About a year ago, the caddie association (APTC) had a meeting and we asked our board to look into a few areas that would help all the caddies. These areas were 1) better/more consistent facilities each week. Pressing issues included; a bathroom with running water, timely shuttles when required to park off site, shelter during storm delays for all caddies and their families. 2) check on healthcare and retirement plans.
As our board moved forward with our request, they were continuously met with empty responses from the Tour. They told Tour executives the caddies wanted an opportunity to fund a retirement and healthcare plan and the caddie bib was the best avenue to raise these funds. The Tour said NO. So we asked for a small portion of the bib. This would give us an opportunity to sell space on the bib to raise much needed money to fund these plans. In exchange, the caddies would continue to wear the bib and happily help promote professional golf, allowing the caddies to secure retirement and healthcare and fund it while wearing the bib. The Tour once again said NO..."the bib is off the table". This didn't seem right. We feel like the Tour is taking advantage of the caddies and requiring caddies to serve as human billboards without compensation, therefore, preventing caddies from entering into endorsement contracts of our choosing. So, after numerous meeting and hard work by the APTC, it has become clear the Tour is not willing to work with the caddies.
This brings us to where we are today and it needs to be known that the caddies have no intention to involve the players. The player retirement programs and weekly purses will not be affected in any way by the funding from the Tour of any program to support caddies. The caddies simply want the right to fund needed healthcare and retirement plans.
I hope this helps with any questions. Thanks in advance for respecting my position.
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