A PGA Tour Golfer’s Ex-Caddie Went Viral for Quitting Mid-Round. Here’s Why He Walked Off the Course.

A relationship between a golfer and his caddie is a sacred thing. Such a close partnership can sometimes lead to lifelong friendship or, in the case of Alejandro Tosti and his ex-caddie Cliff Ellis, to ugly breakups.

Last week during the PGA Tour’s Biltmore Championship in Asheville, N.C., Tosti and Ellis were caught on camera getting into an argument midway through Tosti’s first round. Toward the end of the argument, Ellis dropped his bag, removed his bib and walked off the course away from Tosti.

Lots of golf fans were startled by the viral video, with the broadcast’s announcers similarly having little to no clue as to what went down between the duo.

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Ellis recently opened up about his public fallout with Tosti in an exclusive interview with the TeeBox Radio Show, during which he admitted tensions between the two of them had been quietly building up to that moment.

“I got no problem telling you that the whole week this week was just ludicrous,” Ellis said. “A lot of just off the wall, and insane things were going on all week between him and I. And then Thursday morning we got off to a real hot start—we were on the range getting warmed up, and we got into a little tussle over the placement of the bag at the driving range, which was just insane. You know, I’m like trying to calm him down like, ‘Okay, let’s stay focused on this here.’

“So just the day was bad. It was just terrible. So as you see on that video, we’re coming up on the 18th hole, which is our ninth of the day. And I pick the bag up and he looks at me and he says, ‘Why is this umbrella in the bag?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know, what if it rains? Or what if you want to use it for sun?’ Which is something he does often, he’ll pop the umbrella open for the walk and get under it so he doesn’t get in the sun. He was like, ‘Well, it’d be stupid to have it out here.’ I was like, ‘Are you planning on carrying this bag? What difference does it make to you?’ And so I just tried to brush it off, we have a hand sign that we use ... He took [it as] a personal attack. He used a word I can’t use here on the radio.”

Ellis then gave Tosti a chance to apologize, but Tosti instead doubled down on what he said. At that point, Ellis was fed up and told Tosti he quit before making his way to the parking lot.

“Who would put themselves through this?” continued Ellis.

It’s wild to think that the spat started from something as petty as an umbrella in a golf bag. Ellis elaborated a bit more on his history and fractured relationship with Tosti while speaking to MondayQ's Ryan French.

Tosti and Ellis worked together for a total of eight events, per French, and had a bit of an unusual pay arrangement in which Ellis earned 6% of whatever prize money Tosti made from a tournament. Their professional relationship was rocky from the start, as Ellis confessed that Tosti lost his temper “almost weekly.” At their second event together at the Charles Schwab Challenge in May, Tosti reportedly warned Ellis, “Don’t do anything unless I tell you.” On the 14th hole, Ellis said Tosti became angry when Ellis didn’t immediately pull the flag, and he dropped the F-word multiple times in a visible fit of frustration.

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Heading into the Biltmore Championship, the pair had already met with Tosti’s psychologist to try to iron out their issues, but the lingering friction remained. During the bag incident that Ellis talked about on the radio show, Tosti said, “Are you going to make me walk to the locker room for my clubs?” according to French.

Then, during the first round, Ellis reportedly tried to give Tosti a brief pep talk about letting his previous shots go, which seemed to rub the golfer the wrong way. After Tosti holed the par putt, he confronted Ellis on the next tee: “Don’t do that again, or I’ll get really angry,” Tosti said, per French.

Following their dramatic split, it sounds like Tosti’s and Ellis’s relationship was doomed from the beginning, and both are much better off going their separate ways.

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