While Tiger Woods was inundated with cheers and applause during his thrilling performance at last week’s PGA Championship, that doesn’t mean the legendary golfer doesn’t sometimes have a hater or two in the crowd. At least he has his caddie, Joe LaCava, there to back him up.
LaCava recently appeared on ESPN’s radio show, Golic & Wingo, and shared a hilarious story from the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in early August. It was there a heckler badgered Woods, 42, as he played through the final round on the 14th hole, and his insistence was enough to catch LaCava’s attention.
“I said, ‘Hey listen bud, why do you gotta go there? Everyone is having a good time, everyone is pulling for Tiger.’” LaCava told ESPN. ” ‘If you don’t like the guy, that’s one thing. But you don’t need to be yelling at my guy and screaming negative stuff like that. At the end of the day, if you affect him and his performance there, it affects my bottom line.’ ”
But LaCava’s effort to put a stop to the heckler only seemed to add more fuel to the fire.
“So he calls me a couple of names and I go back and forth with the guy,” LaCava — who has been Woods’ caddie since 2011 — continued. “And I said, ‘Why don’t you just leave?’ ”
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That’s when the heckler baited the caddie into giving him some cold hard cash, saying he would leave if LaCava refunded him the price of his ticket to the Akron, Ohio, event.
“He goes, ‘Well, if you give me the $25 for the ticket that I bought today, I’ll leave,’ ” LaCava recalled. “So I ripped off $25 and he starts to go down the fairway to the 14th green. And I said, ‘Look, pal, 25 is 25. You got to head the other way.’ ”
But the man wasn’t done with his bothersome tactics just yet.
“He starts to head the other way, goes 20 yards down the line, and he calls me a certain other swear word,” LaCava said. “I run 20 yards back the other way. We’re going face-to-face with this guy and all of a sudden Tiger is looking for a yardage and I’m in it with this guy 20 yards down the line.”
Eventually, LaCava had a police officer remove the heckler from the course — all the while, Woods was unaware of what was keeping his caddie so long to catch back up with him.
“He didn’t have a problem with it,” he said. “And actually, I got a standing ovation for kicking the guy out of there.”
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A week after the incident, Woods enjoyed a tremendous showing at the PGA Championship, which lit social media abuzz with recollections of his past dominance. But that wasn’t the only talk going on about Woods that day, as cameras caught him sharing a kiss with his girlfriend, Erica Herman, after the final hole.
Many on social media quickly commented that they had no idea Woods — who was last paired with champion skier, Lindsey Vonn — was in a relationship again. With LaCava and Herman at his side, it looks like a little heckling won’t be keeping him up at night.
“For a long time, there was a cloud over Tiger,” a source close to Woods previously told PEOPLE. “He had his surgeries, his setbacks. He’s only human, and those things were like a weight on his shoulders. But today, he’s happier than he’s been in years.”