Paul Casey Explains Caddie's Puerto Rico Pin Mix Up

Casey's bagman John McLaren wrote down the pins from the Puerto Rico Open for the WGC-Mexico Championship

Casey's bagman John McLaren wrote down the pins from the Puerto Rico Open for the WGC-Mexico Championship

Paul Casey Explains Caddie's Puerto Rico Pin Mix Up

Paul Casey's caddie had a funny moment during the WGC-Mexico Championship third round when he realised that all of his pin position numbers were wrong.

That was because John McLaren, Johnny Long Socks as he's known, had looked up the pin positions online the night before and written down all of the ones from the Puerto Rico Open.

Paul Casey explained what happened in a Sky Sports interview with Nick Dougherty, "10 we played to a position on the green, we knew where the flag was because we could see it.

"11 I played to a position on the green, 10 [yards] on. He actually had the pin right on 11 because he had the pin sheet out.

Johnny Long Socks.(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

"We get to 12, he said 'do you need a number?', no because we hit driver down there.

"It wasn't until the 13th where he said 'you need to land it on about 17' and I said 'but the pin is only 13 on the green.'

"He suddenly looked in his book and realised that he had written down in his book every single pin that was wrong and he couldn't figure out why.

"Eventually we figured out it was the Puerto Rico pins he pulled off the internet the night before.

"And for the only time in his life he didn't double-check them in the morning sitting in the breakfast room.

"We actually did not make a mistake yesterday because we played to a position on the green rather than the pin position and we caught ourselves when we played to a pin.

"But he's gotten all sorts of abuse, Westwood threw him fully under the bus on Twitter yesterday and everybody wailed in on it.

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Luke Donald then shared a story from when Johnny Long Socks was on the bag for him...

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"And then we get the right pins today and we start off with three birdies so I mean... It was brilliant, good value, Johnny is amazing."

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Elliott Heath
News Editor

Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!


Elliott is currently playing:


Driver: Titleist TSR4

3 wood: Titleist TSi2

Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1

Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV