After nearly 50 years of looping, Mike "Fluff" Cowan returns from injury to caddie at Chubb Classic
By Doug Milne
A very familiar face back on the course this week after a 6-month absence won’t exactly be putting for dough. He’ll likely be passing the putter over to the one that will be, though.
Since the 2024 Dick’s Open, Mike “Fluff” McCowan – Jim Furyk’s longtime caddie – has undergone and been recovering from left hip surgery.
With Furyk still recovering from injury and not in this week’s Chubb Classic presented by SERVPRO field, Cowan makes his return on the bag of Billy Andrade.
“My left hip had gotten so bad, I could barely walk,” Cowan said. “There was no way I could keep caddying, so I’ve been home in Maryland.”
Cowan underwent left hip replacement surgery last August. Since then, he has been increasingly active with therapy and rehabbing.
“I’m feeling much better than I was, but I wouldn’t say I’m back at 100 percent,” he said. “I’m feeling good enough to caddie, though. I was getting anxious to be back out, so it feels really good to be here at the Chubb Classic this week with Billy.”
With Furyk still hurt and uncertain of a return, Cowan isn’t certain what is – or isn’t – after this week.
“Billy isn’t playing next week in Tucson, so right now I don’t have a bag beyond this week,” he said. “Billy’s caddie recently had shoulder surgery and may not be back in time for the two California events after Tucson. So, if that’s the case, I may connect back with him at the Hoag Classic in Newport Beach and the Galleri Classic in Palm Springs. After that, I’m just going to have to wait and see.”
With the idle time, one can’t help but wonder, does Fluff ever take pause to reflect upon what, by all measures, has been a remarkable journey.
When posed with the question, his flawless narrative recapping his timeline suggests that he is – if nothing else – contently mindful of the strides he has made…and is still making.
“When I first started caddying, I had no idea it was going to turn into a career,” he said. “I was basically just coming out to do it for a summer. It just kept evolving and one year ran into the next.”
After 4-5 years of the enjoyable grind, Cowan came to know and accept that this was what he was going to be doing.
“I started caddying in 1976 and for the for 4-5 months, I never worked for the same player more than one week,” Cowan said.
His first-ever caddie job was for a player trying to succeed through Monday qualifying. The week for both player and caddie ended early.
“I was so green that I didn’t think to go to the tournament course after that to see if I could find a job for the week,” he said. “In my mind, we didn’t qualify and that was it for the week.”
The first ever actual PGA TOUR event Cowan caddied in was the 1976 Buick Open. He looped for David Smith, with whom Cowan had failed to advance at the Monday qualifier a few weeks earlier.
“Throughout those early times in 1976, nobody ever asked me if I’d like to work for them again,” Cown admitted. “I must have been doing an awful job.”
Ed Sabo became the TOUR player who gave Cowan his first full-time job, lasting the entirety of the 1977 season and through the Florida swing of 1988.
Following Sabo, by that time, Cowan had learned the art of playing the field and keeping eyes and ears open 24-7. That focus led him to Peter Jacobsen.
“I knew he had an open bag, so I just approached him,” Cowan said. “I said ‘I’d like to go to work for you if you’d give me a chance’. He said ‘sure, let’s check it out and give it a chance’.”
That “chance” turned into an 18-year relationship and job.
After returning home to the east coast to wait for any next opportunity post Jacobsen, one random day in 1996, Fluff’s phone rang.
It was a rising star named Tiger Woods.
“He called and asked what I was doing,” Cowan remembered. “I told him I had nothing going on, to which he then asked if I could work the following seven events for him.”
Taking the high road, before accepting the job, Cowan made certain with Jacobsen that their professional relationship had reached the bottom of the cup on the 72nd hole.
It had. Cowan promptly accepted the job with Woods.
“I really wanted – needed, even – to see this kid’s beginning and next phase of his career,” he said. “So, I started with Tiger for the last part of the 1996 season, winning twice in seven weeks. That led us right into 1997…not a terrible season for him. I think I recall him winning some little tournament in Georgia.”
Fluff would carry on with Woods all the way through the California swing of 1999.
As he had done when things ended with Jacobsen again returned home to Maryland without so much as a clue as to what was next.
As fate would have it, his next boss became – and remains to this day – Jim Furyk. Interestingly, the dynamic duo first paired at the 1999 Masters, with Furyk finishing T14.
Aside from looping a few events for PGA TOUR player CT Pan in 2024, Billy Andrade this week is the only other player Cowan has caddied for since Furyk’s limited schedule took effect.
“I am pleased with the career I’ve managed to make for myself,” he said. “I have been blessed by the people I’ve had a chance to work for, especially the four who gave me full-time jobs. Again, I just feel blessed to have been able to get to know and work with so many people.”
Cowan noted that one of the most oft-asked questions he gets is with regard to what it takes to be a great caddie.
“The answer is simple,” he said. “It takes a great player. You’re no better than the player you’re working for.”
It has been that kind of mindset, though, that has – by all accounts – made Mike “Fluff” Cowan a great man.
