Joel Stock on Caddying for Will Zalatoris & The Masters
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All right, coming up on the podcast, we're bringing on Joel Stah, caddy for Will Zalatoris, one of my favorite players on the PGA Tour. I've gotten to know Joel through the PR team over at Saks Underwear, which is completely changing the game in breathable underwear. Joel is an ambassador at Saks, along with a bunch of other caddies on tour, including John Ellis, Aaron Fiener, Gino Bonelli. So we talk about how that partnership came to be, as well as

All the questions that I wanted to ask him about Will. Why does it seem like Will raises his baseline in major championships? What was the road back from major injury like in 2023? What are some of his favorite spots on tour? What was it like caddying in the

2024 Masters and some of the toughest major championship conditions we've seen in years, expectations that he has for the rest of the year, and so much more. So short little episode. Joel was generous enough to make some time for me on the road this week in New Orleans. Just a little bit of a quick hitter with Joel on some fun topics. And in terms of my Zurich Classic stuff,

You can find all of that at Rumpier Sports. Wiley and I just recorded a free show up on YouTube this morning where I dove into my strategy for this week, why I have randomly had so much success at the Zurich Classic and

Just about as much Zurich talk as one would hope for in a week like this. So we've got you covered for the Zurich over at Rumpier Sports. This one with Joel, more of a quick interview style podcast, which I really enjoy doing from time to time. So without further ado, let's bring on Joel Stock.

All right, Joel Stock is here. Caddy for Will Zalator is on the PGA Tour. A guy I'm incredibly excited to ask some questions to. So I want to start big picture here, Joel. How did this partnership begin? How did you meet Will? I know you've had a fair amount of experience caddying on the PGA Tour prior to Will, but how did the partnership with Will begin for you guys? Yeah, so I started caddying on tour in 09. Caddied for a very good friend and college roommate, Ben Crane, for over 10 years.

Had a couple different jobs after that. When I was working for my prior boss in 22, we got paired together with Will a few times that year. And I had met Will a couple of years before the Corn Fairy Finals. Just always really enjoyed him, enjoyed talking to him. We just got along really well. And when...

I parted with my previous boss. It's timing in this business a lot of times, just timing. And he was looking to make a change. And I was somebody who was available at that time. And so he contacted me and asked me if I wanted to come out and work the playoffs for him in 22. Our first week was the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis. It was a good start to the relationship.

I was watching you guys at the Masters a couple of weeks ago, and one of the things I noticed with Will, I was at the practice round on Tuesday, and I actually, it was a pretty perfect situation for me because I showed up, you know how...

The geography of Augusta works where you walk through that area where they have the food and you walk past the practice facilities and the store and everything. And then it's kind of this, you have the massive scoreboard on the right and the entire course kind of opens up right in front of you and you see that first fairway.

And I remember thinking, okay, I'm going to find a practice group to walk with. I want to walk the front and I want to walk the back. And on Tuesday afternoon, right as I happened to be walking out, it was you, Will, Sahith, who you're playing in Zurich with this week, and Victor Hovland walking down that first fairway.

And I actually, I said, I couldn't have asked for a better three ball to walk the front nine with. So I ended up walking those nine holes at Augusta with you guys on Tuesday. And one of the, one of the first things I wanted to ask you about will and will's game is that it seems like to

To me, there's something, there's a different gear in him that kicks in. There seems to be a different energy about him around these major championships, around these bigger events. From a skillset perspective, a lot of this podcast is database. So I'm diving into strokes gained all the time. And there's a million reasons from a course fit perspective, why Will Zalatoris' skillset is going to play better in major championships than it would at say,

putting contest or an American Express when wills on he's one of the best long iron players in the world a skill like long iron players going to be heavily accentuated at major championships but do you feel like there's something from a psychological mental or emotional or or preparation standpoint that kicks in with well.

When it comes to these bigger events, because obviously another top 10 at the Masters, he's now finished second, sixth and ninth and three appearances at Augusta has some pretty good US Open and PGA finishes to go along with that as well. But does something feel different with Will those weeks on on those bigger major championship weeks that you notice as well?

Yeah. First of all, it's what he gears his entire year around is the majors. It's what he cares about the most. I think it's what he's, he's built for is that those kinds of competitions, it's just the way, the way he approaches golf and plays, it's just kind of built for, for big tournaments like that.

I know you spent four days walking that golf course, but were those some of the tougher major championship conditions that you've ever experienced as a caddy with Will or without him? Yeah, 100%. I told people that on Friday, especially the back nine, most of the day, but especially the back nine, it was the hardest conditions I've ever faced in my career, 16 years out here. I just remember walking off the course that day, physically and mentally exhausted because I

That golf course is very challenging. It's very fun, but it's very challenging. When you throw 45-mile-an-hour gusts that don't come out of one direction, it was literally coming out of seven different directions. It's very stressful. It's very difficult to commit to a shot when, say, you're walking up 11 and the wind's in off the right howling.

And to pull a club into that grain, and then you walk to 12T, which is right by 11 green, and the flag on 12 is blowing straight down, and the flag on 11 is blowing straight in. It just plays with your mind. And yeah, it's just really tough, but...

Definitely worth the battle. Do you feel like there's more pressure on you in those types of conditions? I feel like your job has to just be objectively harder when you're playing dome golf in Palm Springs and two mile per hour gusts to giant fairways versus...

Those conditions on Friday at Augusta felt like such a mental examination as well as a physical one, right? Like I think there was so much brain power required to hit the correct shots and miss in the right places. Do you feel like you have to be a hundred times more engaged when the conditions get tougher like that as well? Yeah, I think both the player and the caddy have to be. And, you know, we use the word like acceptance that,

In that situation, you're doing your best to say, okay, here's where the wind's forecasted. Here's where we feel it. There's some uncertainty involved. So it kind of becomes what's the best, if we're not going to hit a perfect shot, what's the best place to miss it? And what's the least penal place to miss it? So you're really just, it's the ultimate challenge of game management, recognizing that pars are great.

And, you know, you're doing the best you can to avoid making the big mistake. So, you know, making a few bogeys on that day, par kind of becomes irrelevant a little bit. It's more just getting it around the best you can under those conditions. What is the preparation process?

week to week, like look for you. Like I would imagine that Augusta is a lot different because you probably know that course, like the back of your hand at this point, but we're already heading to Valhalla in three weeks. Then we've got Pinehurst and Troon coming up, but for these major championships, do you do anything different? Do you get there earlier to scout the course? Because it's a course that you guys aren't seeing every single year, week to week, like all the other PGA tour venues that you're probably incredibly familiar with.

at this point, but what does, does your preparation change at all for these major championships weeks, particularly being on the back of somebody that, you know, has a legitimate chance to win one of these things every single time you tease it up? Yeah, definitely. It's just more time. It's more prep time. It's more walks.

On the course by myself or with other caddies, looking at different angles to different pens and taking different notes, different than, like you said, weeks where, you know, I've been to the same tournament 16 years in a row. I can lay here in my hotel room bed and tell you where to hit it to what pen. Whereas courses like that, it just, the more time you spend on the course and the more familiar you feel with that course,

just helps once the competition rolls around. We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

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I know that you started catting for Will late in 2022. You got a bit of a tough break with the injury that he sustained. What was that year like? The path back from rehab for Will? What was that year like for you?

What were you up to during that time period? Pretty impressive. I have to say how he's come out of the gates in 2024, but I have to imagine that was a pretty long and difficult road back to recovery and, and probably some doubt at some point creeped back in into whether he was going to return to be the player that he was prior to that injury. I believe he had to make some, some swing changes as well, right. To, to try and kind of get back and adapt a new swing to,

uh given the injury that he sustained in 2023. yeah some minor changes i think the biggest thing was just uh taking the time to make sure that that he was fully healed before he came back and it he feels great now looks great and it seems as though

He did what he needed to do for himself, which was great for me. You know, I did a couple fill in things for guys last year, but you know, I've got two small kids at home and I looked at it for me as an opportunity to spend time with them. You know, I told my wife at one point, you know, I can work later in life and keep doing this when they're out of the house. So it was a, I just tried to take advantage of that. And it was a pretty rich time for me with my family.

So are you, I know Will's a Dallas guy, but are you in Dallas as well? No, I'm a Eugene, Oregon resident. I love, I was out at, I went to Bandon two years ago and we stopped in Eugene to play Eugene Country Club and it's wonderful. That's where, cause you went to Oregon, right? Is that still Oregon's home course? Yeah. One of them, they have like three, but that's one of them. Yeah.

I like golf courses that have a distinctive sense of place. Like you play the golf course and you're like, okay, I could only play this golf course if I was in the Pacific Northwest. And that's what you feel at Country Club of Eugene. It's like this golf course could not be anywhere else in the entire country than the Pacific Northwest. Yeah. The massive tree-lined fairways and the smaller slopey greens. It's a very fun golf course to play.

So you're spending more of your off weeks in Eugene, but in doubt, I imagine you still spend some time in Dallas practicing with will a little bit prior to some of these tournaments. Um,

Does he have a crew in Dallas that he's playing with a bunch? Like, is he, is he out there with Scotty and Spieth and Tom Kim and Tony Romo? And, you know, what is it, what has it been like for him? Maybe watching the ascent of what, what Scheffler happens to be up to right now, and maybe getting mentored a little bit by, you know, the Spieth's of the world and that squad in Dallas. Yeah.

Those guys play a lot of games together when they're at home. They all grew up playing against each other, so they've known each other since they were kids competing in Dallas and then also the larger national junior tournaments and stuff. They're all friends and very familiar with each other and their games. Has it been fun watching what Scottie's doing? Has any of this been a surprise to you at all, or did this feel somewhat expected for you?

I mean, I think what he's doing is pretty special right now. And, you know, Tiger-esque in a way, if you want to call it that. I mean, we haven't seen a run this good in a long time. And yeah, it's cool to see. And just a lot of respect to him and Teddy for what they're doing.

Okay. A couple of quick hitters before we, uh, we talk about your career briefly at the end as an underwear model, but do you have a, uh, do you have a favorite event on tour that you like going to every year? I want to hear maybe your favorite and then what you would think Will's favorite is as well. I mean, it's always been a master's from the first time I went there in 2010. I tell people it's the one thing that my expectations were very high.

And when I got there, it was better than I thought it would be. And it's feels the same every year. When I go back, you're playing in new Orleans this week for the Zurich classic. I was a, what, you know, it was cool seeing will and to have play that practice round at August on Tuesday. It feels like there's a good camaraderie and banter between the two. It even felt like on some of the tee boxes during that practice round, um,

Will was kind of giving Sahith advice and talking to him a lot about course management and strategy at Augusta. Do you feel pretty comfortable and confident in that pairing going forward? Because I have to imagine you guys are one of the favorites heading into the week, and it seems like Will and Sahith's game complement each other's pretty ideally. Yeah, Will and Soth are very good friends. His caddie, Carl, and I are very good friends. In fact, we're staying together this week, and we stay together quite a bit.

I just think it's going to be a really fun week. You know, they're both playing good golf and it's, it's definitely a different vibe this week. This has always been a special place to me because it tends to fall on my birthday every year, which is tomorrow. I'm turning 50 tomorrow. So it's kind of a big one. Congratulations. How many 50, 50 year old underwear models we got still kicking it. You're huge.

You're a rare breed these days. Yeah. I think I'm the oldest on the crew, but no. So yeah, it's, you know, it's just gonna be a fun week. We'll have a couple of team dinners and just be great camaraderie. And it's just got a different vibe, but then, you know, Thursday when they put it in the ground, they're going to be grinding just like they do every week.

So are you guys playing Dallas too? Because that's what I was curious about is, you know, I was a little bit surprised that you guys are playing Zurich this week because, you know, he went from the masters straight into heritage. Then you guys are playing Zurich.

You have Dallas next week, which is obviously a very convenient location for Will and a bit of a hometown event. But then it goes right into Quail Hollow, another signature event, and then right into the PGA Championship at Valhalla. So I would presume that Dallas is going to be the off week for you guys next week.

We're planning to play at this point as far as – so we'll see how this week goes and just – you kind of take it week to week sometimes out here. Yeah. You guys are still young. Will's still young. I would imagine five weeks in a row is probably nothing to him as well. Do you guys –

plan your schedule far very far out in advance like are you getting a message from will in january like here is the plan this year or do you guys does it kind of go with the flow and there's some changes that are made throughout the course of the season or do you pretty much know the spots that you're going to be at from january all the way up through august and september

I've got a very good idea, but you also know that there are things that are subject to change and typically just kind of you just roll with it.

And that's, that's pretty normal for this job. So it's really not a big deal. I have a great, I have a great understanding wife who knows that, you know, some weeks I'm going to be home and some weeks I'm not. So. All right. Final question. Talk to me about Saks, this underwear brand partnership that you have with a couple other counties on the PGA tour. How did this come to be? It seems like a very fun group you guys got going on over there at Saks.

Yeah, it's been a really fun, surprising, just a great relationship. Saks has been incredible. You know, all the guys involved with them, their whole team, you know, we've done two, two day shoots now together and it's just a ball. And then, you know, all the guys that are on this, this, you know, ball master crew, they're my buddies. They're guys that I, I stay with often have great relationships with. So, you know, just being a part of it together has been really fun.

So it's you, it's Aaron Fleener, it's Gino, John Ellis for Wyndham Clark's caddy as well. The fourth Keith Mitchell's caddy, right? Yeah. Who's now working for Akshay. So is that, I know that he was on the bag. I was just talking with Christian beforehand briefly about that. Does that seem like it's going to be a longer term thing or was this just a fill in for with Keith not being in the field for the heritage? It's a, it's a new change.

Yeah. Going forward. Wow. That's incredible. So do you guys get out that caddy group? Do you guys get out to play a bunch? Is that kind of your, is that kind of your squad? Are you guys going out to dinner a bunch of times on the weeks when you guys are all on the road together and the players are all in the same field?

I'd say those four guys, besides Carl, who I'm staying with this week, those are the four guys that I would probably stay with the most. You know, we tend to, you know, some weeks we get houses, some weeks we room up in hotel rooms together. And so, you know, you kind of find your key group of guys that you enjoy spending time with and you're comfortable staying with. And those guys are all on that list for me.

Okay. Final question about sacks too, in terms of the feel of the underwear, this seems like for you, I would imagine something that's a little bit different with, you know, the ball pouch. I was just talking with Christian earlier about how the concept of this was.

Okay, caddies are the ones that take care of the players' balls. And at Saks, we have the ball pouch that is taking care of your balls as well. Has that been fun to kind of workshop with them and try out this underwear? And what do you think makes Saks different from other underwear brands that you have tried and utilized in the past, particularly for golfers?

right? Because I feel like part of this is that these are, this is really good underwear for when you're on the golf course, especially in a job like you, where you're walking 20,000 steps a day. It really does make a difference, man. And I, and I've tried so many different things, uh, over all the years of my career. And,

you know, I'd heard about Saks, but never tried them up before, before this relationship started. And I mean, just honestly, it's been a 10 out of 10 fit for me. I mean, it's, it's a perfect relationship for me because I use them every day. I wear the, I wear the clothes every day. I wear the lounge wear when I travel, you know, I've got all my friends at home hooked on it. I mean, and for me, that says it all, you

You know, it's one thing if people support me because they, they believe in what I'm doing, but when they experienced it for themselves and people just kind of freak out over all their products, they're just, they're great. I mean, it'd be surprising if you saw me not usually wearing something that I get from Saks. It's just, I love it. Love all their, all their products are 10 out of 10.

And you can find all of that at sacks.com. Sacks with two X's, by the way. Are you guys doing any content and stuff? Everybody's got to get on and be honorary ballmasters with us. There's some good promo stuff going on. Get on the site and check it out.

Awesome. Cause I know I've been following some of the stuff that you guys do with them on Instagram and you guys do some, some pretty fun content and a little short videos that I think everybody should check out. You know, Benelli leading the way and that's, that's about as good as it gets, you know,

Anytime we, you know, we talk about who's going to do something, it's like, Gino, get on there. I mean, he's so good on the camera. And the other cool thing is that they're, you know, they're donating $100 for every birdie that the five of our guys make this year to the Testicular Cancer Foundation, which I just think is incredible.

That's awesome. All right, Joel, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a torrid little stretch here on the PGA tour for you. I appreciate your time. Hope to do it again and great. Good luck this weekend in New Orleans. I'll be pulling for you guys. Appreciate it. All right. That is it for the podcast. Special thanks to Joel. Special thanks to Saks Underwear. Special thanks to Rumpier Sports. Special thanks to Betts, Berts, Golf, and the Rabbit Hole. And we will be back on this podcast feed next week, breaking down...

the Byron Nelson Classic. Until then, best of luck with your bets this week, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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