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Fired caddie posts spirited defense of himself on YouTube: “This is going to go viral, and it should”
A clip of Web.com Tour pro Rhein Gibson throwing a putter headcover at his caddie on the final hole of the Bahamas Great Abacao Classic was the talk of the golf world Wednesday evening. Later that night, his caddie responded with another video that's also sure to go viral.
Brandon Davis, the caddie called for a one-stroke penalty for prematurely picking up Gibson’s golf ball out of a hazard, filmed a spirited defense of what he did on the 18th hole from his hotel room.
“This is going to go viral and it should, because I got fired today on national television. I did. Because I did something that I did not think was wrong and it wasn’t wrong, but I have to defend myself," Davis says in the video. "And I’m doing it, because I believe in the truth. And if I was wrong, I would admit that I was wrong.”
Davis deciding to go shirtless for the video (“I apologize. . . I’m disgusting. I was on the golf course all day.”) and at one point demonstrating where Gibson’s ball was found by using a lamp and a tissue box won’t hurt the video’s chances of being seen widely. But he certainly gets his point across.
Davis argues that he was allowed to pick the ball up even though Gibson hadn’t given him explicit consent to do so, because Gibson had already clearly indicated he wouldn’t play it from where it was found. But a rules official informed him that Gibson would be assessed an additional penalty stroke after taking his drop. The extra stroke gave Gibson a bogey and dropped him from T-2 to solo third. Gibson finished T-3 the week before with Davis, who is not his full-time caddie, on his bag.
“I go, 'it’s in the hazard! The thing’s dead, man,'” Davis says of his interaction with a "sweaty" rules official. “It’s dead! It’s freaking dead!”
Here's the USGA decision (26-1/9) Davis was informed of by a friend after that he feels vindicates him:
And here's Davis' entertaining eight-minute clip/rant, entitled "I Got Fired":
“This needs to go out! I’m defending what I did. I was ripped on the Golf Channel today,” Davis says at the end. “Thank you, Steve Burkowski, thank you, Phil Blackmar, even Tripp Isenhower. You can rip me all you want, but I did nothing wrong, man. I did nothing wrong!”
Amazingly, he also doesn’t think Gibson did anything wrong by throwing the headcover at him. Davis says the Aussie plays better mad and at the time, he thought he deserved it.
“And yes, did he throw a headcover at me? Yes. Did he fire me on the spot? Yes. Did he have a reason to? Yes. Until I found this! So that’s all. I’m actually in a pretty good mood tonight.”