Champ notches emotion-filled win at Safeway

SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda – Here was the lead in a wire services story 53 years ago: “Postman Eardley Jones in Warwick, Parish, Bermuda, is a father, a golfer – and more recently, a hero.” The story detailed how Jones jumped out of his mailman’s outfit and dove into rough water on Bermuda’s south shore to save a drowning man. After medics took the man to the hospital, the story goes that Jones nonchalantly slipped back into his work clothes and continued on with his route. “I have a picture somewhere, of my father that day standing in his skivvies,” says Nick Jones, the youngest of Eardley’s six children. It is that segment of the slideshow memory that makes him laugh. The next slide, however, brings a somber, yet respectful reflection. “I’ve met the man (my father) saved,” Nick says. “He’s still alive. It’s that connection that helps me remember my dad fondly. I miss him every day. He believed in me and was the driving force behind me. “There was no shaking his faith in me.” When Eardley Jones died at 73 in 2012, he was praised as “the Arthur Ashe of Bermuda golf,” a Black man who helped end segregation policies on this island. Until 1967, Black golfers could only play Ocean View, but Eardley Jones helped break down that barrier and open the door for Frankie Rabaid, Llewelyn Tucker, Keith Pearman, and so many others. Including, of course, Nick Jones, now 33 and beaming with pride as he prepares to play in this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. He earned one of three spots in a local qualifier (fellow Bermudians Michael Sims and Jarryd Dillas also got in) and embraces the opportunity before him. “I love that I’m here,” he says. “I love the chance to show what I’ve got.” What Nick Jones has is a story that is equal parts adventure, passion, and pride, with golf being the common denominator. The game took him from Bermuda to high school in Florida. He turned pro at a young age and showed immediate promise with victory in the 2011 Daytona Beach Open, then flew to England to chase minitours while living with extended family. “I can’t be in the United States for three months at a time because of visa (restrictions),” Jones, who has a British passport, says by way of explaining his allegiance to competitive golf in the U.K. By now it’s likely you have heard of those who were stranded somewhere during the beginnings of the COVID pandemic. But Jones can likely top them all. “I was stuck in Palau for almost two years,” he says. Palau is in the Western Pacific, part of an archipelago of hundreds of islands in the Micronesia region. Indonesia is to the south, the Philippines to the north, but Jones, whose wife’s job had moved them to Palau in late 2019, couldn’t leave once the lock-down began in the spring of 2020. “There was a range with a big net where I could hit balls, but during lock-down they down took the net,” Jones says, laughing at the memory. “I could chip and putt, but that’s it. I didn’t touch my clubs for more than a year. I just did a lot of diving and a lot of fishing.” When the lock-down was lifted in the fall of 2021, Jones followed his heart. “Bermuda is home,” he says, “and it’s the golf community here that I love.” Beyond rusty, Jones didn’t get through the local qualifier for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in ’21. But he was so determined to be a part of the tournament that he caddied for a competitor in a Monday qualifier, then stuck around Port Royal to wash dishes at night and even tend bar. The sense of adventure still burns for Jones, who placed fourth in the Trinidad and Tobago Open in the spring and is signed on for the upcoming Jamaica Open. But his time back in Bermuda has returned him to his roots. It’s where he learned the game, and where his father’s legacy still is rich. “My ideal goal is to spend six-to-eight months here,” he says, “teaching kids and rebuilding and developing the junior program, which my father started years ago. Then spend a few months traveling to play in golf tournaments.” He has a soft spot for Spain, has family in the U.K., and says, not surprisingly, “I love all the islands.” His father and other Black golfers from Bermuda were trailblazers who overcame long odds. Rabaid played in the 1971 Open Championship. Eardley played in the Canadian Amateur and once brought Nick, then a young teenager, to caddie for him in the British Senior Open. “My father didn’t have much money, but he had a big heart,” says Nick, whose father played at an elite level while juggling two jobs, as a mailman and a maître d’ at that onetime bustling hot spot in Hamilton called Forty Thieves. On top of that, Eardley Jones led the fight against segregation. “He had to fight for his sport,” Nick adds. That battle won, Eardley Jones then brought kids, Nick Jones prominent among them, into his junior program right here at Port Royal. “He didn’t force me to play, but he made sure I wanted to play,” Jones says. “He gave me the freedom to fall in love with the game.” Mission accomplished, Eardley. Mission accomplished.

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Sometimes, they’ll ask her if the bag is too heavy. But Varada Maulkhan, all 5-foot-4 and 90 pounds of her, just smiles, hoists the bag and all those golf clubs on her shoulders and goes about her business, which is caddying at places like Baltimore Country Club or Greenspring Valley Hunt Club three or four times a week. The 18-year-old has even looped occasionally at Caves Valley Golf Club, a course Maulkhan calls “absolutely gorgeous,” where the BMW Championship begins its 72-hole run on Thursday. And that’s where this story gets good. Proceeds from the second event of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup Playoffs benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, which awards full tuition and housing scholarships to caddies with outstanding character who demonstrate leadership, academic excellence and have financial need. Caddies just like Maulkhan, the daughter Guyanese immigrants who found out in March that she would be part of the inaugural Evans Scholar class at the University of Maryland. Maulkhan, an honor roll student at Catonsville (Md.) High School, will move into her dorm on Sunday. But not before a whirlwind week at Caves Valley where she will speak at the BMW Championship pro-am party and caddie for 14-time PGA TOUR champ Justin Thomas. “This is going to be a lifetime opportunity,” Maulkhan says. “Definitely a memory to remember for the rest of my life.” Maulkhan is one of a record 1,070 Evans Scholars going to school at 21 different schools this fall. The program was founded by the Western Golf Association and World Golf Hall of Fame member Chick Evans in 1930 and has since sent 12,500 caddies like her to college. She was introduced to the game when she was 7 years old by her father Kris, a recreational golfer who took her to First Tee-Greater Baltimore. The program operates from five different facilities, one of which is home to the Caves Valley Golf Club Foundation Learning Center at Forest Park that offers five target greens, practice bunkers and a putting green. Maulkhan liked being outdoors and she thrived on the life skills and core values central to the First Tee experience. She says she was shy at first but has become more comfortable in social situations and meeting new people, which has come in very handy with her part-time job. While she liked golf, though, Maulkhan didn’t begin to take the game seriously until she was a teenager. She’s competitive — earning Middle Atlantic PGA Junior Player of the Year honors in 2020 – but she’s just as comfortable playing casual rounds with friends. “For me, golf is a really good stress reliever,” she says. “If I’m really stressed, I can probably go out and make a tee time and just go play 18 holes with maybe by myself or a couple of girls that I normally play with. “But I like meeting new people. I like honing, forcing a lot of the communication skills I have to balance, and it taught me a lot about responsibility and respect.” Matt Bassler, the executive director of First Tee-Greater Baltimore, said Maulkhan was one of the first students to join the program. A decade later, he was helping the young woman he calls “very driven internally” with college applications – she applied to 14 different schools. “I’ve seen her grow from a 6-, 7-year-old young girl to now going to the University of Maryland at College Park,” he says. “And not only her golf game has got better, but she’s always been so mature. She does great in school. “I just think the world of her, and I think she’s going to do great things in the future.” Several years ago, Maulkhan became involved with the Baltimore Caddie Academy which is a collaboration between First Tee, Baltimore Country Club and the Western Golf Association, which became involved in an effort to grow the reach of the Evans Scholars program. For Maulkhan, it was a no-brainer. She liked golf, she enjoyed being outdoors and she wanted a summer job. But she’s been surprised at how much she’s learned, including honing more formal communication skills in talking with the adults whose bags she carries. “It has helped me tremendously with my golf game,” Maulkhan says. “I learned a lot of tips from the members. They’re so nice and they’re so helpful. “And it’s really enforced my aspect of responsibility because it’s not my clubs I’m carrying; I’m carrying someone else’s property. And I treat it the way I’d want my clubs to be treated.” Maulkhan first heard about the Evans Scholar program during caddie orientation. She wasn’t a rising senior, though, so it wasn’t really top-of-mind at the time. But she started to think seriously about it when an Evans alum who she’s caddied for encouraged her to apply. To be eligible Evans Scholars must have caddied regularly for two years and be evaluated by the sponsoring club. So first, Maulkhan talked with Greg Jones, the director of golf at Baltimore Country Club, about increasing her loops. The application process begins in October each year. Maulkhan had to write an essay and submit transcripts and recommendation letters. She learned she was a finalist early this year and then in March, she got a letter saying she was going to receive the scholarship. The letter took Maulkhan completely by surprise. She actually thought it was one of the credit cards her dad had recently ordered for the family. It came in the same kind of standard 8-by-11 envelope he’d gotten his in – he even told her, ‘Hey, your credit card’s here.” When Maulkhan opened the envelope, there was another smaller one inside. “I was like, okay, well it’s a credit card — maybe it’s because I’m like, a first-time user for this credit card company that they’re sending such a fancy package,” she recalls. “So, I opened it up and I kind of just pulled out the papers. “Then on the left top corner saw the Evans Scholars logo, and of course I screamed because it really shocked me.” Maulkhan’s mother, Sandy, happened to be working from home that day. When her daughter explained her outburst, Sandy called to her husband to come over. “We read it all together and it was a really big happy moment,” Maulkhan says. “It was a really good surprise for us.” Maulkhan plans to double major in secondary education and history, particularly the ancient civilizations like the Mayans and the Aztecs. Had she not gotten the Evans Scholarship, she says she might have had to take a break, find a different job or choose a more affordable college. (The average value of the scholarship is $120,000.) Instead, she’s going to attend Maryland, which is about an hour away from home and was ranked among the top 20 among public universities by U.S. News & World Report last year. She’ll finish up her packing between trips to Caves Valley this week to see favorites like Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Jordan Spieth play. And Maulkhan will do a little more work on Wednesday, toting Thomas’ bag. All the caddies in the pro-am are current or former Evans Scholars who donate their tips to the Foundation. And who knows? Maybe Jimmy Johnson, Thomas’ regular looper who was inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame by the Western Golf Association this week, will give her some advice. “I’m a little nervous because normally when I do caddie it’s for members and they know me in some sense, or I’ve met them previously at some event,” Maulkhan says. “And as I said previously, I’m a very tiny person. So, I’m nervous on how me carrying his bag will go. “But I’m sure it will go perfectly fine.”

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