"Man behind the man"
Through thick and thin, Hartford has been Perez's loyal caddie
by Tod Leonard, San Diego Union Tribune
The celebration Sunday afternoon following Pat Perez's victory in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic was as raucous as I've personally witnessed on an 18th green anywhere. Majors included.
It was all about the emotion of the day. Friends of Perez's had come from all over the West to watch him seize his first victory in eight years of arduous and sometimes maddening toil. It meant so much to them because they knew how much it meant to Perez.
And amid all of the hugs and swigs of champagne and wild picture taking, caddie Mike Hartford stood quietly with a simple smile. "H! H! H!" the friends shouted, chanting his nickname. Hartford swallowed hard, holding back the tears.
A one-time San Diego City Am golf champion who now relishes the solitude of surfing near his Del Mar home, Hartford was the quiet in the Perez storm Sunday, as he always has been since the two became friends on the Torrey Pines High golf team years ago.
As Perez's caddie for all of the time he's been a pro, Hartford has been there for every shot. For the good, the bad and the ugly. When Perez failed, Hartford failed. When people ripped his friend, he was angry. He wanted to set them straight. But he set his jaw and bit his tongue, because that's what caddies who keep their jobs do.
The calm outside Sunday belied the emotions churning inside Hartford.
"I can't feel any better for him, because he's worked so hard," Hartford said. "I guess he just finally realized his potential. That's the main thing. He put every round together in the tournament. Our weakness has been missing that one round out of four. He finally put five good rounds together."
Hartford, who got his degree in economics from UCSD, smiled. "It's about math more than anything."
Hartford knew well of Perez's reputation as a hot head, that he would surely blow up with a little hiccup. That's why he was so proud Sunday. After making three straight birdies, including a chip-in, to get back into a tie for the lead with Steve Stricker, Perez immediately gave two shots back when his badly hooked tee shot on the par-3 sixth caromed off a rock and into the water.
Everybody watching waited for the explosion. There was none. Perez re-teed, looked over the water again, and a hit a shot right of the green. It was no easy up-and-down, but he made 5, and when Stricker triple-bogeyed the seventh and quadruple-bogeyed the 10th, Perez had the lead for good.
Hartford said he has seen a change for the better in Perez's attitude the past few years, but few fans got to witness it because the golfer hadn't been in contention on the weekends.
"I always said that I didn't want Pat to change the way he was," Hartford said. "He always needed to be more patient, but he's an aggressive player, and I wanted him to keep that.
"Hitting good shots has helped his attitude. It has sort of all culminated now. He's seeing the shots he wants to hit, so it's easier for him to be patient. He doesn't need to go for every pin. He knows he's going to hit a lot of good shots."
Of the criticism Perez has received through the years, Hartford said, "It always hurt me when people would say bad things about him, when they really didn't know who he was. I was watching the last couple of nights of the Golf Channel's coverage and all of the good things they were saying about him. He can either be portrayed as a good guy or a bad guy, and all of the coverage lately has been really good. Hopefully, what they saw out there (Sunday), people will have a positive perspective."
The Perez entourage partied late into the night at a house in La Quinta on Sunday, according to Tony Perez, Pat's dad. Sometime during the celebration, Pat announced he was giving to Hartford the Chrysler 300C sedan he won.
"He's a truck man," Tony Perez said of Hartford with a laugh. "He asked, 'Do they make trucks?' "
by Tod Leonard, San Diego Union Tribune
The celebration Sunday afternoon following Pat Perez's victory in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic was as raucous as I've personally witnessed on an 18th green anywhere. Majors included.It was all about the emotion of the day. Friends of Perez's had come from all over the West to watch him seize his first victory in eight years of arduous and sometimes maddening toil. It meant so much to them because they knew how much it meant to Perez.
And amid all of the hugs and swigs of champagne and wild picture taking, caddie Mike Hartford stood quietly with a simple smile. "H! H! H!" the friends shouted, chanting his nickname. Hartford swallowed hard, holding back the tears.
A one-time San Diego City Am golf champion who now relishes the solitude of surfing near his Del Mar home, Hartford was the quiet in the Perez storm Sunday, as he always has been since the two became friends on the Torrey Pines High golf team years ago.
As Perez's caddie for all of the time he's been a pro, Hartford has been there for every shot. For the good, the bad and the ugly. When Perez failed, Hartford failed. When people ripped his friend, he was angry. He wanted to set them straight. But he set his jaw and bit his tongue, because that's what caddies who keep their jobs do.
The calm outside Sunday belied the emotions churning inside Hartford.
"I can't feel any better for him, because he's worked so hard," Hartford said. "I guess he just finally realized his potential. That's the main thing. He put every round together in the tournament. Our weakness has been missing that one round out of four. He finally put five good rounds together."
Hartford, who got his degree in economics from UCSD, smiled. "It's about math more than anything."
Hartford knew well of Perez's reputation as a hot head, that he would surely blow up with a little hiccup. That's why he was so proud Sunday. After making three straight birdies, including a chip-in, to get back into a tie for the lead with Steve Stricker, Perez immediately gave two shots back when his badly hooked tee shot on the par-3 sixth caromed off a rock and into the water.
Everybody watching waited for the explosion. There was none. Perez re-teed, looked over the water again, and a hit a shot right of the green. It was no easy up-and-down, but he made 5, and when Stricker triple-bogeyed the seventh and quadruple-bogeyed the 10th, Perez had the lead for good.
Hartford said he has seen a change for the better in Perez's attitude the past few years, but few fans got to witness it because the golfer hadn't been in contention on the weekends.
"I always said that I didn't want Pat to change the way he was," Hartford said. "He always needed to be more patient, but he's an aggressive player, and I wanted him to keep that.
"Hitting good shots has helped his attitude. It has sort of all culminated now. He's seeing the shots he wants to hit, so it's easier for him to be patient. He doesn't need to go for every pin. He knows he's going to hit a lot of good shots."
Of the criticism Perez has received through the years, Hartford said, "It always hurt me when people would say bad things about him, when they really didn't know who he was. I was watching the last couple of nights of the Golf Channel's coverage and all of the good things they were saying about him. He can either be portrayed as a good guy or a bad guy, and all of the coverage lately has been really good. Hopefully, what they saw out there (Sunday), people will have a positive perspective."
The Perez entourage partied late into the night at a house in La Quinta on Sunday, according to Tony Perez, Pat's dad. Sometime during the celebration, Pat announced he was giving to Hartford the Chrysler 300C sedan he won.
"He's a truck man," Tony Perez said of Hartford with a laugh. "He asked, 'Do they make trucks?' "
posted by PatPerezGolf.com at 7:10 AM
3 Comments:
GO H!!!!!!!!!!! We love you!!
everyone loves H!!!
Mike Hartford is a class guy...Great golfer himself, hard worker, knowledgable and loyal. After all of the years with a guy like Pat, he is also eligible for an honorary degree from Stanford in psychotherapy! How much can any golfer hope to get in a caddy? Congrats Mike!!!
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