MILWAUKEE -- There are 144 golfers from 23 different countries at this weekend's Symetra Tour PHC Classic in Brown Deer Park, but only one of those golfers is from Edgerton and has her dad as her caddy.
“I think dad has to remember that I'm not 15 anymore, that I am 24 now,” Allyssa Ferrell said with a smile.
“Once in a while, I'll let a comment like that slip out,” Allyssa’s dad Brad responded with a laugh. “She'll look at me, ‘Dad I've played this game a lot. Yeah, I know. I can see that it's uphill. Yeah, I know.’”
Over the years, Allyssa’s dad has gone from coach to caddy.
“When you're out on the course, you're just caddy,” he said. “It's not coach. That used to be when she was little. I used to correct things on the course and there's none of that anymore. You're out there just trying to support her.”
So while Allyssa hears her family cheering her on in the background, Dad is right next to her giving tips, sometimes.
“These days I have to remember that she knows a lot more than I do, and in most cases it's probably best just to be quiet and carry the clubs around,” he said with a chuckle. “It's hard to help as much as you want to. She's so seasoned. She knows so much that you're just out there to pat her on the back and tell her things okay when something goes wrong and fist pump her when things go well.”
“He takes the edge off now,” Allyssa said. “Hasn't always been that way,” she added with a laugh. “Dad's been a little more intense and put a little pressure on me but now he's getting better.”
The pair started working together when Allyssa was 16-years-old on this very course, just an hour and a half away from home. She won the Brown Deer women's amateur event with dad as her caddy for the first time.
“I caddied the first day and then had to give the bag to my younger daughter who was like 14 at the time and two of them ended up winning the tournament the next day so it was really a neat experience,” Brad said.
So whether Allyssa calls him coach or caddy, he'll always be dad.
