Caddies at Pebble Beach Resorts voted decisively, 182 to 56, to have a seat at the table and negotiate face-to-face with their new corporate overlords.
Caddies were notified by text messages (text messages, not face to face, or in person, or man to man, but via TEXT!) sent the evening of February 16, informing them of the end of their freedom and the start of a corporation reaching into their wallets and taking financial choices away from them. This, mere weeks after Independent Contractor agreements were negotiated for 2026.
Caddies perceived this as an unnecessarily disrespectful insult to their good-faith bargaining at the end of 2025. The caddies were completely blindsided by what was obviously being planned even as those negations were taking place. To say caddies were skeptical of Troon/CME's definition of "good faith" or "caring" about them would be an understatement.
Caddying is not only a strenuous job, but an intensely personal one: imagine going on a blind date with two people every day, and part of your income depends on your "dates" having a great time, no matter the weather or course conditions, or their player's ratio of ego to ability. At a Resort like this, a guest interacts with many employees, reservations, front desk, bellmen, housekeepers, concierge, shuttle drivers, range assistants, pro shop staff, waiters, busboys, golf services professionals, marshalls, etc., but those are typically a couple minutes here or there. Not one of the above spends over 4 hours at a time, minimum, assisting and entertaining guests at these Resorts. Caddies do. Every day. It's a lot, and most that have not spent years caddying in this environment can imagine the demands these individuals willingly and joyously face every day. It's not for everyone, but those who love it and do it well deserve fair treatment, respect, and a decent wage.
Caddie fees charged to guests at Pebble Beach Resorts in December were $210 for double-bag service, where a man carries two golf bags over 6 miles, ideally in under 5 hours, on difficult, national-championship level courses, while providing expert advice, regardless of weather conditions and player ability. That fee went to $220 on January 1st.
Then, effective May 1st, Pebble Beach Resorts raised that fee to $250, a 19% increase in four months, thanks to CaddieMaster and Troon.
At the negotiating table in December, the Caddie Liaison Board sought a simple, good-faith rate of $200+gratuity to all caddies regardless of seniority (we all do the same strenuous job, after all) for a double or a forecaddie loop (where a caddie doesn't carry bags for two, but hustles around all over the course, finding and getting yardages for FOUR golfers), and $150 for a high-interaction, personal, single-bag job, just like you see the Tour pros getting on TV. These flat fees would've made it possible for CaddieMaster to also charge Pebble's guests a flat, transparent "referral fee" of whatever they want, relieving Pebble Beach Resort staff from being put in the awkward position of being completely unable to answer a guest who asks "How much of the fee does my caddie get?" or "How much is the Referral Fee?". No one at Pebble Beach Resorts can honestly tell a guest how much either party receives.
A senior caddie was paid $188 for a double on April 30, while Caddiemaster collected the balance of the $220 fee, $32. It just so happened that May 1 was a Friday and the last day of a CaddieMaster pay period, so the same caddie worked a double on May 1, so his first "employee" check would have exactly one loop on it.
Pebble Beach collected $250 from the guest. The caddie was paid $163. My math says the caddie's income went down, while $87 (!) went to CaddieMaster. Dan Costello, CEO of CaddieMaster, thinks his company should be praised for confiscating money that caddie earned and sending it to the feds for him. Most caddies prefer to handle the timing and amounts they send to the IRS themselves. They're professionals, after all, and paying taxes are their responsibility. Taking money out their weekly income to send to the government seriously affected many families weekly budgets and cash flow.
So Pebble charges an extra $40 for Troon, the caddie takes home less, and the IRS gets the interest-free use of whatever CaddieMaster isn't keeping for itself. No wonder caddies are hurt and fighting back.
This all could've been avoided had CaddieMaster and Pebble Beach Resorts respected these men and the sweat and dedication they put in to make sure guests paying $695 have the best experience possible, but the caddies were dismissed and ignored.
Requests to have a dialogue with Pebble Beach Resorts executives were similarly rejected.
Good faith? Respect? "Caring" is what Troon's people call this treatment of the men who do the actual work . . .
113 caddies at Pebble Beach Resorts have over 15 years of full-time service; if you roll that back to 10 years, it's 171 men. Men that have built lives around the freedom that caddying USED TO offer.
Sure, taxes, health insurance, even the bibs they had to wear, were costs they had to manage, but those were legitimate business expenses they managed for themselves.
Troon and CaddieMaster chose this.
Instead of dialogue, negotiation, and compromise, Troon/CaddieMaster showed caddies around the nation who and what they are and how they view their "employees".
182 men have taken a stand for every caddie grinding out a living in the United States.
All they're asking for is simple respect.
It remains to be seen if CaddieMaster, Troon, and Pebble Beach Resorts can rise to that seemingly low bar.
Wow, thank you SO much for this comment. So much information here. I absolutely hate any structure where the course takes ANY amount of money that goes to the caddie. I get that the course has some role in ensuring the caddies meet some standard of quality, etc., and I do think it's genuinely great if they can provide some healthcare and retirement benefits - I mean, who wouldn't want that if it is available? But, when I'm overseas, or at Bandon Dunes (or any Keiser property), my money goes straight into the caddies hands. There's zero question about how much he (or she!) gets. It's SUCH a hard job, and it kills me when folks start even calculating the tip at a % of the base fee ("that's a 50% tip") - when say, a $100 caddie fee with a $50 tip is still maybe $30/hour for a five hour round at a resort course, for labor and knowledge and all the things that require so much skill and talent - that's really not very much whatsoever. It's just so gross that CaddieMaster is trying to make take money out of these caddies pockets while convincing them that they're doing them right. I already have strong reservations about going to PB properties because the greens fees are so egregious, it always feels like they are going out of their way to shake every last nickel out of my pockets. Now it feels like they're trying to do the same and don't care if it means they're going to run the best caddies out of town. That's just so wrong.
Thank you, Mr. Greber. Most caddies feel they have THE best job in the world, and the caddies at Pebble are some of the lowest-paid compared to other world-class, championship courses, while living in an area known for its high costs for housing, utilities, gas, etc . . .
Full disclosure: I'm 65 years old, 19 consecutive years of strolling Pebble Beach Golf Links and entertaining guests. I was elected by my colleagues to serve on the Liaison Board a few times, including this last Board, which was "eliminated" May 1.
Again, thanks for the kind words and your support.
Thank you for writing this one Greebs!
Caddies at Pebble Beach Resorts voted decisively, 182 to 56, to have a seat at the table and negotiate face-to-face with their new corporate overlords.
Caddies were notified by text messages (text messages, not face to face, or in person, or man to man, but via TEXT!) sent the evening of February 16, informing them of the end of their freedom and the start of a corporation reaching into their wallets and taking financial choices away from them. This, mere weeks after Independent Contractor agreements were negotiated for 2026.
Caddies perceived this as an unnecessarily disrespectful insult to their good-faith bargaining at the end of 2025. The caddies were completely blindsided by what was obviously being planned even as those negations were taking place. To say caddies were skeptical of Troon/CME's definition of "good faith" or "caring" about them would be an understatement.
Caddying is not only a strenuous job, but an intensely personal one: imagine going on a blind date with two people every day, and part of your income depends on your "dates" having a great time, no matter the weather or course conditions, or their player's ratio of ego to ability. At a Resort like this, a guest interacts with many employees, reservations, front desk, bellmen, housekeepers, concierge, shuttle drivers, range assistants, pro shop staff, waiters, busboys, golf services professionals, marshalls, etc., but those are typically a couple minutes here or there. Not one of the above spends over 4 hours at a time, minimum, assisting and entertaining guests at these Resorts. Caddies do. Every day. It's a lot, and most that have not spent years caddying in this environment can imagine the demands these individuals willingly and joyously face every day. It's not for everyone, but those who love it and do it well deserve fair treatment, respect, and a decent wage.
Caddie fees charged to guests at Pebble Beach Resorts in December were $210 for double-bag service, where a man carries two golf bags over 6 miles, ideally in under 5 hours, on difficult, national-championship level courses, while providing expert advice, regardless of weather conditions and player ability. That fee went to $220 on January 1st.
Then, effective May 1st, Pebble Beach Resorts raised that fee to $250, a 19% increase in four months, thanks to CaddieMaster and Troon.
At the negotiating table in December, the Caddie Liaison Board sought a simple, good-faith rate of $200+gratuity to all caddies regardless of seniority (we all do the same strenuous job, after all) for a double or a forecaddie loop (where a caddie doesn't carry bags for two, but hustles around all over the course, finding and getting yardages for FOUR golfers), and $150 for a high-interaction, personal, single-bag job, just like you see the Tour pros getting on TV. These flat fees would've made it possible for CaddieMaster to also charge Pebble's guests a flat, transparent "referral fee" of whatever they want, relieving Pebble Beach Resort staff from being put in the awkward position of being completely unable to answer a guest who asks "How much of the fee does my caddie get?" or "How much is the Referral Fee?". No one at Pebble Beach Resorts can honestly tell a guest how much either party receives.
A senior caddie was paid $188 for a double on April 30, while Caddiemaster collected the balance of the $220 fee, $32. It just so happened that May 1 was a Friday and the last day of a CaddieMaster pay period, so the same caddie worked a double on May 1, so his first "employee" check would have exactly one loop on it.
Pebble Beach collected $250 from the guest. The caddie was paid $163. My math says the caddie's income went down, while $87 (!) went to CaddieMaster. Dan Costello, CEO of CaddieMaster, thinks his company should be praised for confiscating money that caddie earned and sending it to the feds for him. Most caddies prefer to handle the timing and amounts they send to the IRS themselves. They're professionals, after all, and paying taxes are their responsibility. Taking money out their weekly income to send to the government seriously affected many families weekly budgets and cash flow.
So Pebble charges an extra $40 for Troon, the caddie takes home less, and the IRS gets the interest-free use of whatever CaddieMaster isn't keeping for itself. No wonder caddies are hurt and fighting back.
This all could've been avoided had CaddieMaster and Pebble Beach Resorts respected these men and the sweat and dedication they put in to make sure guests paying $695 have the best experience possible, but the caddies were dismissed and ignored.
Requests to have a dialogue with Pebble Beach Resorts executives were similarly rejected.
Good faith? Respect? "Caring" is what Troon's people call this treatment of the men who do the actual work . . .
113 caddies at Pebble Beach Resorts have over 15 years of full-time service; if you roll that back to 10 years, it's 171 men. Men that have built lives around the freedom that caddying USED TO offer.
Sure, taxes, health insurance, even the bibs they had to wear, were costs they had to manage, but those were legitimate business expenses they managed for themselves.
Troon and CaddieMaster chose this.
Instead of dialogue, negotiation, and compromise, Troon/CaddieMaster showed caddies around the nation who and what they are and how they view their "employees".
182 men have taken a stand for every caddie grinding out a living in the United States.
All they're asking for is simple respect.
It remains to be seen if CaddieMaster, Troon, and Pebble Beach Resorts can rise to that seemingly low bar.
Time will tell.
Wow, thank you SO much for this comment. So much information here. I absolutely hate any structure where the course takes ANY amount of money that goes to the caddie. I get that the course has some role in ensuring the caddies meet some standard of quality, etc., and I do think it's genuinely great if they can provide some healthcare and retirement benefits - I mean, who wouldn't want that if it is available? But, when I'm overseas, or at Bandon Dunes (or any Keiser property), my money goes straight into the caddies hands. There's zero question about how much he (or she!) gets. It's SUCH a hard job, and it kills me when folks start even calculating the tip at a % of the base fee ("that's a 50% tip") - when say, a $100 caddie fee with a $50 tip is still maybe $30/hour for a five hour round at a resort course, for labor and knowledge and all the things that require so much skill and talent - that's really not very much whatsoever. It's just so gross that CaddieMaster is trying to make take money out of these caddies pockets while convincing them that they're doing them right. I already have strong reservations about going to PB properties because the greens fees are so egregious, it always feels like they are going out of their way to shake every last nickel out of my pockets. Now it feels like they're trying to do the same and don't care if it means they're going to run the best caddies out of town. That's just so wrong.
Thank you, Mr. Greber. Most caddies feel they have THE best job in the world, and the caddies at Pebble are some of the lowest-paid compared to other world-class, championship courses, while living in an area known for its high costs for housing, utilities, gas, etc . . .
Full disclosure: I'm 65 years old, 19 consecutive years of strolling Pebble Beach Golf Links and entertaining guests. I was elected by my colleagues to serve on the Liaison Board a few times, including this last Board, which was "eliminated" May 1.
Again, thanks for the kind words and your support.
I’m almost 58, so we aren’t quite peers but close. Thanks for all you do and glad that you enjoyed this.