‘Was that number wrong?!’ Tour caddie comes clean on 2 wrong yardages 

J.T. Poston is seemingly good now. More than two years later, by all accounts, he’s forgiven his man.

But the PGA Tour pro still thinks you and a global audience may want to hear about how his bagman missed a yardage at the 2022 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines — then missed another one a dozen holes later. 

Delayed punishment? Maybe a little. Sign of the bond between Poston and Aaron Flener, where it’s all good to broach such subjects? Yeah, more that. Flener was game. He was talking on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar podcast — which you can watch in full here — when co-host Drew Stoltz asked the longtime caddie this: 

“Why do you think it is that math seems to be more difficult in the city of San Diego than anywhere else, particularly, maybe Torrey Pines?”

Flener laughed.  

“That’s a great question,” he said on the podcast. “I can think of one day it was really tough. I think the reason was because they started that tournament on a Wednesday, and usually I’m not ready to — Thursday is usually my math day, like when I really start getting into it. Wednesday is usually like a practice day where I’m just like, if I get it wrong, it doesn’t matter. J.T. obviously told you that one.” 

Said Stoltz: “Yeah, he said just ask him about some of these digits that he still gives you a hard time about.” 

Asked co-host Colt Knost: “It was multiple?”

Said Flener: “I missed two in the same round.” 

Asked Stoltz: “By how much?”

Said Flener: “The first one was by like probably 10 yards. The second one was by like 18.”

So what happened? Flener explained. 

“The first one was on — we started on the back, we were on 13, he drove it in the bunker, chopped it down the hill, so I had to rake the bunker and he went on down,” Flener said on the podcast. “And so once I got down there, he had already stepped some stuff off, he was saying all this stuff to me and I’m trying to do the number and I think I added something that I was supposed to subtract or something, and he hit it over the green, which is a great place to be on 13 at Torrey Pines. I always fess up. I got up there, I was like, dude, that number was wrong, so that’s my bad.”

And the second mis-yardage?

It came 12 holes later.

“Then we got all the way around to 7,” Flener said on the podcast, “and we’re back on track, all is forgiven, like everybody makes mistakes, and there was a middle head that had a number on it and then there was the same front number head like right up in front of it. And I went off the middle number head’s front number instead of going off the actual front number. And the pin was like back right, really hard pin. 

“And he hit this beautiful shot — I mean, it’s going right at the flag — and we don’t see it land. And he’s like, where is that? I was like, I think it flew over the green. I think it hit the TV tower back there. I mean, if it wouldn’t have hit the TV tower, it would have gone in the canyon. So he snaps his head back around at me [and says:] ‘Was that number wrong?’ I was like, yeah, it was wrong.”

Said Knost: “It’s just two.” 

Said Flener: “We won’t go through the play-by-play of what was said after that. I will just say we didn’t talk a whole lot the next two holes, and we had a little chat in the parking lot after he came out of scoring. But since then, I haven’t had any mess-ups.” 

Said Stoltz: “It was a Wednesday, dude. You get a pass.” 

Said Knost: “I think it’s Torrey Pines because your man Matt Erwin, when he was on the bag for me, got one wrong as well. So I think it’s just San Diego’s fault.” 

Said Flener: “Yeah, but around there, there’s a lot of good misses. So if you blow it over the green, it’s not a big deal.” 

Said Stoltz: “Long is normally great almost everywhere.” 

Editor’s note: To watch the entire podcast with Flener, please click here or scroll below. 

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.