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Masson, McDede offer unique insight on the road back to sports
A little over one week ago, while visiting my wife’s family in Florida on vacation, I was allowed to sit down and interview LPGA golfer Caroline Masson and her fiancé Jason McDede, who is the caddie for fellow LPGA golfer Nelly Korda.
With the LPGA Tour resuming play Thursday with the Marathon LPGA Classic at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Ohio after a long layoff due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pair – who are full of interesting insights and stories and will be making the drive, along with their Goldendoodle, Ace, from Melbourne to Sylvania – gave a glimpse into what bringing the sport back will entail.
While playing at the professional level is several rungs up the latter compared to high school sports, the protocols those partaking in the return of women’s golf help get a better idea of what Clay City and Northview’s programs will have to go through to get back on the course, court and field in the coming weeks.
(Note: Pick up Tuesday’s edition of The Brazil Times for the back story of how Masson and McDede met, why he no longer caddies for her, and how they work through being competitors on the course.)
For both of you, what’s been your routine during COVID as you’re supposed to be in season right now?
CM: It’s been different, obviously. We’ve never been through anything like this. We’ve never had a break like this, a tournament break. Once this thing started, we were in Australia and then the next two tournaments got canceled in Thailand and Singapore. We kind of use the offseason to get ready and everyone feels prepared to get the season started, but we only played two weeks. We knew we were going to be off for a while, so it’s been very different. Personally, I’ve gone through a few stages. At first, it’s kind of like deflating a little bit. You just have to say, ‘Okay. Obviously, there’s no point in grinding.’ My game is where it should be and I guess the goal is to maintain throughout the, what was it, four months? I’ve taken some weeks off and I’ve played a few times a week and then, obviously, in the last few weeks I’ve been practicing. I’ve worked on my technique a little bit, trying to use that time off to improve a few technical things, which is always tough to do during the season, while you play. So, that’s been good and has given you a reason to practice. It’s been funny. Some weeks we’ve played more, some weeks we’ve played less when it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s another two months.’ It’s definitely been challenging. Overall, I think I’ve maintained and I’ve gotten some rest and I’ve gotten to do some other things. The goal was when we do come back, I want to be ready to go and kind of rested and ready to play.
JM: It was a better situation for me because I still had something to do with Caroline. Obviously, I’m not involved in necessarily coaching or caddying for her, but being in the same profession, we’re always working together in some sort. I know her coach, he knows me. I think, for me, I was like, ‘Caro, a couple of stages.’ First, you get home from Australia and you’re undecided. You’re like, ‘Okay, maybe a couple of weeks. Hopefully, we’ll play in Phoenix.’ That was the goal, which was only going to give us three or four weeks off when that first started. So, those kinds of weeks, like Caro said, we were like, ‘We’re still going to go. This will pass.’ But when Phoenix canceled and so did the next two in California, that was another month. So, it was like she said, deflating and we were [wondering], ‘What are we going to do now?’ We’re looking around like every day doesn’t matter now because we live on a certain tour schedule. We’re not used to like Monday through Friday and weekends and staying home and all of that. When it started to get longer and longer, there were some weeks in there where we didn’t even think about golf. It was just kind of like, ‘Let’s just be normal. Let’s watch tv. Let’s swim in the pool. We have a dog, which has been really helpful through everything. He’s our best friend. We walk him in the morning. We walk him at night. Next thing you know, two hours have gone by.
Have they told you what the Tour is going to be like when you do get back (the protocols and the testing and everything that goes along with that)?
CM: It’s going to be a lot of testing. The second tournament we’re supposed to play, originally they wanted fans. It’s still undecided if we [will] have fans or not. But on the testing protocols, yeah, we’re going to test the week before we go to the tournament – at home. They send us a test kit and we have to take the saliva test in front of a doctor on a Zoom call and then send it in. You can, obviously, only travel when you’re negative. And then we’ll get there on Monday or Tuesday and have to take another test. We can basically only go inside the clubhouse once we test negative again. I think we’re okay to go out on the golf course and play the next day even though we haven’t gotten the results, but you get wristbands and lanyards once you are able to get closer to people. They’re trying to keep us in this bubble, if you will. The tournament after that is in Scotland and they actually require all of the players and all of the caddies to stay in one hotel all together so we don’t have to quarantine. But, everybody has to stay in their own room. Even Jason and I cannot stay together. If we were player and caddie, we could stay together.
Have you guys ever had to [stay in separate rooms before]?
JM: Never. We’re going to fly over there together. We’ve lived together for the last seven years and we’re engaged to get married. It’s like, you go halfway across the world together and then you get to the hotel and you go to your separate rooms. It’ll be like a dormitory feel, especially with everyone having to stay in their own rooms, which is kind of odd for us. Whether you’re in our situation or you’re just a single guy out there on the road, everybody stays somehow with another person. Cost-wise, boredom-wise, it’s nice to have some type of roommate. We’re on the road in normal years 30 to 35 weeks of the year. If you stayed by yourself all that time, you’d go crazy. For Scotland, I think it will be interesting.
CM: It’s very strict, but, again, they had to do that to make sure that we’re confined. It makes sense. There’s no fans there and no guests. Nobody’s allowed to come, even in the country. We understand how they want to do it. Life on the road for us is, obviously, changing.
So, are your [McDede’s] protocols the same as [Masson’s] in terms of on the course?
JM: Yeah. They’ve asked us during practice rounds to leave the pins in and don’t rake the bunkers which is kind of what we do. We’re always raking the bunker. We’re always grabbing the pin. We’re trying to help the player. But to crack down on everybody touching the same thing in the same place, they’ve [issued these protocols]. It will be very interesting. There will be no hanging around. It’ll be – come in, play the 18 holes, sign your scorecard – and okay, maybe you’ll hit a ball or two if you play really good and want to work on it or play really bad and want to work on it – and get out of there. That’s what we’ve been told. And from there, they’ve taken it even further and been like, we’re expected to not eat in restaurants, go visit any kind of museums – before, depending on your energy level, people went and sightsaw, especially in Scotland – that kind of stuff, they’re going to be strict on. They’re going to say, ‘Do your job and go back to the hotel room.’ For the players, they go and get their physio done, they go to the gym. But for us caddies, a lot of times, we hang out in the bars or the restaurants or we go and watch a sporting event and talk about how your day was. That’s all going to go away.
So, your first tournament of the year in Ohio won’t have any fans. Do you think that will be weird?
CM: I think it will be different. I think golf will be okay because we play at venues that there’s a lot of fans and we also play at places where you may not be in one of the top groups and tee off early in the morning or late in the afternoon and have no fans except for a parent here or there or someone from housing. So, I think it’s going to be okay. You’re just in it. It may be a little funny because we’re so used to reacting. You make a putt and you [wave to the crowd]. But there’s not going to be anyone there. I think that’s not going to be a big deal and I also think it’s the right thing, especially taking this bubble so seriously with the all the players, caddies and no one else is allowed on the golf course or inside the ropes. I think it makes a lot of sense not to have fans or ProAms and not expose the players or the caddies to other people. That’s the right thing to do.
JM: It’s what makes the most sense. If we’re going to go through all of this, you can’t just let 5,000 people through the gates. What’s the point? If we can’t go out to a restaurant and eat dinner, but you can have 50 people wanting your autograph, what’s really the sense in that? They’re really going to have to be consistent with their message.
Were there ever any conversations about not playing?
CM: In general, not really. We knew that when we do start back up, they’re going to take it seriously and they’re going to create a safe environment for us. So, we didn’t really feel that way. The travel seems a little bit more intimidating when you think about going overseas. To say that we’re just not going to play this year, I think we’re just missing it a little bit too much and we want to use the chances we have this year. There’s not going to be many tournaments. I’m 31. I’m not saying I don’t have a lot of years left, but we want to start a family in the near future, so I think that’s one of the reasons why I want to go out and take advantage of that.
JM: And for me too, it’s the same. I work for a young player and she’s ready to go and Caro’s ready to go. I think when you step away from it this long – I watched LeBron on Sportscenter last night and they asked him the same question and he was like, ‘Since I’ve been 10 or 11 years old, I’ve never not been this close to a basketball court for four or five months. Like ever – so, you miss what you do. That’s why you do what you do because you like it. I think we’re more grateful when we go back out. Everybody I’ve talked to is itching to go. You get the occasional person that says, ‘I’m going to wait and see what happens.’ Maybe they have a family member with a preexisting health condition or something like that. You’ve seen some PGA Tour guys or some NFL athletes with a baby or Buster Posey said, ‘Hey, I just had twins. I can’t risk it.’ And I get that. But for us, we don’t have any kids. Our family members, for the most part, should be okay if we happened to get it and have to come home. We live by ourselves, so nobody else is under our roof.