The PGA Tour bagman appeared out of options – then President Donald Trump got involved…
Harris English could not hide his frustration in Scotland.
Back in July, English told TG exactly what he thought of his caddie Eric Larson being banned from the UK – meaning he was without his close friend at The Open for a second consecutive year.
“I’ll stand by that man for anything,” the American said. “He’s done a lot for my career. We’ve been together for nine years, and I hate it that he’s not able to come over here. He paid his price spending 10 years in prison, and he’s still being hurt for that, and he’s gotten his life turned around. It’s just disappointing that he can’t come over and be on the bag.”
Larson was barred because of drug convictions more than 30 years ago, when he served jail time for sending cocaine to friends in the Midwest. He was fully released in 2006 and turned his life around. Mark Calcavecchia, the former Open champion, re-hired Larson after his imprisonment and he has since worked at Ryder Cups with English, Anthony Kim and Jeff Overton.
But after a recent change to the UK’s Electronic Travel Authority Visa, which stipulates that Americans who have committed a crime which carries a 12-month prison sentence can be refused entry, Larson was seemingly out of options.
“He doesn’t know what else to do,” English said, after arduous efforts for a new visa application with letters of support from the R&A and PGA Tour, came up short. “He’s tried everything. We’ve contacted a lot of people to try to help him out, and I don’t understand why.”
Then up stepped Donald Trump.
This month Trump signed a presidential pardon which will finally free Larson to loop for English in the game’s oldest major, as well as the Genesis Scottish Open, and any other tournament he chooses to play on British soil. The pardon was signed on September 3, and, according to the New York Post, it came after English and Larson played with the president at his Trump National course in West Palm Beach in December.
President Donald Trump has pardoned Harris English’s caddie, Eric Larson, who was banned from entering the UK for The Open due to a past criminal conviction. (Getty Images)
“I’m just so pumped for Eric that he can have his rights back and travel to be by my side and work for me specifically at the Scottish Open and the British Open,” English told the publication. “He knows what it’s like to have your freedom taken away. He just brings so much joy.”
Larson says he is grateful that he now “has a chance”. The veteran looper was keen to stress that he went through the appropriate channels to get his pardon.
“The Department of Justice went through all my paperwork and all my prison paperwork,” he said. “It went through the process. I want it to be based on my merits, not because I know him.”
Larson added: “As much as this is for me, it’s support of people that have supported me as well to to show them that, you know, I’ve done all the right things to improve myself and and you know be to be forgiven and get on with my life.”