Ride For Life: Veteran PGA caddie Bruce Edwards diagnosed with ALS

By MECHELLE VOEPEL The Kansas City Star January 23, 2003

Tom Watson and caddie Bruce Edwards have a partnership that's extended over three decades, through eight PGA major titles and the transition to the Champions Tour.

But now the friends are facing one of their toughest challenges. Watson said in a published report Wednesday that Edwards, 48, has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Watson and Edwards' other friends noticed Edwards had some speech problems last fall. He got an exam recently at the Mayo Clinic, which confirmed ALS.

Watson will compete in the MasterCard Championship in Hawaii next week, and Edwards will caddie for him. Watson could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But he told GolfWeb columnist Melanie Hauser earlier that he would stick by Edwards as he battles the disease, saying, "That's what good friends are for."

It's estimated that about 5,600 new cases of ALS are diagnosed in the United States each year; most patients are between the ages of 40 and 70.

ALS is a degenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. As motor neurons die, the ability to initiate and control muscle action is lost. Patients become totally paralyzed in the latter stages.

The disease does not impair the heart and digestive system; ALS affects muscles under voluntary rather than involuntary control. Also, the vast majority of ALS patients experience no mental incapacity during their illness.

Currently, there is no cure or treatment for ALS, though the drug Rilutek has been shown to modestly slow the disease. The life expectancy of ALS patients averages two to five years, although there are a few in whom the disease has reversed or stopped progressing.

Athletes other than Gehrig who have died from ALS include pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter in 1999 and NFL defensive lineman Glenn Montgomery in 1998. Former PGA Tour player Jeff Julian currently has the illness.

Edwards started to caddie at age 12 at his father's club near Hartford, Conn. That's where he learned many of the things he thinks have gone by the wayside for many caddies.

"It's a real shame that caddie programs are fading out because kids don't learn the etiquette by caddying that they used to," Edwards wrote in a first-person story in 1998. "A lot of guys come out here today and think that carrying a golf bag is the extent of caddying. They don't know (about) replacing a divot or raking a bunker or how to tend a pin so the shadow doesn't cast over the hole. All they care about is the money."

At 18, in 1973, Edwards went to work on the PGA Tour, hungry to travel. After about a month on the tour, he approached Watson, then 23, at a tournament in St. Louis.

At the time, Edwards expected to caddie for about a year. Thirty years later, Edwards is still with Watson. They parted amicably in 1989, when Edwards went to work for Greg Norman. Norman won five times with Edwards on his bag, but Edwards was never as comfortable as he was with Watson. In 1992, Edwards and Watson teamed up again.

Edwards once said he considered Watson, "The big brother I never had."