Alex Gaugert is putting the bag down for one week and one week only at the 3M Open as he prepares to tee it up against his boss Erik van Rooyen on the PGA Tour
PGA Tour caddie Alex Gaugert will have the chance to outdo his boss this week.
Erik van Rooyen’s carrier has won a spot in the field via Monday qualifying and has amazingly been drawn to play with his employer in the first two rounds of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities.
Gaugert survived a 4-for-3 playoff at Victory Links Golf Club in his first-ever Monday qualifier and will now make his tour debut.
His journey to the event wasn’t plain sailing, though. Having stuck around to watch the Barracuda playoff last weekend, his flight in Seattle was delayed until 3am.
He didn’t arrive in Minneapolis until 8.30am – less than three hours before his tee time in the qualifier. It’s no surprise Gaugert didn’t carry high hopes with just a few hours of sleep on the airport floor in the bank.
After finishing his usual caddie duties for @FredVR_ at the @CudaChamp on Sunday, Alex Gaugert took a red eye to the @3MOpen Monday qualifier.
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 25, 2023
He then shot a 65 to qualify for his first TOUR start.
Instead of on the bag, he’ll be in the same group as van Rooyen this week 👏 pic.twitter.com/p1CiRzlQel
“It’s pretty surreal,” Gaugert told PGA Tour.com. “I think expectations are a massive thing and I went in with zero expectations and played well.”
Van Rooyen and Gaugert were teammates at the University of Minnesota for three years and Gaugert lives just a 30-minute drive from this week’s venue.
The pair won the 2021 Barracuda Championship together, but van Rooyen went through a string of seven consecutive missed cuts earlier this season.
Asked whether his caddie will make the cut at the 3M, the South African replied “Oh, absolutely.”
“That’s really what we dreamed of. A lot of our guys (at Minnesota), we wanted to play the PGA Tour, we talked about traveling together, playing a practice round together and now that dream is becoming a reality which is really cool,” he said.
Van Rooyen has called on his former college teammate Robert Bell for looping duties in Blaine, while Gaugert’s brother Austin will caddie for him.
Austin was originally down to caddie for Ryan Moore, the third man of their trio in the first two rounds, but the former Ryder Cup player has his agent on the bag instead.
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