Olympia Fields Evans Scholar: 'Being a caddie saved my life'

Diego Origel shares his path to the Evans Scholarship

By BOB VERDI

Diego Origel was in middle school, on an accelerated path, when one of his teachers broached the subject. Not far from Diego’s home in Chicago Heights, Illinois, a friend worked at the storied Olympia Fields Country Club, with knowledge of the Evans Scholars program. Might Diego be interested in becoming a caddie?

“I was like 12,” he recalled. “My first response was, ‘What’s a caddie?’”

Diego, now 20, shared the vignette recently at his home club, where he was a star of the show on BMW Media Day—a precursor to next month’s BMW Championship.

Before a gathering of cameras and reporters, Diego spoke eloquently about a game he knew little about and a transformative existence he could not have imagined. He’s literally walked hundreds of miles since showing up at Olympia Fields, shy and green and unaware of the proper way to rake a bunker.

“The Evans Scholarship, it changed my life,” said Diego. “My parents, both born in Mexico, are hard-working. Dad worked at a steel milling factory; mom cleaned houses.

“When I first walked through the gates here at Olympia Fields, I couldn’t believe it. Beautiful – the environment, the people, the opportunity for success.”

When Diego goes back to school next month, it will be as an incoming junior at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he is studying urban planning. He is one of 1,130 caddies currently enrolled at 24 universities throughout the nation, just a fraction of the 12,040 young men and women who have been awarded the Evans Scholarship.

Diego has worked at Olympia Fields for eight years, but he’s not just a caddie anymore. For three years now, he’s been a special assistant to Jim Salvatori, the venerable caddie superintendent.

“I’ve been here 28 years,” said Salvatori, stationed at mission control in one of the largest locker rooms known to mankind.

“A lot of kids come through here, some just looking around for a summer job, some more serious. I could tell right away that Diego was one of those. He would do whatever it took to make it. He figured it out. There’s more to caddying than carrying a bag,” he continues. “You have to learn how to do it right, how to relate to members and other caddies. He’s completely reliable, devoted, zero maintenance.”

In addition to his loops, Diego helps run the caddie house, “organizing who goes where and when,” Salvatori says.

It would not surprise Salvatori, or anyone else who knows Diego, if relationships he has forged at Olympia Fields will lead to bigger and better. Maybe a member will hire him someday. Maybe someday, Diego will do the hiring.

“Growing up, I knew nothing of golf,” Diego said. “But a neighbor, Winifred Goncher, she had no children. She was like my second mom. My real mom, Anna Maria, worked the same hours as my dad, Octavio. So she cared for my brother and I, cooked dinner for us until my parents came home. And she liked golf. That’s the first I ever was introduced to the game.”

In the winter of 2021, Diego saw the envelope in the mailbox. He had applied for the Evans Scholarship and was waiting to hear back.

“It was either going to be the greatest day of my life, or one of the worst,” he recounted. “I opened the letter by myself and read it. YES! Then I hid it. I would tell my parents the good news at Thanksgiving, at dinner. A dream come true, because without it, there would be no college for me. I had to give up that hope because of what happened.”

On a rainy fall day in 2019, Octavio was driving Diego to Olympia Fields. He wore only shorts and a shirt, no foul weather gear. Diego suggested it would not be wise to caddie that day.

“Dad said, ‘You’re going to work,’” Diego remembered. “And I got a bag. I’m out on the course and hear all these ambulances and sirens. Jim drives out to get me. It’s my dad. Bad, bad car accident.”

Octavio was airlifted to a hospital, where he remained in a controlled coma for a month. When he came to, Diego says his father’s first words were, “I’ll be late for work.”

“I knew then that college was out of the question. I would have to help take care of my dad,” Diego said. “He still has issues. He has no sense of smell or taste, but after multiple fractures, he somehow survived. We were told maybe a 10 percent chance, or 20. My brother, Octavio Jr., rushed home from college at the University of North Carolina.

“Now my dad watches golf, and I’ll bring him here for the BMW Championship next month to see the PGA TOUR playoffs, all those great players. And he’ll be wearing his Olympia Fields stuff. I got him some shirts and a hat. He’s not the same person he was before the crash, but he’s got a little golf spark in him now. Whenever he goes out, which isn’t often, maybe to the city, he’s always got his Olympia Fields stuff on. He’s pretty proud of that.”

And, undoubtedly, beaming about his son, the caddie.

“The thing about that accident,” Diego continues. “If you saw the car, there was nothing left of it. Demolished. And the police said, if I had been in the car, on the passenger side, I’d have been killed for sure. Dead on my father’s shoulder. So, the Evans Scholars not only changed my life. Being a caddie saved my life.”