Hamilton caddie is the two-million mile man
Almost everyone who hits their 60th birthday tends to stop and take stock in their career.
And so it was for Hamilton native Danny Sharp when he turned 60 last month.
Sharp, who lives in Cocoa Beach, Fla., when he’s not in some hotel room, just about anywhere on the planet, is a professional caddie, mostly on the LPGA Tour.
He was with Lorie Kane when she broke onto the LPGA Tour in 1996 and worked with her on her four wins and her many runnerup finishes. And he was on Caroline Masson’s bag for her first and only win, the Manulife Classic at Whistle Bear Golf Club in North Dumfries Township, near Cambridge, a few years back.
Sharp has also worked with Anna Nordqvist, Lee-Anne Pace, Moriya Jutanugarn, and his current employer Jeong Eun Lee5. And somewhere in the middle of all his work on the LPGA Tour he spent four years on the PGA Tour with South
African Thomas Aiken.
If you’re starting to think that that sounds like a lot of time on the golf course and a lot of travel getting there you’d be right.
And that’s what Sharp was thinking as he hit the big 6-0.
“I know I’ve just passed two million miles with American Airlines,” said Sharp who flew home to visit friends and relatives in Hamilton this past week before heading north of Toronto for next weeks CP Women’s Open at Magna Golf Club.
“I tried to add it up and I think I’ve worked between 600 and 650 tournaments.”
He also thinks he’s around the third or fourth oldest caddie still working a full schedule on the LPGA Tour.
Asked if he imagined himself still doing this job at 60, Sharp doesn’t hesitate.
“No, I did not,” he says emphatically. “That’s a lot of walking and I’m sore. My hips and my legs are sore.”
Sharp says the worst part is flying and notes that after a long flight his ankles swell up.
“I’m probably a year away (from retiring) maybe this year, or next,” he notes but adds there are a lot of factors at play including what he will do when he finishes caddying.
“I’d like to get a job in Hamilton in the summer teaching (short game) and then spent the winters visiting my daughter who lives in Costa Rica,” said Sharp who has even talked in the past about working with Kane who has plans to open her own golf school in Prince Edward Island.
Lee5 and Sharp will be together next week at Magna. He thinks she has the game to win on the LPGA Tour but admits communication is a problem for them.
He doesn’t speak Korean. She speaks very little English and her new coach doesn’t speak any.
Currently Lee5 is around 78th on the money list and will need to get into the top 60 to qualify for the big money, small field, no-cut events at the end of the season.
“The Tour Championship this year is in Naples in November and has a US$5 million purse with US$1 million to the winner. That’s the one you want to get into,” said Sharp.
Whole-in-one: Paul Cleary aced the 97-yard eighth hole at Willow Valley with a 52-degree wedge.