When Arnold Palmer faced his latest round as a 2004 master competitor, he gave one of the most annoying golf lines.
“I knew it was time”, Palmer said. “But I never wanted it to be over.”
On Thursday morning at the Wyndham championship, Joel Dahmen found himself sharing his version of Palmer’s words as he first spoke about his separation from Caddy and best friend, Geno Bonnalie.
Two weeks ago as the Golf world returned to the open championship, Dahmen announced that he and bonnalie had shared ways. This has been the year of sharing players-Caddie, with some other high-profile couples going in their separate ways, but this partnership was one of the most stable and sports and perhaps the most loved. Neither Dahmen nor Bonnalie announced the reason for the split, although as with most of the players’ breakdowns, there were little necessary explanations. Golf is a sport played under the care of eatingAnd both Caddy and Player were entering the day of the dogs of a lean year.
However, news from Dahmen and Bonnalie-the best friends from childhood, right men through thick and thin-sent shock waves through the sport. In a year determined by the looper changes (Max Homa and his gambling/Best friend Joe Greiner, Collin Morikawa and his long looper Jj Jakovac, Matt Fitzpatrick with Billy Foster, Morikawa BACK With Greiner), and in a sport determined by many of his long hours alone on the street, Dahmen and Bonnalie was the most wonderful departure.
While Dahmen spoke from the podium after the low round of his year, a Thursday 61 in Wyndham that pushed him into the first round lead, not even the euphoria of a ninth start under an event made in PGA, it was enough to wash the emotion he still felt for division.
“Man, I love Geno,” Dahmen said after the round. “We still write almost every day. He’s doing well. Yes, I mean, I miss you, but sometimes the hardest – you have to do something hard for -“
He stopped.
“Look, it wasn’t an easy decision,” Dahmen said. “I will not say that I am not happy about it, but it is difficult. He’s my best friend. He’s still my best friend.”
While Dahmen reflected on the change of caddy after his best round of the year, he was quick to dismiss the suggestion that Bonnalie’s looping had been in some way responsible for his poor game.
“I needed to change something with me,” Dahmen said. “It was more for me. It was my mentality, it was what I was doing and I had to take ownership of what I was doing. I was not doing a good job for that.
Dahmen has always been a strict player, and in a strange turn, the movement by Bonnalie BEN seem to have lit something in his game. He completed the T17 in his first start without Bonnalie at the Barracuda Championship, and followed it with a T39 in 3m open last week. He enters the Wynham championship on Friday with a surprising lead with 18 holes, and needs a win or racing to throw a surprise offering at FedEx Cup’s play offs.
“I mean, I have had three top-2 in my career. I mean, it’s not either anything, right?” He said when asked about the chances to make a late run on the play off. “Playoffs would be a bonus for me.”
They would be a bonus, safe, but a meaningful. Dahmen and his wife are waiting for a second child soon, and a few weeks of big money salaries to close the year would go a long Way in setting up the next competitive status of Dahmen … not to say anything to fill the choice of toys in the nursery.
However, these are unexplored waters for Dahmen, who has never experienced his life as a PGA Tour Pro without bonnalie in the bag. Thankfully, Geno will remain in his son’s corner this weekend in Greensboro. He will simply take a different role.
“So, yes, I love it. I miss you,” Dahmen said. “I think we’ll see it again here soon.”
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