The caddie whose second chance has him standing with the PGA Championship leaders

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Sam Matton never saw the call coming. It was last summer, sometime around June. Matton was home in Swindon, England, what he calls, “a s—-y little town about 70 miles west of London.” Luke Donald was on the line.

“Really, even now, I don’t know why,” Matton says all this time later. “He was scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

Donald had met Matton about a year earlier, at the 2023 Team Cup, a DP World Tour event pitting 10 players from Continental Europe against a team from Great Britain & Ireland. Donald was there as Ryder Cup captain, scouting some young Euro players. Matton was there as Jordan Smith’s caddie. Donald and Matton got along that week and had a few laughs. Nothing more.

When calling Matton out of the blue last summer, Donald was on the hunt for a fill-in at the following week’s BMW International Open in Germany. He’d heard Matton was available and asked if he could make it to Munich.

That’s where Matton stopped Donald. He told the former world No. 1 that there was something he should know. There was a reason he was available for work and it was a long, hard story that Matton laid out in full on that call, down to every detail; a story that he’s willing to share publicly here in broader strokes, in hopes it might help someone out there who needs to hear it.

“This isn’t something I hide from,” Matton says now. “I’m very open about it.”

Maybe the only thing more improbable than Donald’s name floating near the top of the first-round leaderboard at this PGA Championship is how the man alongside him came to be here.

Less than a year ago, Matton was in the depths of self-imposed recovery. The invisible war had finally taken its toll. All those years of drug and alcohol addiction. For so long, among an army of foes, cocaine led the charge, but, in time, so did the booze. Matton reached a point of no return and had to make changes or pay the consequences.

“Things were way, way out of control,” he says now, thinking back, remembering versions of himself. “It got worse and worse and worse and finally was so far off track and had to walk away, take some time off. It was as simple as that.”

Matton, left, began working for Donald a year ago after taking time to focus on his sobriety. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)

He stepped away from golf for the first time since childhood. Matton began playing around 12, following his father to the course. He was good enough to chase the game as a professional, kicking around European mini tours for about six years. He called it quits around 2015 and gave teaching a try. He enjoyed working with talented players, but didn’t have the patience for everyday hacks. So Matton jumped when an old friend playing on the European Tour invited him to caddie in an event in South Africa. With that, a new career emerged.

So too, though, did his long descent.

When walking away from caddying near the end of 2023, Matton considered entering an inpatient treatment program, but couldn’t afford it. He instead set out to navigate recovery on his own course. He spoke to therapists, tracing his addictive tendencies to a lifelong struggle with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and focused on rechanneling his numerous compulsive habits. He found that release in physical fitness, putting in endless hours at the gym, and overhauled his diet. He came up with a plan to fight relapses and stuck to it.

While working on himself, Matton focused on those who needed him. Today the letter “H” is tattooed on his left forearm in typewriter font. That’s for Hannah, his partner, who “has stuck with me through all my s—.” On the bicep, there’s a “K.” That’s for Kenneth, a very good cavapoodle who Matton says is the best dog a guy could ask for.

This is how Matton pulled himself up from the bottom, enough to see that, as he now puts it, “the important thing isn’t where you’ve been, it’s where you’re going, right?”

Right. And sometimes, when that’s the view, the phone rings at the right time.

“He was extremely honest about everything,” Donald said Thursday, not long after finishing his bogey-free first round 67. “That was all I needed to hear. Everyone deserves second chances and everyone makes mistakes. Sam seems to have figured it out. He’s in a much better place, and I’m all for supporting that. I think having him out here is good for him. It keeps his mind busy and he’s very popular among the caddies. Everyone knows him. This is a healthy space.”

Donald says he hired Matton because of his personality and positive energy. He’s the type of caddie who’s clear-eyed about the job, but not too serious. Walking along the 12th hole on Thursday, with Donald at 3-under, Matton turned to the former world No. 1 and suggested that if he goes on and wins the whole damn tournament, then he might qualify for his own Ryder Cup team. The two had a good laugh, then went on to wrap up the back nine without issue.

The 107th PGA Championship is officially underway.

Watch now on ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/ay0ihXDgyF

— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 15, 2025

It was a good day on the clock, far easier than some others. Back when Matton stopped hoisting golf bags and got clean, he picked up work on a friend’s construction crew.

Bills were paid by building out drainage lines and foundations for large private homes.

They still are. Donald, at this stage in his career, doesn’t play a heavy enough schedule for full-time work. That’s why, a few weeks ago, Matton was out on a job site, digging up a 500-yard driveway and laying down new stone. The first thing Donald noticed about Matton when they began working together last summer was his hands. He has the kind of calluses that can tell a story.

No matter what happens this weekend at Quail Hollow, Matton will fly out of Charlotte on Sunday night aboard a redeye headed home. He’s thinking about taking Monday off, but will rise early on Tuesday, digging a foundation for a new build. He received a text message from the site manager during Thursday’s first round detailing the job.

“S— work,” Matton says, “but it pays, and it makes me appreciate these long walks, that’s for sure. I’m not taking a minute for granted.”

Spoken like a man who’s happy to know where he’s going. See, there are much bigger things ahead for Sam Matton. This September, he and Hannah are expecting a child. At 36, Sam will become a father.

That’s who’s on the bag for what’s perhaps the unlikeliest showing in this PGA Championship. Fitting, isn’t it?

“He’s still a long shot,” Matton said of Donald. “But it’s not impossible. I think he can hang around, you know, if he just keeps on keeping on.”

He, of all people, would know.

(Top photo of Sam Matton, left, and Luke Donald: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

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