike takes charity outings, corporate events, special occasions and speaking engagements — details at mikehicksgolf.com.
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Caddie's Corner: SeeMore Putters & the President's Cup
Last week Mike went after the FedEx Cup format and the Tour's personality problem — this week he's on equipment he actually knows from the inside, and then a USA team he has opinions about.
First the putter. SeeMore's rifle scope system is two white lines on the heel with a red dot between them. Set up so the shaft covers the red dot and the face is square to your line. No feel required, no guessing, the same address position every single time.
Mike caddied for Payne Stewart when Payne was using it, and Zach Johnson has won with it since. Jeff's own experience with it is the shortest version of the pitch: it took the thinking out of setting up to a putt.
Then The Arc Master, which teaches the stroke rather than the setup. It holds the putter on its path so you can't steer it with your hands, block it, or flip the release — you have to move it with the big muscles, which is what a repeatable stroke actually is. Mike is pushing colleges to put them in their practice facilities, because at that level consistency is the whole thing.
Second half, the President's Cup. Medinah Country Club, September 24 to 27, with Brandt Snedeker captaining a USA side that has won ten in a row. Mike's honest framing is that the players treat this one looser than a Ryder Cup — and that the looseness is part of why they keep winning it.
Snedeker's format call is the tell: five four-ball matches to open, instead of the traditional alternate shot. Mike reads that as playing to the roster's strength and trying to be up on the board before the International side settles in.
On the picks, he was surprised to see Justin Thomas in there given how the season has gone, though he doesn't question the competitiveness. The one he finds genuinely interesting is Jackson Koivun — 21 years old, one professional win, and a pick Mike thinks was made on putting. Match play doesn't care about your résumé; it cares whether the ball goes in the hole. And the International side needs exactly the same thing to have a chance.
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Guest Segment: Trent Hartge on Going Self-Taught
Trent Hartge posts as S'co Golfing on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. He joins Jeff to talk about two things at once: learning golf the hard way, and turning that into a job.
The background first. Trent played baseball and basketball — baseball at the college level — and came to golf only after those were finished. He's a 2.6 handicap now and still chasing scratch.
He taught himself, and he's straight about the tradeoff: he hit an enormous number of balls to get there, and a professional could have saved him a lot of it. Jeff's counter is the one every beginner should hear — get a PGA professional to set your posture, grip and alignment early, then check back in periodically, because those three drift and everything else is built on them.
The other half is the work. User generated content is content a creator makes for a brand, run either on the creator's own channels or handed over for the brand to use. Trent walks through what that actually looks like end to end: deciding whether a brand is a fit at all, scripting, getting the script approved, filming, editing, the client approval round, posting, and then reading the metrics. The filming is the small part.
His favourite partnership is SidelineSwap, the used sporting goods marketplace, and the reason is instructive — he was already a customer. Two sports where the gear turns over constantly made him a real user before he was ever a partner, and that's what makes the content land.
Trent started making videos for fun and brands came to him. Brands who want to work with him can reach him through his S'co Golfing accounts. And there's a series with Trent coming to Golfers Unite on the self-taught journey: what worked, what didn't, and what he'd do differently.
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