PGA can rebuke Trump in way Democrats can’t

Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele shot a 4-under 68 in alternate-shot play Friday at windswept TPC of Louisiana to maintain a one-stroke lead in the Zurich Classic.

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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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OVERVIEW After a season that left him looking for answers, sleeping giant Jordan Spieth instead got more questions in his first two starts of the 2018-19 campaign. At the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, he opened with a 66 but struggled with a new driver and 3-wood and finished T55. The next week, making his first visit to the Riviera Maya for the Mayakoba Golf Classic, he went back to the driver/3-wood he’d played for the last five years. And he felt encouraged — in the practice rounds. Alas, when it counted, he hit just six fairways in each of the first two rounds, shot 71-69, and missed the cut. Spieth’s dizzying freefall on the greens, where he languished at 136th in Strokes Gained: Putting last season, remains a concern. By comparison, in 2015, when he won the FedExCup, he was 9th in that stat, followed by 2nd and 39th in 2016 and ’17, respectively. Largely as a result of his putting woes, Spieth went winless 2017-18, finished 31st in the FedExCup and, surprising many, including himself, missed the TOUR Championship. Granted, he’s had a lot on his mind. In addition to his equipment travails — Spieth said he would do more testing — he was also wedding-planning (longtime girlfriend Annie Verret), which included giving the boot to his housemates in Dallas, including TOUR rookie Kramer Hickok, a former teammate at Texas. Jordan and Annie were married over the Thanksgiving holidays. The home life is solid. As for golf? There’s work to be done for one of the brightest talents in the game. — By Cameron Morfit Click here to see who else made the Top 30 list. BY THE NUMBERS FEDEXCUP UPDATE Current 2018-19 position: 190th Playoff appearances: 6 TOUR Championship appearances: 5 Best FedExCup result: Won the FedExCup in the 2014-15 season SHOTLINK FUN FACT Jordan Spieth made the longest putt of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season, rolling in a putt from 90 feet, 8 inches at the Sony Open in Hawaii. INSIDER INSIGHTS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Jordan Spieth in 2019. TOUR INSIDER: Spieth, always precocious, at times looks like he’s having a mid-life crisis at age 25. After toiling on the range at THE NORTHERN TRUST last summer, he said he was working on the wrong thing and had been wasting his time. To his credit, he knows his woes aren’t limited to the greens. Last season he was 54th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, not bad but a far cry from 2015 (15th in that category). He was 26th in SG: Approach-the-Green after ranking 1st in that category in 2017. The stage is set for a comeback. — By Cameron Morfit FANTASY INSIDER: Maybe only once over the years have I referenced the jazz classic, “I Can’t Get Started,” but I think of it every time a headliner misfires time and again as he did throughout the 2017-18 season. The song was written and composed eight decades ago, but its message is as timeless as it is specific. The ballad settles on the incompleteness of a man who succeeds in everything but love, but it’s not so much a tale of falling short as it is of confusion. The irony, at least in the context of my placement, is that one of the lyrics acknowledges good scores on the golf course. Spieth still doesn’t have any trouble beating par, but he’s endured a falling-out with his putter. Perhaps now as a married man he’ll rekindle his other love starting soon. As much as gamers want to believe that he’ll regain a consistently healthy relationship with it, we really have no choice, particularly salary leaguers who are treated to bottom-dollar sticker price of $2.793 million. — By Rob Bolton EQUIPMENT INSIDER: After using a Titleist 915D2 driver (9.5 degrees) for years, Spieth has finally switched into a new TS2 driver (10.5 degrees), and a new TS2 3 wood. His Titleist Tour Rep says Spieth switched due to higher ball speeds and a higher launch. Both of his new metalwoods are equipped with Graphite Design Tour AD-IZ shafts. What’s less likely for Spieth to change out is his rusted Scotty Cameron 009 putter that he putts with cross-handed (and sometimes not even looking at the ball). Spieth briefly switched to a mallet-style Scotty Cameron in 2017, but he’s currently still gaming the rusted, blade-style Scotty. We’l keep you posted if he makes a switch in 2019. — By Andrew Tursky STYLE INSIDER: Spieth experimented with some new colors and looks in 2018. His pants are now slimmer, more tapered, and are hemmed at the tops of his shoes for a streamlined look. He even worked in a few black-on-black outfits, but he never seemed to find a comfort zone with them. In 2019, I’d like to see Jordan continue to stay up on the modern trends when it comes to fits while finding some other go-to colors besides blue. — By Greg Monteforte

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