Garrick Higgo has split with caddie Austin Gaugert after a bruising week that began with a two-stroke penalty at the 108th PGA Championship and ended with the 29-year-old missing the cut by one stroke. Higgo has already turned to a familiar face, hiring Nick Cavendish-Pell to carry his bag at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Dallas.
The split comes after Thursday's opening round at the PGA Championship, when Higgo was penalized two strokes for being late for his tee time. He still managed to shoot a 1-under 69, but Friday's 76 left him just outside the cut line. On video from the tournament, Gaugert can be seen yelling at Higgo to hurry up, a moment that now hangs over the breakup.
Higgo won the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship with Gaugert on the bag, so the change is a quick one rather than the end of a long and fading partnership. Cavendish-Pell is not new to Higgo either; he caddied for him when he won the 2021 Palmetto Championship and was most recently working for Adrien Saddier.
Players and caddies often part ways, but this one lands with extra force because it follows a penalty that shaped the entire week. Higgo said, “I wouldn’t have been late if I had known I was running late,” and added, “I was there on time, but the rule is, if you're one second late, you're late.” Without the two-stroke penalty, his missed cut would have been avoided.
For Higgo, the immediate question is whether the move to Cavendish-Pell can steady him fast enough to matter in Dallas. For Gaugert, the split closes on a week that started with urgency on the tee sheet and ended with a partnership that no longer lasted past it.
