By Julliana Bravo
James Colgan seems to have golf in his DNA, as both of his grandfathers were avid players, but he didn’t catch the bug himself until he caddied at Rockville Links Club, where he was a Long Island Caddie Scholar. Not long after graduating from Syracuse with a degree in broadcast journalism and political science, he landed a position at GOLF.com. Five years later, he is now a news and features editor, writing stories for the website. He also manages the Hot Mic, GOLF’s media vertical, and utilizes his on-camera experience across the brand’s platforms. He recently returned to Rockville Links for an assignment – “Confessions of a Long Island private club caddie.”
I was broke. I was a freshman in college and had never had a real summer job. I worked as a pizza delivery boy for a brief but illustrious time in high school. At the end of my freshman year, I didn’t have any money. Like many college freshmen I needed to find a summer job of some kind. Thankfully, a family friend had a connection to the Rockville Links Club, which was about 25 minutes from where I grew up in New Hyde Park. I was interested in working in sports and it was a job in golf which seemed close enough to sports for me. I showed up and sat for my interview and my boss, caddie manager Jeff Cullinan, was quizzing me about my golf knowledge, and I was really excited to tell him I was an 18 handicap. He looked at me and asked, “An 18 handicap, so what do you normally shoot?” I had no idea what an 18 handicap normally shot. The few times a year I golfed I was probably shooting a 125 or something like that. I sort of fudged my way through an answer and at the end of the interview Jeff said to me, “If you want a job here, I can give you a job, but I can’t promise you you’re going to get out. However, if you show up every morning, if you’re willing to sit in the yard for a number of hours a day, I can ensure that it’s going to be worth your time.” I learned pretty quickly it was a good idea to bring a big book to read (since) I was running out of my family’s data limit. Before long, it had become very quickly the best job I’d ever had.
I was absolutely terrified. I’m an anxious individual by nature and entering a position where it was suddenly my job to be the kind of spiritual guide for a complete strangers’ golf game was not an area in which I was feeling particularly well equipped. The scariest component of all of it was that I didn't feel like I knew my way in the world yet, and so having constant conversations with adults who are asking you questions about your life and your direction and your story. It was kind of a time for me to learn for myself what my own story was, and to try out a couple versions of that and to see which one fit. Eventually, I found that the whole essence of the job of caddieing is learning how to communicate with people, learning how to take that role in someone else's golf game, learning the nuance of the golf course that you're playing. I learned a skill that was in some way useful to the world. It was terrifying, but I managed.
The Long Island Caddie Scholarship Fund was something I’d heard about in the caddie yard. Syracuse was not an inexpensive school, so I was struggling. A few members were connected with the program, including Jim Tomlin. I applied and a few months later, I was one of the recipients. If there's one charitable cause that I would like to be able to give back to in my life, it is the LICSF. It’s such an incredibly valuable program for me as a college student with no money and really trying to make my way into the world. I am so unbelievably grateful for the existence of the program and for what it represents.
I always knew that I wanted to work as a sportswriter or work in sports media in general. Being a caddie helped me learn the gift of conversing with someone, how to put someone at ease and how to deal with a wide variety of personalities without struggling through the social experience. Caddieing helped in terms of recognizing the kind of beauty and stories of mundane sports like (amateur) golf. You could see something miraculous happen to someone who's a 20 handicap. You think of sports stories as being only Hall of Fame players, playing in the greatest moments, and winning the Super Bowl, but being a caddie taught me that the most spectacular stories could be about totally normal people. There’s sort of a unifying truth about what caddieing teaches you about the world, about people, and about the shared human experience. All of those things have been insanely helpful for me in my career, even though I wouldn't say that they pushed me in any direction, but I think they’ve been very helpful in getting me to the direction that I ultimately wanted to go.
I actually didn’t realize that golf was what I wanted to write about. I read and consumed everything (about golf), and I loved all of it. But the truth of the matter is that I just wanted a job in sports, and I wasn’t really sure how to do it. Ironically, I got my job at GOLF.com because I had an interview for an internship on the same day that I accepted another internship with the NFL. I took the NFL internship but still had the email from my now executive editor, Alan Bastable. Six months later, I graduated college, was done caddieing, and had left my internship with the NFL. I saw there was an opening with GOLF.com for what looked like an entry level writing position. I reached out to Alan and said I know my resume doesn’t reflect it, but I’m a die-hard golfer. Three weeks later, I got the job. I didn’t enter the sports writing world hoping to be a golf writer. I kind of fell into it, but in the same sense, I was passionate about the sport in a deep way. I think I’m just passionate about all sports in that way. I would have been happy doing anything, but I’m very happy that golf is the place I settled.
Last year, I was selected as one of the Masters media lottery winners, and I was able to play Augusta National on the Monday after Scottie Scheffler won the Masters. I have never in my life experienced a moment as improbable as standing on the first tee box at Augusta National knowing I was about to play 18 holes. I still think about that as being the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. At the end of my life, at the end of my career, it might remain the most improbable thing that's ever happened to me.
Friday morning of the Masters. The first person I called was my dad, and I remember it was like a weirdly sad moment. It was kind of an emotional moment – he cried, and I was teary, and then I realized as soon as I hung up the phone that I was going to be the only one who got to play from my family. It was a slightly sad moment, but it was also kind of a beautiful moment, too, recognizing two days before I showed up on the first tee box that what I was about to experience was so much bigger than me playing a round of golf and my scores that day.
The professional game has become wildly bifurcated from the amateur game in terms of the sport that is being played. It’s ontologically different from what is being played on the fairways and greens of every other club in the world. The professional game is far more interested in money and commercially focused. And I don't know whether that's good or bad. I tend to think that’s maybe not great, but I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think that the conversation around bifurcation is limited to just equipment and distance. This sport has changed to where people view playing golf and watching golf as fundamentally different activities.
As I mentioned, I’m a bit of a worrywart. I was worried I wasn’t going to find a job in journalism where I desperately wanted to work, so I got a second degree in political science that I could either take to law school or work in the political industry. For a time, I actually thought I would become a political reporter. I think politics and sports are very similar in their core. In my free time I like to read Supreme Court opinions, so I think I would have been well suited to the work of the law.
I’m incredibly passionate about Long Island golf, which is what brought me back to Rockville Links to work on the story. I know there’s a big gap between private and public golf in the New York area. I wish the public golfers and the private golfers could spend a little more time in the same place. After reporting, I learned that those two groups are incredibly similar in all ways, more similar than different. It’s just a matter of your bag tag.