Episode 31 is a full hour with one guest, and he earns it.
Mike Hicks, Payne Stewart's former caddie of 11 years, takes all three segments. He previews the Presidents Cup at Medinah, gives a course management clinic that will save most weekend players more shots than a new driver, and then sits for the conversation every caddie should get asked: what the game gets wrong now, and what he saw when it was right.
Here's what went down on Episode 31.
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Caddie's Corner: The Presidents Cup at Medinah
Medinah is a second-shot golf course. Jeff and Mike agree that iron play decides it, and Chicago's heavy recent rainfall should soften the place and let the fairways play wider than the card suggests. The one question mark on the American side is rust. These players haven't competed since East Lake.
The history is lopsided. The United States has won the last 10 meetings, most recently 18.5 to 11.5 at Royal Montreal in 2024. The format gives both sides room to work: 30 matches over four days, 9 foursomes, 9 four-balls and 12 singles.
On the picks, Mike's read is that captain Brandt Snedeker built this team around putting. That's why 21-year-old Jackson Koivun got the nod, and Mike thinks it's less about this week than about grooming him for the Ryder Cup. Mike also points to J.J. Spaun winning at Wentworth after being left off the team.
As for the International side, Mike's view is blunt: beating a United States squad this deep would be a monumental upset when Si Woo Kim is the only name he has inside the world top 20.
They close on the new 16th, a drivable par-4 of roughly 300 to 320 yards over water. Soft conditions should make it reachable all week, and in match play that's exactly where the theater comes from.
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Caddie's Corner: Course Management — Right Tees, Fat Side & Your Go-To Number
Last week Mike fixed your aim on the greens. This week he works on everything between the tee and the green, and almost none of it costs you money.
Start with the tees. Check the ego at the door, have fun, and play the set that matches your ability instead of backing up to the tips. Mike gives Bethpage Black credit for getting it right with a warning sign at the first tee. Jeff moved from the blues to the whites off a 10 index and found both his scores and his enjoyment improved.
Stop shooting at flags. Single-digit or double-digit, Mike wants you aiming at the fat side of the green. The pin is a bonus, not a target.
Then alignment, and this is the piece that changes rounds. Pick an intermediate target, a spot roughly a foot in front of your ball on your line, and aim at that instead of at something 160 yards away. It sets you up square, it takes the anxiety out of the shot, and it produces straighter golf. Mike credits sports psychologist Dr. Richard Coop and his intermediate targeting method with helping Payne Stewart win three majors.
He also tells the Milwaukee story: Payne in the fescue, reaching for a nine-iron, and Mike talking him into a pitching wedge to make the cut.
Last, know your numbers. Not your best-ever number, your actual carry number, with a swing you can repeat smoothly instead of one you swing out of control. Jeff and Mike also make the case for a go-to yardage on par 5s, something like 100 yards, so you're never left with the 30-to-60-yard shot that even tour players hate.
Your homework, straight from the show: get on a simulator, get real carry distances for every club, and practice enough that those numbers hold up outside.
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Caddie's Corner: Slow Play, Payne's 6-Iron & the Caddie Life
Slow play first, because it's the thing that sets Mike off. A twosome now takes four hours, and his point is blunt: that only happens because the people in charge allow it. He was at the 1998 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club, in the final group with Tom Lehman, playing to a time par of 3 hours and 42 minutes.
Jeff's read on what changed is the money and the television contracts that need the commercial time. Mike adds that rangefinders help when you're off the beaten path or playing out of somebody else's fairway, but they do nothing to speed up a shot from the middle of it. Carts stay banned, with rare injury exceptions on PGA Tour Champions.
Then the life itself. Payne carried the heaviest bag of anyone Mike worked for, and a wet week is its own problem. Mike remembers hauling nine soaked towels around a British Open round. Best tipper on tour: Phil Mickelson. Favorite walks: Pebble Beach and Harbour Town at Hilton Head. And a note from Tom Watson he still has, reading "Mike, you do your job and you do it well."
The rapid-fire: links over parkland, center-shafted blade putters like the SeeMore, match play over stroke play, bump-and-run over the lob wedge, the late-early wave, and the U.S. Open over the Masters. Most underrated player of his era, Jay Haas. Best swing he ever caddied for, Tom Purtzer. Best putter in the history of the game, Ben Crenshaw. One rule he'd change: a divot in the fairway should play as ground under repair.
And the best shot he ever saw, which is the one you'd guess. Payne Stewart, the 71st hole at Pinehurst in 1999, a 6-iron to three feet. His dream foursome is Payne, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, and no, Tiger isn't in it.
Mike takes charity outings, corporate events, special occasions and speaking engagements. Details at mikehicksgolf.com.
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