ENDICOTT, N.Y. — Golfers playing at the PGA Tour Champions Dick’s Open have always said playing at the En-Joie Golf Course has felt like a hometown, nostalgic feel. They’ll bring their families along for the journey, too, relishing in the experience of playing in a neighborhood-like place.
But the Burns family had a bit more of a family experience during Friday’s opening round.
Gordon Burns was practicing putting when his caddie tripped and fell over Burns’ golf bag. The fall caused a ruptured quad that required surgery over the weekend.
He visited his caddie in the hospital Thursday night, and quickly realized there wasn’t any hope to get his caddie back the next morning. Burns described the whole thing as a freak accident.
So without another caddie immediately available to him, Burns called on his wife, Cheryl-Lynn.
“She’s caddied for me before, so it was very comfortable having her on the bag,” Burns said. “Cheryl-Lynn was coming to watch, and then I said, ‘you’re caddying now.’”
Burns went on to make 4-under-par in his opening round of the Dick’s Open, sitting in a tie for 10th by the end of the day. Even despite the chaos surrounding him, Burns said his wife was helpful on the golf course. Cheryl-Lynn had been a caddie for her husband before, but with a lot more notice, of course.
“I mean, he knows what he’s doing, so I just sort of go out and be a sounding board and lighten it up and just try to stay out of his way and let him do what he knows how to do,” Cheryl-Lynn said. “That’s what got him here. So just try to make sure he’s not worrying about me and what I’m doing.”
Cheryl-Lynn won’t have to be her husband’s caddie all weekend, though. Burns said he has a former caddie of his stepping in for the final two rounds of the Dick’s Open.
So Cheryl-Lynn can watch Burns compete from the cartpath and be the supportive wife she expected to be in Endicott this weekend.
“It’s interesting just coming off and on the cart, too, so just remembering to do that and saying, ‘Okay, no, you can keep walking. I’ll take the cart and then we’ll trade,’” Cheryl-Lynn said. “But it was fun.”
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