Caddie's maiden voyage around Augusta National a thrill

Kyle Peters had never even been to Augusta National before this week.

Yet there he was in a white caddie suit Thursday with player Corey Conners, following a whirlwind of events that saw Conners beating five others last week in a one-hole qualifier just to get into the Valero Texas Open and then actually winning that event for an invitation to the Masters.

And when Conners shaved four shots off his score during a three-hole span on the back nine to finish at 2-under-par 70, the falling dominoes included him setting the early pace.

“He went birdie, birdie, eagle (on holes 13 through 15),” Peters said, “and I’m like, ‘I think we’re in the lead right now. Pretty cool.’

“… It’s been crazy. I had three different flights (from San Antonio) back home to Charleston last week. We had that Monday qualifier and I had to change that day. I had one Sunday night and we were in the last group, so I changed it to Monday morning. Then, instead, I was on a flight Sunday night coming here. When I got here, I was thinking, ‘What the heck am I doing at Augusta?’”

Kurt Owings, Peters' junior college coach, is not surprised that his former player has been able to ride this wave.

“He’s a guy who just goes with the flow,” Owings said. “He has that Charleston cool vibe to him, laid-back, and was kind of a surfer-type dude. … He always had strange connections, you know? He knew somebody who knew somebody. Or he had a friend who knew somebody who knew somebody. He was always able to connect with people somehow.”

After his freshman year of college, Peters thought he would try to make a few dollars by being a caddie at an LPGA event in Alabama. He had no experience – well, besides working as a 12-year-old at the city amateur championship in Charleston. He didn’t have a job lined up. But a friend of his knew someone who knew someone who would put in a good word.

"So I drove down to Mobile, Ala., the week of my 19th birthday,” said Peters, now 27. “Libby Smith qualified and hired me.”

Peters stayed on the LPGA Tour for four years and then was at a PGA qualifying school event,  where he talked to someone who paired him with Webb Harrington on the Web.com Tour for a year. From there, again knowing somebody who knew somebody, he went to work for Steve Lowery on the PGA Champions Tour.

“I thought that if I wanted to get on the PGA Tour,” Peters said, “I needed to go back to the Web first.”

And that’s where he met Conners a year and a half ago. Last week was the biggest payday for either of them. Peters, the former 19-year-old who was just looking for a summer job, received his winning share of $186,800.

Sometimes it really pays to know somebody who knows somebody.

“There was a lot of networking involved,” Peters said.

Having never been to Augusta National, Peters tried to learn as much as he could in a short  time. 

“There have been a lot of caddies who have helped me out as far as tips and how to read the greens,” Peters said. “The yardage books don’t have the slopes up and down. A lot of guys offered me those, but I like to do that work on my own, so I did that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. … People have also told me that you don’t read putts here. You remember putts here.”