Media/Business/Politics

The Case of the Vanishing Tour Caddie

By td ⋅ July 19, 2010 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

While the world had its back turned to watch Louis Oosthuizen trounce the field at St. Andrews, strange doings were afoot at the opposite-field event, the Reno-Tahoe Open. This blog post from Dallas Morning News photo editor Guy Reynolds suggests that a freelance photographer may have used dubious technological methods (see the before, left; and after, below) to improve his image.

While this is plausible, another explanation is that Tour caddies–as opposed to garden-variety club loopers whose skills can be summarized neatly with “keep up and shut up”–have phasing abilities. Perhaps they are a species that have evolved to transmute their physical beings in order to facilitate warp speed returns to the never-ending hero’s quest for beer and poontang. As soon as the final putt drops, poof, they’re gone.

The invisible man appears to be Matthew Achatz, who caddies for Matt Bettencourt (pictured winning the Reno-Tahoe, by the way) on the weeks that Rocco Mediate isn’t playing. No word at the moment on Achatz’s dimensional whereabouts.

Photos: Marc Feldman/Getty Images

Tags: Matt Bettencourt, Matthew Achatz, phasing, Reno-Tahoe Open