Few golfers love their caddies the way Allianz Championship first round leader Jay Don Blake does his. One elaborately planned birthday, Blake surprised his caddy with a whole new kitchen. They don’t argue on the golf course.
“We don’t even argue at home,” Marci Blake laughed. That’s a pretty serious statement – this winter, they devoted themselves to remodeling their home in St. George, Utah. Home repairs and golf, separately, have bought the beach house for more than one marriage counselor.
“We probably argued more over that than anything on the golf course,” Jay Don said. Having his wife caddy was Jay Don’s idea last year after she handled his bag in several Champions Tour qualifiers, but she’d want to do it anyway. She couldn’t stand staying home and following tournaments by television or the Internet as many wives must. “I’d be like, ‘REFRESH! REFRESH!’” she laughed, miming pounding a computer keyboard.
Not that she doesn’t understand those home bound spouses predicament. Responsibilities restrain. As a single mother, she didn’t feel comfortable saying yes to Jay Don’s repeated requests for a date. When she finally stopped the rejections, he came across with a pretty solid first date: The Masters. “My dad said, ‘If you don’t go, I’m going,’” Marci said.
Jay Don didn’t just rely on the Augusta National experience to reel in Marci, who knew nothing about golf. He’d rented a large house for the week with enough rooms for friends and family. Marci remembers having the house’s Princess Suite.
And 20 years later, 13 of them married, they’re still together, partially because they can spend time together on the tour.
More so than in team sports, family separation’s a Godzilla issue for touring individual sport athletes: golfers, tennis players, auto racers. Dwyane Wade gets 41 home games. Jupiter’s Camilo Villegas gets two home PGA Tour events. Helio Castronieves, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, etc. have zero home IndyCar races.
In the quartet two shots behind Blake sits Australian Peter Senior. This is just Senior’s second full season after taking 10 years off from touring golf. Over a decade ago, he talked to players who said their one regret about living the tour life was missing their kids’ youth.
Senior didn’t want to split homes – six months in Europe or the U.S., six months in Australia – during his three kids school years. He looked at his schedule of spending a day flying to the United Kingdom to play for three weeks and decided to cut the golf, concentrate on his retail and construction businesses and be Daddy.
Friday, 16-year-old Mitchell Senior caddied for Daddy. “It was either caddy or school, not a tough decision for him,” Peter Senior chuckled. The Blakes have a 12-year-old daughter, Miranda. But, fortunately, Jay Don has two adult daughters, Jamie and Bridget, both of whom have children.
So when the Blakes hit the Champions Tour, Miranda gets an adult babysitter not far removed from teenage years themselves’ and nieces for whom she enjoys “playing Auntie M” Marci said.
“Sunny” suits Marci Blake’s disposition and would even if she didn’t have bright blond hair. She constantly beams when talking with almost a teen’s rapid enthusiastic cadence about her grandchildren, the home remodeling, and, yes, the kitchen Jay Don surprised her with one birthday.
When Jay Don had trouble coming up in the post-round press conference with how long they were married, then said, “uh, 12 years,” she cracked from the second row of media, “I’ve been married 13 years.”
Among the Champions Tour’s more relaxed atmosphere (compared to the PGA Tour), she’s one of a handful of caddying wives and says she obeys “The Caddy’s Credo.”“You show up, you keep up, you shut up,” quipped Friday’s happiest caddy.