SUNSET HILLS, Mo. — While most sports typically get things rolling in the afternoon or night, it's just the opposite at The Sunset Country Club. Golfers tee things off at the crack of dawn, and that, of course, means an early wake-up call for the caddies.
"I mean, sometimes I would love to be sleeping, but I just love coming out here," Caddie Anna Huebner said.
Huebner, a rising senior at Lutheran High School South, said each day starts around 5 a.m.
"A lot of golfers like to get out in the morning and being a caddie you have to accommodate for that," she said.
To ensure golfers get the most out of their day, Huebner makes sure everything is just right before they take off.
"A lot of the people that I caddie for like to go to the practice range before they actually start their round and so having clean clubs is important for that," Huebner said.
And from there the real work begins, carrying the clubs an entire loop as the caddies call it, or better known as 18 holes.
But while some may see this as a tiring summer job, Huebner sees caddying as an opportunity.
"I get to caddie for people I would never meet if I hadn't had this opportunity," she said.
Take Pat Reilly, for example. He too used to be a caddie back in the day and said his transition to the real world was much easier because of the people he met on the golf course.
"My first job out of college I worked for a guy I used to caddie for at Norwood," Reilly said.
Reilly said caddying is best summer job a high school student can have. They're outside, They're getting exercise and oh yeah, they can receive a full-ride scholarship just like he did back in the '70s.
"As a result in that scholarship being awarded to our family, it changed our lives forever," Reilly said.
Just like it did for Reilly, the Evans Scholarship will soon change Huebner's life forever. She's headed to the University of Missouri for free, all thanks to her summer job as a caddie.
"I mean sometimes it doesn't even feel like a job, I get to basically come up when I want to and you come in, in the morning and you get your loop in, you get to be outside and then you get to go home in the afternoon, and it's a great experience," Huebner said.
It's an experience and opportunity she didn't see coming, but one she'll be forever grateful for.
"It's just an experience I didn't expect to have and it just brought me, besides the scholarship it gave me a lot of insight into the world, people I could meet and caddying for all different kinds of people," she said.
In order to be eligible to win the Evans Scholarship, you have to caddie for two years, be in financial need and have good grades and outstanding character.
