Not even Kristoffer Reitan’s caddie figured he’d get into the Cadillac Championship.
Tim Poyser looked at the position of his boss on the alternate list for this week’s $20-million, no-cut, 72-man field event and took a calculated risk, flying home to Edinburgh, Scotland. Hopefully, he got his fix of haggis and checked his mail while he was there because on Thursday, Reitan was the last man to get into the field when Jake Knapp withdrew. After a bogey-free 4-under 68 at Trump National Doral, the 28-year-old Norwegian finds himself in contention in his first signature event on the PGA Tour – tied for sixth at 6-under 138 – at the midway point in the Miami suburb of Doral.
Poyser eventually caught a flight back but didn’t arrive in time for the first round. Reitan was equally surprised at his good fortune. He said he was planning to play a game at Panther National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., on Tuesday with fellow Tour pros Rasmus Hojgaard, Marco Penge, and Kris Ventura but instead high-tailed it to Doral to prepare for the possibility of playing when Patrick Cantlay withdrew, citing illness, and he improved to first alternate. Knapp wore a bandage on his left hand on Tuesday and he pulled out of the pro-am on Wednesday. He would be a late scratch on Thursday, about an hour before his tee time, due to a sprained left thumb. Reitan was standing by and stepped into the 12:35 p.m. ET pairing with J.T. Boston.
“It’s been a weird day,” Reitan said after shooting 2-under 70. “I would prefer to be in the field rather than an alternate. But, yeah, no it’s just great to be able to be out here competing in my first signature event.”
Poyser, who formerly worked in the financial services industry, was back on the bag on Friday. Who caddied for Reitan in the first round? None other than Reitan’s swing coach, Denny Lucas, who was called into active duty.
“When he was second alternate he said to me, ‘If he’s not back, will you caddie if I do get in?’ I said, ‘Sure,’” Lucas recounted to Golfweek. “I prefer coaching. I have a lot of respect for caddies. It’s difficult work.”
Reitan entered the week at 48th in the Official World Golf Ranking off of a successful 2025 campaign. He won the 2025 Soudal Open to claim his first DP World Tour title and finished top 10 in the 2025 DP World Tour eligibility ranking to secure PGA Tour status for the first time. He added another win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in December.
As a rookie, he earned his first top-10 finish on the PGA Tour at the Valero Texas Open (T-10) but rode a hot final-round 65 in foursomes with Ventura, his partner in the team event, to a T-2 finish at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and moved him into contention to fill the field of 72 based on his FedEx Cup performance.
Reitan played half a season (fall 2017) at the University of Texas. He also qualified for the 2018 U.S. Open while still an amateur, becoming the first Norwegian to compete in the U.S. Open.
As of now, he’s slated to play next week’s opposite-field event, the Myrtle Beach Classic with a full field, a 36-hole cut and purse of $4 million; but this weekend at Doral, Reitan will have a chance to see if he can upgrade to the Truist Championship, another signature event with no-cut, a limited field and a purse of $20 million, and quite possibly much, much more depending on his performance. Reitan is taking advantage of his opportunity and proving the old adage (and tag line for the NY State Lottery) that you have to be in it to win it.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Kristoffer Reitan’s improbable PGA Tour run