Matt Wallace and Sam Bernard are good.
Instagram-story-while-one-is-recording-and-the-other-is-in-bed good. That good.
To catch you up, Wallace, a PGA Tour pro, and Bernard, his caddie, got chippy on Saturday. During the Valspar Championship third round, Wallace hit his second shot on the 18th hole from a cart path, his ball dropped about 30 yards short, and things got a bit heated. We’d learn later, from a report from NBC’s Cara Banks, that Bernard had wanted Wallace to take a drop from the path, and that the thought had interfered with Wallace’s “flow.”
So they exchanged pleasantries. As shown by NBC cameras, after the swing:
— Wallace looked down, started to walk and began shaking his head. He and Bernard started to talk. Bernard handed him a towel to clean off the iron.
— Wallace raised his right hand. Bernard wanted to keep moving. Wallace shouted. Part of those words included a visible “shut the f**k up.”
— Bernard took the club from Wallace. Bernard talked. Wallace then got in his face a bit. Bernard talked again. Wallace took off his golf glove.
— Bernard talked. Wallace shook his head. Both talked.
From there, Wallace pitched on with his third shot, rolled in the putt and finished with a one-under 70. He started Sunday at five-under, three shots back of leader Adam Schenk. And according to Banks, he and Bernard made peace.
Then Wallace grabbed his phone.
He had some fun with it all. On his Instagram story on Sunday morning, Wallace filmed about a 20-second video with what appeared to be an unsuspecting Bernard. It started with Wallace asking his caddie if he was “decent,” then opening a door.
Bernard was in bed. Wallace laughed at something he said. Then came this exchange:
“I berated you yesterday,” Wallace said. “So supposedly I berated you, brother.”
“What?” Bernard asked.
Wallace laughed. Bernard said something.
“Thank you, my man,” Wallace said.
He laughed again.
All of which brings to mind another televised confrontation Wallace had with a caddie — and his reaction to that.
At the 2019 BMW International — at two points, according to viewers of the broadcast — Wallace exchanged words with then-caddie Dave McNeilly. A few weeks later, in an interview with the Independent, Wallace said he regretted it.
“The two times I’ve been in with a chance to win tournaments, I’ve reverted back to how I used to win tournaments and that was to be intense, pretty much too much over the top,” he said.
“I used to do that on my own, whereas now I’ve got a caddie, and stupidly I’ve probably blamed him, where I need to take full responsibility for what I did there — and I know that. It’s something I am working on.
“I’m not proud of how I dealt with that situation, and I have definitely addressed it and moved on.”
