Local Caddie Earns Massive Payday After Tommy Fleetwood’s High Masters Finish

By shepherding Tommy Fleetwood to a top-3 finish, Gray Moore earned himself a nice payday.

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Network

Gray Moore has been caddying at Augusta National for decades, but he’s never had a payday like the one he earned carrying Tommy Fleetwood’s bag this week.

With his usual caddie, Ian Finnis, sidelined due to an illness, Fleetwood turned to one of Augusta’s most experienced loopers in Moore. Fleetwood went on to finish in a tie for third place, his best ever result at the Masters. That finish comes with a cool $1,040,000 in prize money, which he shared with Moore.

While it isn’t known exactly how much Moore got paid for working with Fleetwood this weekend, the typical caddie pay rate for a top-10 finish is about 8% of whatever prize money the player earns, according to golf journalist Dan Rapaport. The player and the caddie agree to the exact rate before the start of the tournament. Assuming Moore got the usual 8%, that works out to $83,200 of Fleetwood’s $1,040,000. A lot of people would be happy to make that much money in a year. Moore earned about that in a week.

At 70, Moore was the oldest caddie in the field at this year’s Masters, but not much else is known about him since Augusta National forbids members and employees from talking about the club. But according to Brendan Quinn of The Athletic, Moore has worked at Augusta for about 30 years, first as a caddie and more recently in the caddie office, dealing with caddie scheduling and training. He’s worked the tournament a few times before, mostly caddying for amateurs who qualified. He did fill in for Tom Watson’s usual caddie in 2004 (Watson would miss the cut).

Fleetwood said he found Moore very easy to work with.

“A proper Augustan,” Fleetwood said. “One of the biggest things he’s done for me is he knows what shots are available. What I can and what I can’t do. There’s so much he’s pointed out. As Gray says, no matter how many times you’ve been here, it’s a lifetime of work and knowledge. That’s very true.”